What Are the Benefits of Communicating With Children?

Though children may bring their parents fulfillment and joy, the reality is that children and parents often live and operate in different worlds. Busy with the stresses of everyday life, parents often go about their days re-doing their budgets, struggling through long days at the office and worrying about what to make for dinner. However, the benefits of taking the time to communicate with children are numerous and worth the extra time and effort.

  1. Academic Benefits

    • Parents who communicate with their children teach them the importance of listening and being clear and concise when speaking to others. Children learn that words carry weight and that being understood by teachers and classmates is vital to their academic success. Children who develop good communication skills at home carry these skills over to the classroom and tend to excel at standardized tests and in academic competitions, speeches, presentations and examinations.

    Social Benefits

    • Children who communicate often and positively with their parents have better understandings of both verbal and nonverbal cues. It is easier for them to perceive and react in accordance with known social boundaries. Not only do the children's social skills improve, but the parents who practice communicating with their children also become better listeners and learn how to express their own beliefs and opinions clearly in social situations.

    Behavioral Benefits

    • Parents should communicate with their children not only when they are misbehaving, but also when they are doing well. Positive reinforcement through verbal and nonverbal communication affirms children and encourages them to behave better at all times. Parents who maintain steady and healthy communication with their children at young ages often continue to build and sustain their relationships with their children as they get older and enter their teenage years. Children feel that their problems do not have to be hidden from their parents and that they are able to share information, good or bad, with the people they trust and to whom they look up.

    Occupational Benefits

    • Since both parents and children must be involved in developing and maintaining healthy communication skills, both parents and children may reap the occupational rewards. As children enter adulthood and begin seeking employment, they can use their communication skills to their benefit during interviews and ultimately in the work place, as can their parents. Good communicators are often seen as positive and agreeable employees who are talented critical thinkers and adept at conflict resolution.

    • Early educator John Dewey, in his book "The School and Society," stated, " Life covers customs, institutions, beliefs, victories and defeats, recreations and occupations." This is a good description for "aesthetic communicati
    • During the first few years of a child’s life, most parents focus on milestones such as talking and walking as a measure of their child’s development. Asperger’s syndrome, however, doesn’t always affect kids in ways that are ea
    • From misplaced homework to forgotten locker combinations, as many parents and educators will attest, forgetfulness seems all too common in children. If your kiddo seems to forget what you have said before you finish saying it, he might not be entirel