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based on the interview with Barbara-Lynn Taylor, M.Ed. on “Raising Your Kids” Aired on WXII-12 Wednesday, May 17, 2004 Communication is important ROADBLOCKS TO COMMUNICATION from “Communication is Crucial”, Part One of the video-based parenting program, Successful Parenting In previous articles, we have looked at many ways to communicate with our children including: - Sending messages effectively - Using good listening skills - Sending an “I message” if we are bothered by a situation with our children - Using the special skills of Active Listening when our children have problems and need to be understood Even if we do each of these well, we may still have difficulties communicating with our children due to the roadblocks we set up between us. There are many different kinds of roadblocks. In this article, we’ll look at five of the most prevalent and the most damaging. Probably the most common way we stop communication cold between our children and ourselves is to criticize them. This is when we point out their faults, finding something wrong about them. Neither our children nor we adults like to be told where we are deficient and yet, we as parents, criticize our children constantly. We probably think that pointing out the “error of their ways” is the right way to teach them and yet, it is not. We tell them what a bad job they did on something like cleaning up their rooms or how rude they are with their friends. We focus on what is wrong with them and we convey it to them in negative ways. The result is that they feel hurt and degraded and consequently, we are the last ones with whom they want to communicate. Instead they want to escape from us. Our goals may be lofty, but we should find other ways to teach them. “Catching our children being good”, as we described in the article on self-esteem, is a great start. In addition to noticing and commending them for the positive conduct they already exhibit, demonstrating for them correct behaviors and social skills is far more effective than criticizing. For example, instead of saying, “You’re really mean to your friends”, we could either notice times when our children are nice to their friends and comment on that, or we could say, “People generally want to be friends with those who treat them kindly.” This is more instructional than critical. Our children will figure out how to apply it to themselves. Another way we parents cut off communication with our children is to blame them for something before we even get our facts straight. How often have we come into the kitchen, for example, found it in a shambles, and accused the first child we see of causing the mess? We sternly say, “You didn’t clean up the kitchen after you fixed yourself a snack!” only to find out later that the culprit was our spouse or another child in the family. That’s a sure communication stopper! Particularly with our children, we should live by the mantra, “Seek first to understand, and then to be understood.” Shaming our children, or making them feel guilty, is a common way we parents think we are teaching proper behavior. Unfortunately, all it does is humiliate them and cause a chasm between us. Haven’t we all heard someone say, “You stayed out late and your mother was worried sick.” With a younger child, it might have been something like, “Just look at that. You made your sister cry! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” If a person makes us feel guilty, we are probably not going to want to talk openly with them. Again, communication is stopped. Another communication roadblock is when we ridicule our children. If we say something like, “If your table manners don’t improve, we’ll start feeding you on the floor with the dogs”, we may think we are funny, but our children won’t think so. This is especially a problem if we make sarcastic comments to our teenagers in front of their friends such as, “Hey, did you sleep in those clothes last night?” After that, we will be the last ones they will want to talk with…except perhaps to lambaste us for embarrassing them like that. Finally, how often have we parents resorted to name-calling? We may do it because we think it will cause our children to correct a fault like by calling them “Stinky” if they have body odor or “Hippo” if they are overweight or we may use what we consider to be an endearing term like “Pumpkin” or “Doll Baby” thinking that they will think it is cute. Nine times out of ten, they hate it and are unhappy with us for saying it. Even when we are just joking and use names like “Knothead’, “Knucklehead” or “Slob”, our children may view it negatively and it could hurt the communication between them and us. It is so easy for us parents to get in the habit of using roadblocks to communication like criticizing, blaming, shaming, ridiculing and name-calling. Are they really necessary? If we want to keep the highway of communication open between our children and us, we should work hard to avoid throwing up these roadblocks. Let’s try it…surely we’ll find smoother cruisin’! If you have comments, questions, or would like to share your best parenting practices with reference to our topic, please e-mail Barbara-Lynn at blt@successfulparenting.
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