Building conversational bridges with your children

How important is developing conversational skills in our children? According to H. Norman Wright, author of The Power of a Parent’s Words, “A child’s development is the result of many different factors in his life He is the product of his birth order, his neurological structure, his interactions with other family members, his biological strengths and weaknesses, etc. But the atmosphere of the home, including verbal and nonverbal communication from parents, pays a significant role in shaping a child’s identity and behavior:

What can parents do to help develop their children’s conversational skills? You should evaluate the following suggestions:

First, start conversations from the feelings mode. Arnold M. Kerzner, a child and family psychiatrist in private practice in Belmont, Massachusetts observed: “In parent/child conversations the most important thing is to develop the relationship, not get the facts. Don’t start from the inquisition mode. Start from the feelings mode. Make a statement like ‘it’s so nice to see you home,’ to create an atmosphere where the child will feel special, unique and wanted. Parents all too frequently move into a goal directed relationship with their children. They want to get information when they should be developing closeness.”

Second, build a conversational bridge with your children early. Lucy Calkins, author of Raising Lifelong Learners concluded: “if the question, ‘How was your day’ doesn’t yield the details we’re after, obviously we need to ask a different question, or to coach our children in ways of responding. Instead what we’re apt to do is to shrug, and give up on the conversation. It’s not acceptable to give up on an effort to hear about our child’s day. Children live through so much each day. They may have been feeling rebuffed or humiliated or threatened by a classmate or teacher, and we don’t hear about it. They may have felt intrigued by a subject, challenged by a way of reading or writing or calculating, exhilarated by a new sense of competency, comforted by a new friendship, and we don’t hear about it. A few fleeting years from now, our children will be confronted with major decisions about drugs, alcohol, sex, and violence, and we’ll be desperate to find a way to talk things over with them. The conversational bridge must be built back in kindergarten, first and second grades. Is it possible to convince a tenth grader who for a decade kept his or her school and social life private to suddenly talk about it? I doubt it.”

Third, timing can be everything. Dr. Kerzner concluded: “The most favorite time for children to have heart-to-hearts with their parents is at bedtime, while riding in the car, or when they are home sick.”

It’s important to developing strong interpersonal communication connections with your children early on. If you develop a strong conversational bridge in your child’s youth, you will reap the benefits of energizing and open conversations when your child reaches their teenage years.