Parenthood: How to encourage your children to talk to you today and everyday

Scenario 1: Advice is easy to give, not easy to take. Sometimes, my decisions I have to make.

Child: “Arjun is mean to me. I think he doesn’t want to be my friend.”

Parent: “Why are you bothered about Arjun as if he is the only boy in your class? You ignore him. Find some other friends.” Child thinks: “I don’t want another friend. I am feeling bad. Why don’t you understand instead of giving me a lecture?” What you could say instead:

To a younger child: You wish Arjun would be friends with you again? You feel sad that he is not talking to you?

To an older child: I know how much Arjun means to you. I can see you are feeling hurt.When you listen to your child with empathy, it helps them process their feelings and deal with what they are going through. Avoid advice and just ask your child - What would you like to do? It is amazing to see the solutions children come up with! And then they will be open to hearing your point of view too.

Listening, acknowledging feelings and allowing children to come up with solutions makes them feel respected and builds their problem solving abilities.

Scenario 2: Who, Where, When, What? In your web of questions I don’t want to be caught!

Child: “You know, there was fight in school today and Raja hit me”

Parent: “Oh no. What did you do? Did you start the fight? Who was there? Why didn’t you call the teacher?”

Child thinks: “I should never have told you. You always pounce on me as if it’s my fault and ask too many questions.” What you could say instead

To a younger child: “Did you get hurt? Looks like you are upset about it?”

To an older child: “I am wondering what happened that it became physical? Are you ok?”

As parents, with the best of intentions, we tend to ask too many questions and this makes children feel interrogated. As they grow older they stop telling us things.

To keep the doors of communication open it would be more effective to listen more and ask less.

Scenario 3: When I am calm I hear your teaching. When I am upset I hate your preaching.

Child: I hate grandma. She is always scolding me.

Parent: How can you speak like that? She tells you things for your own good.

Child thinks: I am so angry with grandma, but my mother does not understand what I am feeling. She is always taking her side. No use telling her anything.

What you could say instead:

You seem to be very upset with grandma. What is bothering you? Want to tell me about it?

While it is important to teach your children to respect elders, it can be done when they are calm. At THIS moment when your child is upset, they need to feel trusted and given space to express feelings. When we hear them out we may come to discover things within our child that we don’t know about.

Knowing their deepest thoughts and fears is critical for us to be able to help and guide our children. Children share most when they feel trusted.

We often respond to children from our conditioning. We believe it’s our role to question, advise or preach. We do not realise that these responses make a child wish they had not come to us. When we listen, trust and empathise, it would help us build open communication with our children 

Author: Parenting Matters Team is happy to share these messages from their Learn Laugh Listen Parenting Campaign 2018. To know more and read parenting articles, look us up www.parentingmatters.in