How you, as a parent, talk and communicate with your child, is important to your relationship with your child. Parents are their child's first teachers, and showing your child positive ways of interacting and communicating will give him the skills to communicate back to you and the world around him in a positive way. Effective communication skills promote effective discipline by getting across to your child your expectations and the consequences for not following rules to meet them.
Connect With Your Child
According to AskDrSears.com, the first key to communication effectively is to connect with the child. Use your child's name at the beginning of your request. Make sure your child knows that you are speaking to her and make eye contact with her. For a small child, getting down to her eye level before speaking and telling her that you need her to listen, can get her attention focused on your request.
Actively Listen
Communication is a two way street. Just as you want your child to listen to you, your child wants to feel that he is being listened to as well. You don't always have to agree with what your child has to say, but listen and let him finish what he has to say and respect what he says. Actively rephrasing parts of what your child has said, helps him to know that you are listening.
Consider the Developmental Level.
The younger your child, the shorter her attention span is and the shorter and simpler the directions should be. Impulse control is a learned skill and young children often do not know "why" they did something. Instead, for young children, focus on correcting her behavior without asking "why."
Older children and teenagers might have a bit longer attention span, but they will still start to tune out a parent who is talking for a long time. Keep your instructions simple and to the point.
Use Body Language and Tone of Voice
Our posture and body language is a part of the way we communicate with others. We can show someone we are really listening by our body language, including facial gestures, head movements and eye contact. Our body language can also give us away if we say one thing but mean another. Our children learn to read our body language and our tone of voice early on in our parenting relationship. "Too often your voice and expression speak as loudly as your words, and if you are bored while your children are talking, they're likely to react the same way to you while you are speaking to them," writes Dr. Adrian Sandler, the medical director of Olson Huff Child Development Center in Asheville, North Carolina.
We can use these tools to create authentic communication, by making sure that our body language and tone of voice match what it is we want to communicate.
Know When to End the Discussion
Sometimes the only option is to close the discussion. Let your child know that there will be no more discussion on a topic. Be calm, but firmly say that this topic is closed. According to AskDrSears.com, knowing when to close the discussion will "save wear and tear on both you and your child. Reserve your 'I mean business' tone of voice for when you do."
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