Day 27: Model Communication
Depending on your own upbringing, modeling good communication in your family might be a challenge. However, it´s better that you teach your children to communicate even if it´s hard for you, because as adults you don´t want it to be hard for them.
I have seen examples of good communication and poor communication in many people. One person I know will almost never apologize, or even acknowledge a disagreement as having taken place. Moments after an argument, this person will simply act like nothing ever happened. Sweeping things under the rug will not help anything! It only teaches us to bottle up our feelings and we all know what will happen eventually--BOOM!
Another person I know will just become passive agressive at every turn when she is upset. This behavior will continue until she gets over it, and you will never know what you did to upset her!
Most of these kinds of disfunctions come from our own upbringing, which is all the more reason to learn to be communicators ourselves and not perpetuate the cycle in our children. Here are some basic starting points:
- Apologize to your kids when you´re in the wrong, and teach them to apologize as well.
- Teach them to communicate feelings (When you do this, I feel......)
- Teach them to talk about everything, whether it be the events of the day or a book they´re reading. Good communication in one area will encourage good communication in others.
- Encourage more than one-word answers.
- Explain your feelings to your children. (where appropriate)
- Teach your children to name their feelings. (Are you sad right now? Are you frustrated? Etc.)
And these are just tips. You can expand on them as you go. The important thing is to communicate! So grab a kid and get chatting!
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