Teach Communication Skills
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[00:00:00] Another day, another monosyllabic answer to your excited, how was your day? Or worse, your child is struggling or lashing out because they haven't learned how to express their feelings in healthy ways. Does that sound familiar? These scenarios are daily reminders of the value of your children having effective communication skills as they navigate life.
In today's fast paced world, these skills are more crucial than ever for supporting healthy relationships and their emotional well being. So before you start teaching the skills, you'll need to identify which communication skills are most beneficial for your child to learn. This may depend on your strengths, their strengths, their personalities, and even their current season of life.
So here are some key communication skills that can benefit your child.
Do you want to create peace [00:01:00] in your home and be the best parent you possibly can be? Are you ready to feel confident and clear in your decisions? Do you wish you could navigate conflicts and challenges calmly and effectively? Well, there's a way to overcome the roadblocks that are standing between you and the family life you've prayed for, so that you can create consistent routines, find fulfillment and balance, and thrive in your life and family.
Hi friends, I'm Katy Bordeaux, host of Raising Faithful Families, founder of Covenant Collections Christian Parenting Company, and a certified parenting and family coach. In this podcast, I'll guide you on how to find balance and fulfillment without adding stress or sacrificing precious time, create peace in your home, become the parent God has called you to be, strengthen your connection with God and with your family, navigate life using biblical wisdom and Christian values.
And experience growth spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and practically as a [00:02:00] parent and as an individual. I'm here to help your family be its best for each other so that you can be your best for the kingdom of God. It's time to create a home filled with love, faith, and true joy. Let's thrive together with God at the center every step of the way.
I pray this blesses you. Let's get started.
So here are some key communication skills that can benefit your child.
Active listening. Empathy, expressive communication, reflective listening, role playing, conflict resolution, nonverbal communication. Each of these skills plays a significant role in developing your child's ability to communicate effectively.
Let's explore each one in a bit more detail so that you can determine where you would like to start. Active listening is fully engaging with the speaker, showing interest and providing feedback. It's more than just hearing [00:03:00] words. It's about understanding the message that's being conveyed. I like to say that this is listening with your whole body rather than just your ears.
And here's how you can teach your child active listening. First, model the behavior. Show your child what active listening looks like by holding yourself accountable to showing up this way in your daily interactions. Maintain eye contact, nod along with them, and respond appropriately during the conversation to show that you're understanding them, you're engaged with them, and you're following along with the conversation.
Next is practice together. You can have regular listening sessions where you take turns speaking and listening. Encourage your child to ask questions and then reflect on what they've heard. These can be very real conversations where you have the added benefit of strengthening your parent child bond as you strengthen this essential [00:04:00] communication skill.
And you can use visual cues for younger children. Visual aids like listening charts. can be a really helpful for understanding this whole concept of active listening. You can make one of these at home or you can utilize something like an active listening bulletin board or an active listening poster. I found one that I'll link on the blog post version and that will be linked in the show notes or the description of this video as well.
And then we have empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. This goes a step further beyond sympathy because it involves fully understanding a situation. From the perspective of another teaching empathy helps children build stronger relationships and build a valuable sense of compassion.
So here are some strategies for teaching your child empathy. First, you can share stories, use books. to [00:05:00] illustrate empathetic behavior with nearly any children's book. You can practice discussing the character's feelings and why they might feel that way. Next is role playing. You can act out scenarios where your child has to put themselves in someone else's shoes, discuss how they might feel and react in different situations.
And then my favorite is perspective taking. It's so important to have them practice understanding someone else's feelings about a situation, even if they wouldn't necessarily have had those same feelings themselves. And this allows them to learn their perspective is not the only perspective. This helps them understand different viewpoints.
Now we have expressive communication, which involves clearly articulating your thoughts and feelings. This is essential for resolving conflicts and expressing needs. And it relies on using words and body language in ways that compliment one [00:06:00] another. This allows you to very effectively express the message you want to convey.
So here's how to build expressive communication in your children. First, encourage I statements. Teach your child to express their feelings using statements such as, I feel sad when. This helps them take ownership of their own emotions without blaming or putting responsibility of their feelings onto others.
So instead of you are making me so angry, You would encourage your child to say, I am feeling so angry. One of my favorite quotes is you are responsible for how you act, no matter how you feel. And that requires taking ownership of our own feelings. So I statements are super helpful in that goal. Then you can practice open ended questions.
So encourage your child to ask and answer open ended questions to promote deeper and more authentic [00:07:00] conversations and help them articulate their thoughts better. So instead of asking, how was your day, which we know we'll get a very generic good or not so good answer. You can ask a question that encourages more depth right from the start.
Something like, can you share something good about your day and how that made you feel? Next, we can provide feedback, positive feedback when your child communicates well, praising their efforts and gently correcting any missteps with constructive feedback. Next is reflective listening. This involves repeating back what someone has said to ensure that you understood the message that they were trying to share with you.
This is a powerful tool for improving communication and building trust. So for example, you may say, ah, I don't want to go to practice today. And your child may think that means you're not going to practice today. [00:08:00] When in reality, it just meant that you didn't want to. So this skill clears up so many misunderstandings by ensuring clarity and comprehension because you put something in your own words when you reflect it back to confirm that you effectively understood what they meant.
So here is how to teach your child reflective listening. Number one, always the most effective. Demonstrate the technique. Show your child how to reflect back what they've heard in their own words to ensure clarity and understanding. Next is practicing regularly. So incorporate reflective listening into any daily conversations.
Encourage your child to use it during family discussions as well and as they go throughout their days. Then we have the need to just provide ongoing encouragement to them, praise them when they use this effectively, highlight the benefits of this skill in improving communication and relationships. [00:09:00] Now moving on to the skill of conflict resolution.
This one is so important for managing disagreements and maintaining healthy relationships. We know this. So it's super unlikely that you'll be lucky enough to avoid all forms of conflict in your family. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it wouldn't even be beneficial if we could, because relationships are strengthened through conflict resolution.
The key is learning how to resolve situations peacefully while keeping those relationships intact. So here's how you can teach your child to resolve conflicts in their life. First is teaching problem solving skills. Show them how to identify a problem, brainstorm solutions, and choose the best course of action.
Next, teach them to stay calm during disagreements and express their feelings without having to raise their voice or place blame. And then demonstrate how to resolve conflict [00:10:00] peacefully in all of your interactions. Let them see you negotiating. Let them see you expressing yourself clearly. Let them see you finding compromises.
That's it. And the last skill, the underrated skill of nonverbal communication. This is body language and facial expressions. That's such a vital part of effective communication. You can say a lot without ever saying a single word. So here's how to teach nonverbal communication skills to your children.
First, you can use visual aids. You can show pictures of different facial expressions and body postures and discuss what type of emotions they might represent. You can play charades. You can use games like this or like something similar to that or just legitimately play charades to practice nonverbal communication.
This can help them understand the importance of body language and also how effective it can be. Because if your goal is [00:11:00] just that they're an act out an emotion, act out a feeling, they're not It's going to be fairly easy to guess how you're feeling based on just your body language without you even saying a word.
And then of course, make sure you're providing feedback. When they use these skills effectively, show them positive feedback. Explain how their body language enhanced or hindered, if that's the case, their message. So let's just wrap it up with top tips. that I have for teaching communication skills. It's not easy, but this is something that you can absolutely do.
And here are my top tips for making it the most simple and beneficial process that you can do as you try to teach these skills to your children, because I know how important this is to Number one, be consistent. Consistency is always key. Anytime you're teaching your child anything, but especially with communication skills, because they're being exposed to so many non effective [00:12:00] communication skills in their lives.
So you really have to be able to counteract that enough that the skills you're teaching them become their normal habits. So regular practice and reinforcement of these skills will help them develop them over time and really excel with these. And because that's such a long term effort, I want you to be patient.
Developing these skills takes time. So provide ongoing support and encouragement, but understand that this doesn't happen overnight. and create a safe environment. They have to feel safe to express themselves without fear of judgment or criticism. This will encourage them to practice their communication skills and any skills for that matter more freely.
Last, you have to use everyday opportunities. You have to look for the opportunities in daily life practice, communication skills. This can be sitting at the dinner table, riding in the car, family activities. It can be while grocery [00:13:00] shopping. It can be while watching TV. You're going to have endless opportunities to reinforce these skills, to point to something and say, Hey, that's an example of one of these skills.
That was a great way of doing X, Y, Z, or that could have been made better. Here's how, and how would you have handled that? So those things are going to help build their confidence and build their practice with these communication skills. And I promise teaching them these skills is one of the best investments that you can make in their future and in your family, modeling behavior, encouraging, expressive communication, practicing reflective, listening, using role play scenarios, reinforcing positive behaviors, and maintaining consistency.
will help your child develop all the skills they need to navigate their life successfully and navigate many varieties of relationships as they go. Every interaction is an opportunity to teach and reinforce these vital skills. [00:14:00] If you're interested in mastering the art of meaningful conversation and strengthening a deep emotional connection with your child in the process, I will link a 90 percent off offer just for you for the advanced parent child communication mastery bundle.
This is a masterclass bundle that will help you become a confident communicator. who is capable of handling conflict gracefully and creating a peaceful, loving environment with your child. Embracing the strategies that you learn will help you build a legacy of love, trust, and understanding that strengthens your family for years to come.
And I will also link to the blog posts once again, because I put a whole list of children's book recommendations that can help you in teaching effective communication skills. So I'll run through a few of those, but if you want the links to them, they'll be in the show notes or the description to get over to the blog post.
So the first that I put is Listening Ninja. [00:15:00] That's a children's book about active listening. The next one is called Empathy is Your Superpower. That one is a book about understanding the feelings of others. The next one is called Bye Bye Bully. That's a story about finding your voice, courage, kindness, and empathy.
The next is called, I can use an I statement. That's a story about finding self esteem and confidence in expressing feelings and handling conflict. And then we have another from the Ninja series. It's called Communication Ninja. That's a children's book about communicating effectively. Last is help your dragon resolve conflict.
That's a children's story about conflict resolution. So you have so many things available to you, you have so many tools, so many tips. Read back through this, decide where you want to start. Do not feel overwhelmed. You don't have to teach all the skills at once. What you could really do is pick the one that maybe you could improve at [00:16:00] the most.
And then start implementing that so that you and your child can grow right alongside one another.
I hope you found this episode valuable friend and I pray that you're walking away with a new insight perspective or idea to implement Remember that God gives you everything you'll ever need to thrive And I appreciate that you've taken the time to spend here with us today If you enjoy our podcast, please subscribe so you never miss an episode And if you wouldn't mind just take 30 seconds to leave a review So that we can continue to reach more parents like us.
I would appreciate that so much So, so much. Reach out if there's any way I can support you. And I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening.
