The art of communication with kids is a tough nut to crack! It is like rocket science that is still exhausting for many parents. Kids only hear half of what their parents say and tend to manipulate words as per their convenience. It doesn’t matter how many times you have cleared your points, they will comprehend some other sense of it. As they have that potential to literally change the meaning of your words, it becomes very difficult to communicate with them.
Following are some effective tips that will help you to establish a transparent communication with your kids:
- Spending Quality Time Together: You need to take out some time from your busy schedule and talk about things with your children. Even half an hour a day without any distraction will be enough to make a big difference in forming good habits. Take a digital detox! Advise them to take a break from all the digital gadgets and spend quality time with family. Make the session more fun by adding some quiz games or take them for a drive or ice-cream.
- Keeping the Promises, You Make: You need to make sure that whatever is promised to the kids should be fulfilled. When promises are not fulfilled, kids feel cheated and lose faith. If you are not able to fulfill their desires due to any reason, make sure that your kids understand the complexity of the situation. Do not make unrealistic promises just to make them happy at that moment otherwise, it will be difficult for them to trust you in the future.
- Two-Way Communication is Important – Two-way communication has the power to assure better engagement and strengthen any relationship. Whenever there is a one-sided conversation, its value and impact are almost negligible. You need to listen to your kids and effectively communicate your thoughts to them. Let them voice their opinion, ask questions to ensure you understand their viewpoint and help them to model positive communication skills.
- Establish Cool-Friendly Bond: Maintaining a friendly bond with kids is very important. Kids need to feel a connection with their parents in order to open up and talk without any hesitation. Ask them about their friends or their school routine to stay on track about their activities. You don’t have to be your kids’ best friends, but a simple initiative from your side will make a lot of difference.
- Flexible Approach is the Key: If you are not flexible in your approach, your children will not express their true emotions. It will be very wrong from your side to expect them to stick to the old ways of thinking. It has been observed that most parents do not encourage new ideas and thoughts of kids and try to impose their conventional thinking on them. Initiate to fill the generation gap by making your kids’ interests your interests, accepting their ideas, and understanding their behavior and thinking patterns.
The development of kids totally depends on healthy communication between a parent and a child. If a parent fails to establish transparency in communication, it will eventually give rise to various misunderstandings and they will lose interest talking to them. Therefore, it is recommended to calmly observe every situation before reacting to avoid any disputes and differences.