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Actively Listening to your Kid
Communicating with our children can be a challenging task at times. We really feel like they’re not listening to us; they feel like we’re not listening to them. Very good listening and communications skills are essential to successful parenting. Your child’s feelings, views and opinions have worth, and you ought to make sure you take the time to sit down and listen openly and discuss them honestly.
It seems to be a natural tendency to react rather than to respond. We pass judgment based on our own feelings and experiences. However, responding means being receptive to our child’s feelings and emotions and allowing them to express themselves openly and honestly without fear of repercussion from us. By reacting, we send our kid the message that their feelings and opinions are invalid. But by responding and asking questions about why the child feels that way, it opens a dialog that allows them to discuss their feelings further, and allows you a far better understanding of where they’re coming from. Responding also gives you an opportunity to work out a solution or a plan of action with your toddler that perhaps they would not have come up with on their own. Your toddler will also appreciate the fact that maybe you do indeed understand how they experience.
It’s crucial in these situations to give your child your full and undivided attention. Put down your newspaper, stop doing dishes, or turn off the television so you’ll be able to hear the complete situation and make eye contact with your child. Keep calm, be inquisitive, and afterwards provide possible solutions to the problem.
Don’t discourage your kid from feeling upset, angry, or frustrated. Our initial instinct may be to say or do something to steer our child away from it, but this can be a detrimental tactic. Again, listen to your kid, ask questions to find out why they are feeling that way, and then offer potential solutions to alleviate the bad feeling.
If you are a new mother or father, you will no doubt have your hands full. And as a new dad or mum, your name and address has no question found its way on to a parent mailing list or new parent mailing list. Marketing corporations frequently collect your info to produce a new parent list, which they sell to a variety of industries. Several businesses will send you offers inside the mail for valuable items and services you’ll require as a new dad or mum. You will want to watch your mailbox for these kinds of offers, as they are able to save you tons of time and money, as well as provide you with fantastic parenting ideas and tricks!
Just as we do, our children have feelings and experience difficult situations. By actively listening and participating with our toddler as they talk about it, it demonstrates to them that we do care, we want to aid and we have similar experiences of our own that they can draw from. Remember, respond – don’t react.