How to teach clear communication to children

Communication in parenting – something we all do but with various skill and at degrees of success. Clear communication is a skill: something that can be learned. It takes practice and can be modelled to babies from the moment they are born. The sooner our children learn clear communication, the quicker their chance at child safety because clear communication and emotional intelligence go hand in hand, which leads to kids who recognize and talk about potential dangers. Perpetrators are not so keen to target and groom emotionally intelligent kids, because emotionally intelligent kids talk to their parents or other grown ups.

The formula for clear communication is:

A: I feel …. (insert a feeling word – NOT a thought or group of words)

B: when you…… (state the behaviour, the things the other person is doing/saying, that you have had a feeling about)

C: because….(why do you feel the way you do?).

The formula for clear communication is made up of three distinct parts – affect (feeling), behaviour and cognitions (thoughts). Any clear communication will contain this sequence. If you change the sequence around, it may lose potency and clearness. As an example, let’s change the sequence by starting with behaviour:

“When you don’t tidy your room, I just want to slap you because I am sick to death of telling you, CLEAN YOUR ROOM”.

All components of the clear communication formula are there but by starting with the behaviour, the speaker generally begins with, “you”. You, at the beginning of a communication, sounds blaming, the finger is being pointed and the speaker is on the attack. This is when most people flee or fight back. In children, the fight back often takes the form of a dissociation from the attacker – a closing off to the perceived abuse that is being hurled forward – a metaphorical covering of the ears, turning away of the head and cowering to protect themselves. Your child may be there in front of you but psychologically they have cut off from the threat.

The second flaw when beginning with “you” is that the affect part of the sequence, the feeling, invariably ends us as words rather than a feeling. “I just want to slap you,” is not a feeling. As parents we may all know the feeling behind the words (frustration and stress come to my mind for some reason) but for the purpose of clear communication, the string of words ARE NOT a feeling. It is not our children’s job to second guess us. We are our  children’s best and most affective educators. Model emotional intelligence so that our children learn feeling words to pin to a string of descriptive words.

The third flaw in the above example is that by the time the sequence asks us to explain our thinking, we are so fed up that our cognitions come out as explosive words – abusive, damaging and examples of inadequate parenting. This is not a good way to teach clear communication to children.

The one good thing to take from the above example is that it displays an emotionally unintelligent parent and provides a model of what not to become. It may be more helpful though to put the sequence on the fridge, pin board, wall, etc. Play games to see who can come up with the longest list of feeling words. Without a decent range of feeling words to use to describe what is happening inside, the formula for clear communication is not really clear and true – it is just being used because that is the right thing to do.

I have witnessed three-year-old children successfully use this formula for clear communication. Their vocabulary is immature but the structure is present. The parents stated they had written the formula on the fridge (fridges work like a white board and are great for writing notes directly on to) and each day a practice sentence would be written in and used. One parent said that the dog and bird got practiced on all the time – “I feel glad when you wag your tail because it is like a personal welcome home committee,” and, “I feel annoyed when you sing loudly because I cannot hear the TV.”

I feel ecstatic when you use creative ways to teach children clear communication because it represents that child protection really is becoming ingrained in everyday thinking and parenting practices.

Do your children a favor and teach them the formula of clear communication so that they can never be a perpetrator of verbal abuse or misuse and are protected from other perpetrators of verbal and physical abuse. Knowing the difference between thoughts and feelings is a very important step in the protection of children from sexual predators.

Here’s some additional background reading on emotional intelligence and clear communication. The articles are short, easy reads, but full of help.

Emotional Intelligence and Feeling Words
The Anger Volcano: Anger is a secondary emotion
Teaching Emotional Intelligence: A Job for the Intelligent Parent

If you are like most people and operate throughout your life with a standard set of six feeling words that get used over and over again then you may find this list of feeling words and feeling faces helpful.

How does your inner child feel today?
The world’s longest list of “feeling words”