Communicating with children is many times hard, if not impossible. Children never listen (at least we so imagine); they feel like we are in fact the ones who don’t listen. There’s no successful parenting without communication and listening skills, the parent has to develop. Your child is a human being, with feelings, thoughts, opinions, so you shouldn’t ignore those and pretend obedience and good behavior. Children need to express themselves, they need to be listened to, they need communication partners.
It is in the human nature to react rather than to respond. We pass judgment based on our own feelings and experiences, and we don’t give a damn about our child’s ones. But what does it really mean, responding? It means being receptive to our children’s emotions. It means granting them the right to express their thoughts openly, without fear of consequences from us. By reacting, we invalidate the feelings and opinions of the child. Active and responsive listening opens a dialog that allows them to open up even more, so you’ll be able to discover what is behind those feelings and beliefs. Besides, the child will feel like being understood, which gives him a comfort and a feeling of wellbeing, which are very important for strengthening your relationship with him.
When your child comes to talk with you about a problem, you should focus all your attention on him. Leave aside anything else for a half an hour. Nobody would die because of that, and you’ll give your child a trust feeling and a support he needed in the first place, when he came to talk to you.
Don’t discourage your child from negative feelings like anger, frustration or fear. Our initial instinct may be to tell them these are not good and not normal, but all we do is to grow him up unprepared for life. He will suffer any time somebody around him will get angry or frustrated, and he will have his feelings hurt. However, you can indicate your child some possible solutions to make the bad feeling go away.
Children have their own problems. For us, they might seem not important, but be sure that for them they are as important as it is for us the fact that we lost our job (only to give you one example). So, listen to your children and give them comfort. You are a parent, so behave like one.