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Tips for Talking with Your Kids

Eight quick communication tips

Tips for Talking with Your Kids

Here are eight quick tips on ways to improve communication with your kid. (Hint: Nobody likes lectures, nobody likes to be yelled at, and nobody learns when the communication is antagonistic.)

• Tell the truth.
• Keep complaints specific.
• Be careful with criticism.
• Stop yelling!
• Nix the nagging, lose the lectures, avoid the advice.
• Don't set them up.
• De-escalate the antagonism.
• Use “I” statements.

Tell the Truth

If you ask most parents what qualities and behaviors they want to see in a well-behaved child, honesty is right up there. Here's a modeling issue—if you want your child to be honest, you must tell the truth yourself.

Now, we all know that there are all sorts of “truths”: the whole truth; the half-truth; the gist of it, “the words are true but it's misleading.” What do I mean, tell the truth?

• Truth-telling with kids doesn't mean confessing all, but it does mean not lying. Being honest about your feelings and your experiences doesn't mean always telling all or publishing it on the Internet. You can be reserved and dignified. Nobody needs to know all your gory details.
• Honesty in front of the kids counts. Be a good role model—if you let them see you lying, cheating, and stealing, you can expect to see them doing the same. (This makes it sound like I'm saying to lie, cheat, and steal when they're not looking. I'm not!)
• Sometimes cruelty is a wolf disguised in a sheep's wool of honesty. “I have to be honest with you.” Honesty doesn't mean being tactless, or telling hurtful truths for the sake of being truthful (“I gotta tell ya, Joe, you're looking pretty lousy.”).
• Truth includes emotional honesty. You have a responsibility to be truthful about what you feel.
• Your child is not your psychologist or your confession-taking priest. It's talking at instead of with your child when you tell them a truth just to get something off your chest and onto his.

Keep Complaints Specific

Keep complaints specific, to the moment. Lumping the whole world into one conversation or fight is known as “gunny sacking”—pulling all your old complaints out of the sack where you store them—and it's a sure way to close a child's ears. You'll know you are gunny sacking when you hear always and never. Be specific about what changes you want to see. Not, “Be more respectful!” but, “Please work on remembering to use a tissue, not your sleeve.”

Be careful with criticism

Tales from the Parent Zone

I know a woman who can't get started protesting one action without dragging every complaint, injustice, and old hurt into the conversation. You can imagine how her son feels—Mom can't ever just complain about Jerry leaving the refrigerator door open (again). He ends up hearing about the time (last year) that he was two hours late (“You have no respect for me!”) and the time he got a “C” in chemistry (“You never pay attention!”). And he ends up not willing to respond to the initial problem (the refrigerator door).

Behave Yourself!

To avoid gunny sacking and to improve communication with your child, never use the word never, and always avoid the word always.

It's a Good Idea!

Family communication happens best when it happens every day, each time family members interact with each other. Every communication with your child should communicate respect, affection, and your expectations and goals.

Behave Yourself!

Two other verbal messages to banish from your vocabulary when talking with your child: “You should” and “You have to.”

You may think you are helping improve your child's behavior when you sit down for a good critique session. You are probably wrong. Criticism tends to put people on the defensive, and defensive people aren't open to learning, or change. Criticizing too harshly or too often can damage a child's sense of self. Try encouraging your child first (that's in the next chapter). If you do use criticism:

• Make it very specific.
• Be gentle.
• Don't go on and on.
• Be very clear and explicit that it is the behavior you are criticizing, not the child. You should say this, not just assume the child understands.
• Stop yelling!
• Q: What do parent/child talks have in common with large warehouse stores?
• A: Volume discounts.

Your child cannot hear you if you yell at her. (There's that at again! Very rarely will a parent yell with a child.) Keep the volume down. It's a well-known fact that a whisper is often louder than a scream.

Nix the Nagging, Lose the Lectures, Avoid the Advice

Nagging never made a child change his evil ways, and it's most likely to result in major, unbearable attitude. And no self-respecting kid is going to listen to yet another lecture on what she should or shouldn't do or be. While you're at it, cool it with the advice. Nobody asked you (unless they did). Kids are deaf to stories with a moral. I know, it's a challenge. Rise to meet it, it's important.

Don't Set Them Up

You're on your child's side, right? Then why are you trying to trap her like a little mouse in the cheese? It's not right to trick your child into a confession, and it's also wrong to force her into a situation where she must lie to save face or protect herself. When you trick or manipulate your child into a trap, you are showing a basic lack of trust and respect. You're trading immediate results for later resistance, recrimination, and loss of trust and respect.

De-Escalation

You're the parent, you (presumably) have more insights, long-term perspective, wisdom, and patience than your child. Therefore, it's your job to keep squabbles from escalating into wars. The hotter the fight, the fewer the positive results. How can you prevent “discussions” from becoming “arguments”? Try these preventive measures:

• Take a deep breath. The tenser you get, the shallower your breathing gets, and the more distressed you become.
• Help your child breathe. When Annie gets worked up, I hold her gently by the shoulders and tell her to blow out. A couple of deep breaths, and she's usually able to verbalize what is wrong without screaming and losing it.
• Count to 10 or 100. In other words, focus for a moment on something else to stop yourself from reacting.
• Take a little personal time-out. Excuse yourself to the bathroom (try not to slam the bathroom door). Splash some cold water on your face, breathe, count, and don't forget to flush.
• Announce a general time-out. “Okay, everybody run around the block! We'll talk about this again in seven minutes in the kitchen!”
• Crack a joke to diffuse the tension with laughter. Warning: This only works before people get too tense. People have died because jokes have misfired. Make sure your joke is funny, and never, ever, ever, ever, ever laugh at your kid. (There's that at again!) In other words, be Bill Cosby, not Don Rickles.

Words to Parent By

An “I” statement is a declaration of your feelings, views, needs, likes, or dislikes that begins with the word I. “I” statements tell the listener that you're speaking from your own point of view. A “you” statement begins with the word you and can appear to be accusatory or self-righteous.

Behave Yourself!

“You” statements are risky, especially when your child comes back at you with another “you” statement. Escalation! Blame! Misery!

All About “I” Statements

Kids hate listening to a parent who is accusatory and self-righteous. As a parent trying to talk with your child, danger lurks when you use “you” statements, that is, statements that begin with the word you (“You make me feel unhappy,” “You always,”). If, on the other hand, you begin statements about your perceptions, feelings, or preferences with the word I, you don't seem accusatory, and you're obviously speaking only from your own point of view.

“I” statements:

• Imply that you're willing to at least hear another opinion or perception.
• Help you to clarify your own perceptions, feelings, and preferences.
• Don't call special attention to themselves. You can do them anywhere, anytime, without announcing it.
• Imply that you're open to hearing your child's perspective.
• Avoid the risk of escalation, blame, and misery associated with tit-for-tat “you” statements.
• Used in response to “you” statements can de-escalate tensions.
• Open, instead of close, conversation.

The “I” Statement Formula

“I” statements are easy to build. They're always a variation on the following: a description of an occurrence, your emotional reaction, and your desire for the future.

“When (the event) happened, I felt (emotion). Next time, please (action/response).” Try it out!