STOP !!!! LISTEN TO YOUR CHILD

Our KIDS speak to us even when they are little. I was watching Oprah Winfrey on one of her shows and she was talking about different baby cries and the message they convey even when they are a few days old. Our kids communicate with us on daily basis the question is DO WE LISTEN? During the early stages of children’s growth, they start to learn and understand how to manage their emotions. Children like adults, they will communicate and once they have noted which adult understands them the most will be the preferred adult. You will parents complain, this child does not like me s/he only likes dada or mummy or daddy. What it means is that the child feels that particular adult understands him/her better.

The following are the effects of not listening to your child.

1. Damaged relationship

You might end up not being your child’s favorite person, which might lead to a child being violent, disrespectful, cruel harmful and forceful to peer group and adults.

2. Emotional Damage

A child will learn that their opinions and feelings don’t matter which might lead to them being irresponsible to things they are supposed to do and develop feeling of worthlessness and hence get into trouble all the time.

3. Lose interest on listening skills

A child will not feel the importance of listening to others

4. Peer Influence

A child will fall to wrong people/strangers who will pay attention listening to them, strangers might take advantage by giving wrong information that will change a child’s belief, behavior or even bad deeds to happen to him/her.

5.Low self-esteem

A child’s self esteem might be damaged due to her feeling of constant neglect and voicelessness.

If you are a parent and you feel like your child has stopped listening or paying attention to you for one reason or the other or you find it hard to listen to them but you want to experience children’s wonders in talking.

Here are the tips for listening to a child for him/her to open up freely.

1.Put yourself at the level of your child

Lowering yourself to the level of your child means, your acting, thinking and movements have to match that of your child.

2. Be physically present

Leave whatever you are doing be physically present, listen attentively and maintain eye contact. Mobile phones are our most precious babies these days, if only we could pay as much attention to our children as we do to our mobile phones our kids will feel the love and warmth.

3. Stay calm

Be calm even if what is said is hard to swallow. Don’t be too shocked, lose temper or take over just control your emotions. Sometime there might be hard conversations with your children, if you are receiving shocking news or information, please stay calm. There are times you might be asked to promise not to tell anyone, and if you have promised you need to be intelligent about how you approach that information. Sometimes you might ask permission later to share that information. Otherwise, it should remain your little secret or atleast s/he should feel that way.

4. Be Interested

Show that you are maximum interested with what a child is saying and ask questions. Keep asking about her interests, her projects, her friends etc on daily basis and you will be surprised how open and comfortable s/he becomes around you and how much of her/his life she will be willing to share.

5. Follow-up conversation

Take any information that has been important to him/her from your conversations and ask for feedback or other questions. This will show that you care and attentive to your conversations. This will encourage a child to share the joyful and most uncomfortable situations.

6. ME and YOU time

Find activities that you could do together that will ensure you spend time away from home and during those moments’ quality conversations might occur. Please avoid pouring your problems to your children, unless they are adults, let them enjoy their childhood.