Communicating with your child - we don’t talk any more
Parents and their children sometimes get caught up in a vicious cycle. It does not, as many would believe, always begin in the teenage years. It can happen at any time but it is likely to accelerate in the teenage years if a pattern has already begun.
There are a myriad of reasons for children to become angry, hurt, insecure or rebellious and it can be difficult to find out why. Effective communication with children is an art that can be learned.
How to communicate with your child
Do you find that that you are constantly repeating your instructions to your children? Children tend listen to the first few words and then switch off. For example, if you say to your child, ‘you are grounded because…’ the first three words are most likely to be only the ones that are heard. Communication with children should be brief and as positive as possible. Those first words in a conversation are very precious, choose them wisely.
Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a branch of psychology. Practitioners will tell you that the human brain cannot process negative language. If you were asked to close your eyes and not think about a pink elephant (please take a moment and give it a try) you would find it impossible to comply, especially if this request was repeated. The same applies to a child or anyone else for that matter. ‘Don’t run across the road’ is processed in the brain as ‘run across the road’, exactly the opposite to your intended instruction. The way to get your child to hear what you want is to state it in a positive way. “Look both ways then walk across the road when it is clear,” is more likely to get the message across.
Ian Lillico a high school principal from Western Australia travelled the globe studying the needs of boys. In his findings for the Churchill Fellowship in 2000, one of the 52 recommendations is that boys do better if you talk with them when they are actively engaged in an activity. He encourages people to actively spend time doing things with boys and they will be more likely to open up and tell you what is going on in their lives or what is troubling them.
Children wear a kind of mask at school in an attempt to conform to their peers. It is important that when you try to communicate with your child that you give them some time to take this mask off first. If your child comes home angry from school, encourage them to work off some of the anger through physical activity, especially if your child is a boy. A calmer person without a mask is more likely to communicate the real source of their anger to you.
Most girls talk more easily about what is important to them than boys do. Even as adults, men tend to talk with their mates about sport rather than personal issues whereas women freely talk about such issues with their friends.
How children access and process information
To complicate matters further, we all access and process information differently. In NLP this is called the Representation System. Everyone has a primary, and possibly a secondary, representational system and we all use some of these systems at varying times.
Some of us are very visual and need to see things to understand. Language such as ‘I see’, ‘I get the picture’, ‘it is clear cut’ may give you an idea of this kind of person.
Kinaesthetic people access information through their feelings and by doing things. These people may say ‘that feels right’, ‘I have this gut feeling’ or ‘I get the drift.
Then there are the auditory people who may say ‘It is as clear as a bell’ or ‘I hear you’. These people often talk to themselves to process information.
There is a further category of auditory digital people. They say things like, ‘Give me some time to process that’. These people can appear not to be listening but they hear you perfectly. Sometimes all you need to do is plant the seed of an idea with them and they will begin to think about it.
If you are an auditory person expressing yourself through words and your child is kinaesthetic, they will want and need activity. They may well be feeling that you are ‘nagging’ and keeping them from doing what they want to do. You are talking in what is like a foreign language to them. Changing some of your language to match your child’s method of understanding may well be the solution. It can be that easy.
Does your child really know that you love them?
People communicate and feel love in different ways. In his book The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman describes the Love Language categories as Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service and Physical Touch. As Chapman describes it, people usually need an element of each to fill their ‘love tanks’.
We tend to show our love in the way in which we would like to see it expressed to us. It may be very useful to experiment and observe your children to determine what they perceive as being most important for them. By being able to communicate to your child in a way that is important to their sense of feeling loved, you will help build their internal security, understanding and sense of wellbeing.
All of these suggested forms of communication, though far from being complete, may give the parent an idea that communication as we know it is not as uncomplicated was we would originally assume. Effective communication requires a willingness to listen, honesty and openness but most of all it requires practice and a willingness to learn.
By John Hacking
Parenting Tips: 7 questions to ask yourself to see whether you really listen to your child
Even though talking to our children is really important, because that is how they learn, we need to be particularly mindful that we are also listening from their point of view. This is so important, because not only does it help develop their language and cognitive skills, but it is a wonderful way for our children’s self-esteem to grow because they are being heard. Listening deeply to your child is one essential way to have a close and connected relationship with them.
To ensure that you are truly listening to your child ask yourself these seven questions:
1. Do you spend more time talking to your child rather than listening?
2. Do you finish their sentences for them?
3. Do you interrupt?
4. Do you plan what you are going to say before your child has finished?
5. Do you give your child the answer or solution rather than let them work it out for themselves?
6. Do you ask your child closed or open ended questions?
(Closed questions are ones to which you can answer a simple yes or no. Open ended questions do what they say – they open up the conversation.)
7. Do you ask yourself at the end of every day: “Have I really listened to my child today?”
If your answers to these questions have left you thinking that you need to listen to your children more, what a great step you are now able to take to ensure a loving closeness with your children and what an opportunity you will give them to boost their self-esteem. Their opinions and ideas will be heard and they will very much be a part of your family’s decision making. Such a gift you will give!
If your answers to these questions left you thinking that you do listen to your children well – congratulations – you are giving your children a great start as they are able to express their feelings and thoughts and contribute to family discussion.
The bottom line is that listening deeply to our children is so important and once we as parents are aware of that, we can listen with our lips shut and with our hearts, to give our kids every opportunity to express who they really are
Dog Behavior Training to Stop Your Puppy Chewing Everything in Sight
Ok so its day one and you’ve just brought your new cute little puppy home for the first time, all the family love its little puppy paws running around in its new surrounding. The entire family are instantly addicted to playing with the dog and all want it to sleep with them that night.
Day two comes and everything seems just as happy and playful as the previous day, except today, the puppy is slightly more used to its surroundings and gnawing and chewing on everything seems to be the new game for your puppy.
So how do you stop your dog chewing, biting, and general all round shredding of everything their little mouths can get around? Simply telling your puppy to stop and removing him from the scene, although it might help in the long run slightly, is not going to help your furniture in the short term and they’ll be straight back chewing something else.
It takes time for your new puppy to grasp the idea of what they can and can’t chew to bits, chewing and biting is quite normal for a puppy and is all part of the process of teething, chewing helps the puppy cope with the soreness of the initial six months or so and is essential for a growing pup.
Nothing is out of bounds for a teething puppy, consider everything a possibility for chewing. Dogs don’t know the difference between your best pair of shoes and a battered old chew toy so it’s your job to show them. From the very beginning you need to show them right from wrong so you don’t come up against the same problem when your little puppy isn’t so little any more.
Chew toys are a great dog toy so take full advantage of them while you still have furniture left in your living room. Show your puppy that its good to play with that toy by rewarding him with doggy treats or something you know he likes, put this toy in front of him and in his mouth as much as possible to encourage him to chew it.
You can’t always be with your puppy so when you find you have to leave your puppy alone in the house it might be a good idea to close him in a puppy proof room with just the essentials and his new puppy chew toy, before long he’ll get used to chewing on the puppy toys and start to notice the difference in reception he gets from chewing your favourite magazine and the reward he gets for using his toy.
There is a lot more to training puppies and teaching your puppy not to chew on everything in sight, and it may take time and some patience before you get there but it’s a lot cheaper than buying a new living room and your puppy will grow into a much better trained dog because of it.
For more information on Dog Behavior Training take a look at dog - behavior - training .co.uk
About the author:
website owner john williams
For more information on dog behavior training
visit dog - behavior - training .co.u
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