Communicating with young children can be challenging. Here are 3 tips you can begin to implement today to help improve the communication.
Tip #1 - Get Your Child's Attention
This may seem like common practice, but this is one of the most important things to start with. To get your child's attention get to their eye level and minimize distractions in the environment. For example if your child is watching tv, you will want to avoid yelling from across the room. Instead walk towards your child, lower or put the tv off, get to his/her eye level, and then begin to speak to them.
Tip #2 - Focus On The Behavior You Want
Very often when we tell our children something we focus on the behavior we don't want. We might say, "Don't climb on the table." For some of our very young children "climb on the table" is the last thing they heard and they may think that is what you want them to do. For our older children they may hear this and want to test boundaries. What happens when I climb the table? Climbing the table must be really fun. Instead we want you to focus on the behavior you would like to see your child do. In this scenario you might say, "Let's sit down on the chair."
Tip #3 - Use Short Phrases
Use short phrases to be clear about what you are communicating. When you use too many words, your message could get lost. You can say, "walking feet" or "gentle touch." For younger children I would keep the phrases to two words.
We hope you find these tips helpful! Please reach out to us if you would like to dive deeper or if you would like some feedback.
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