“The key aspect of communication with children is listening to them closely”
As a parent, I always think my communication with children is absolutely perfect. They can talk to me about anything and anytime they want. My daughter, who is eight years old, keeps leaving these kinds of crumpled handwritten notes all over my things every now and then. She’d hope that I’d be pleasantly surprised to find these and happy to read them. I find them in my handbag, sometimes in my cupboard on the top of the pile, sometimes inside the book that I am reading or on my table.
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She has been writing these since she was around seven years old. Whenever I find them, I feel like a person who just found a treasure and my heart starts racing. The feeling of gratitude and love towards her fills my heart and makes me so emotional.
Being a first-time parent to an eight-year-old, I thought that these are just to make me happy and she’d win brownie points. I will not deny that this actually was my first thought when Miss D started writing these notes for me. Well, blame it on the dilemma of a first-time parent to a child who is somewhere between a tween and a teen.
Back then when she started writing and leaving these notes for me, I never really understood why is she doing it when she can just walk up to me and say these things. Over time, I tried to delve deeper. However, I never stopped her from writing these notes, questioned her or asked the reason behind.
I am a mother of two children and my younger child (4 years old) sometimes need more time and attention as compared to my daughter. Some days I ended up giving more time to my younger kid than her. Since he is still dependent on me for a lot of things, my daughter is grown-up enough to take care of herself.
This was a huge mistake.
Unknowingly and unintentionally, I started taking her for granted. I expected her to understand my situation and in the process, the communication between us reduced drastically – mostly from my end.
I’d involve her as much whenever I spent time with my younger kid, but I forgot about spending exclusive time with her. She probably started thinking that I am slipping away from her.
It took me a while to understand that she is “communicating” with me and channelling her deepest emotions through this medium. She had a deep-rooted fear of losing that deep connection with me and through these tiny love letter, she is reaching out to me. Through them, she is reassuring herself that I’d be there for her whenever she needs me. That I will be there for her ALWAYS.
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At her age, “always” has a different connotation and it may not necessarily mean “till death do us part”. Her “always” might mean that I will be there for her every time she is trying to dig into the refrigerator for snacks, finding clothes in her cupboard, trying to finish a school project, helping in learning a new skill, resolving a fight amongst her friends and even if it means to be awake with her to do the pillow talk.
Parenting in Pandemic And Communication With Children
In this pandemic, we are working from home but our attention is not always towards our children, for obvious reasons. On the other hand, children think that they have their parents entirely to themselves and they expect us to give maximum time and attention to them all day.
As parents, we think that we are the experts at understanding our children. We can interpret their every move and action. However, this pandemic and lockdown has taken a toll on the way families function and has changed the dynamics to a larger extent.
When I sensed that fear of disconnection in my daughter, I consciously started working towards it. Not only verbally, but I also increased my communication with her in nonverbal language too. I started showing my love and appreciation for her through gestures, facial expressions, surprise hugs and kisses and other nonverbal behaviours.
I brought four major changes in the way I was communicating with her –
(a) Be available to her whenever she needed to me
(b) I started using appropriate vocabulary
(c) I calmed my tone
(d) I worked consciously towards being aware of my body language while talking to her
I understood that in order to have effective communication with my daughter if I use a calm tone then the message will be faster and better understood. Whenever I used an angry tone, I could sense through her expressions the feelings of panic, fear of becoming distant and misunderstanding of her intentions; and it would completely upset her.
For Effective Communication with Children
Communication with children is not necessarily difficult but it primarily requires availability and time. It majorly involves listening, availability, understanding, mutual respect and emotion. When we listen to our children, we show them that we are interested in them and we care about what they have to say.
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I have to be honest that these changes were not overnight. It was a paradigm shift and an awakening that I am missing out on the most important aspect of being a parent – communication with my children. This lockdown has given me a chance to introspect my parenting approach. Parenting is hard enough, and now we have to also think about parenting in pandemic.
I had to consciously bring this paradigm shift in the way I was communicating with my daughter. The things have changed over the last few months and I can sense that the feeling that she had, of becoming distant from me, is dissipating. These little love letters still make a surprise appearance in the house and I would never want this to stop.
This lockdown has given us a brilliant chance of reconnecting with each other and make our bond stronger. We do activities that she loves and I make sure that it’s just us two during that time. During bedtime, I started giving her exclusive time. I am hugging her more and being more appreciative of her. I am expressive of my love towards her verbally and nonverbally.
Most importantly, I am listening to her with an open heart and mouth shut.
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