Family Communication

Communication between parents and their children is often one of the most difficult, yet necessary skills for families to master.  So many times we each have our own histories with communication and assumptions about communication (e.g., Children should just do what their told, I'm the parent, My parents never needed to explain their reasoning to me, etc.) that tend to get in the way of effectively talking with our children and, more importantly, creating an environment where our kids and teens feel comfortable talking with us.  The following ideas may help to jumpstart effective communication for you and your children.  Also see the article by Bridget Bencke, published on our blog last year for more ideas about effective communication.

How do You and Your Child Communicate?

Good communication skills are critical between you and your child. It is important that all family members speak to each other with kindness, love, and respect.  It is especially difficult to maintain calm and respectful communication with your child when they are losing their temper and talking to you in a rude way.  When our children are rude, many parents tend to think, “How dare they talk to me that way.  They have no right to talk to me like that.  I would have never talked to my parents that way.”  That may be true.  However, it is at these times, especially, that we need to model polite, respectful, but assertive communication to our children.  This can also keep disagreements from turning to big arguments where nothing gets solved. The chart below shows communication behaviors that either foster positive communication (DO behavior) or arguments and withdrawal (DON’T DO behaviors).  How would you rate yourself?  What might you work on?

I’m Good at This	DO	DON'T DO	I Need to Work on This
True/False	Let your child finish talking	Interrupt	True/False
True/False	Keep your statements brief	Nag and lecture	True/False
True/False	Talk in a calm voice	Talk sarcastically and mockingly	True/False
True/False	Make sure you have eye contact with your child	Talk without good eye contact	True/False
True/False	Sit in a relaxed position	Fidget, move around	True/False
True/False	Combine visual (notes) and auditory means of talking	Over-talking about tasks or directions	True/False
True/False	Take your child’s feelings seriously	Discount feelings	True/False
True/False	Stay focused on one issue at a time	Change the topic	True/False
True/False	Give 1 direction at a time	Give a series of directions	True/False
True/False	Give directions as a statement	Give directions as a question	True/False
True/False	Speak to your child with a respectful voice	Call names or mock or yell	True/False
True/False	Stay calm even when angry or scared	Threaten	True/False
True/False	Share feelings about positive actions and negative actions of your child	Primarily share feelings about negative behavior	True/False

Parent/Child Letter

This is an exercise in honest communication between a parent and their teenage child(ren).  The parent writes this letter to their teenager and the teen writes a letter to their parent. 

Write a letter (in letter format) to your child/parent that includes information from the following 9 statement stems.  Please write this independently, do not show it to your teenager/parent, and bring it back to our next therapy appointment.

1.                 What I like about you is …

2.                 The thing that you do that I don’t like is …

3.                 What I want from you …

4.                 What I need from you …

5.                 What I don’t want from you …

6.                 What I don’t want but I am willing to accept because it’s you …

7.                 What I am not willing to accept from you under any circumstances

8.                 What I want for the future of our relationship (My plan for what I want to happen) …

9.                 What I am willing to do to make this plan (#8) come true …

* Developed by Donald Kaesser, Ph.D. for use with couples.  Adapted for use with parents and their teenage children.