Effective Communication: Verbal & Non-Verbal - Research Paper

Introduction

Communication is the process of conveying, sending or transferring a message, meaning or information to another one individual or many individuals together. The communication process can be achieved in many ways including verbal where one person speaks to another by word of mouth or non-verbal for those special individuals who are special persons including the deaf and the dumb. Non-verbal communication therefore involves the use of gestures or other communication cues like facial expressions, body movements and nuances of the voice. For example a frown on ones face will likely tell the other people that you are not happy, hence a means of communication.

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Open effective communication between parents and their children forms a very important stage of children development and not only benefits the children in the families but also other members as well. The family bond and friendship is highly improved when parents talk to children openly and freely thus making these children overcome fear and become open to discuss wide scope of challenges and issues they face knowing they are opening up not just to parents but individuals who care about them. Generally, parents who exercise good effective communication with their children tend to also have a healthy relationship.

If parents are able to communicate openly and effectively with their children, then it is more likely for these children will become effective communicators too. This is because, as children watch their parents, they learn and develop the same communication skills that will be useful to them for the rest of their lives. The level and depth of thinking and problem solving for children is influenced by how they understand the challenges before them and communication forms an important aspect of these solutions. These children develop thoughts, ideas and concepts depending on how their parents communicate with them. When parents communicate with their children, they tend to boost their self-esteem, feel important part of society, heard, understood and that their thoughts and opinions matters in their families and societies we live. On the other hand, ineffective communication between parents and their children will likely make the children feel lack of belonging to some extent as they feel unheard, unimportant or misunderstood. They may end up with a negative mind towards people around them. For that reason they may end up developing hatred and other sorts of negative character. For that reason therefore, the children who undergo such circumstances in may end up hating their parents and seeing them as untrustworthy and unhelpful (Nolin & Karen).

Parent who practices effective communication with their children, have children growing straight with them feeling the sense of belonging. These children are always willing to do what they are told. They therefore live up not their expectations as they feel secure. They become cooperative in general. The ability to have a chance to express their feelings and get directed in the right manner puts them in a given direction which become fruitful in the long run.

Ways to Positively Communicate With Children and Building a Lifelong Relationship and Their Benefits

Communicate Effectively With Children at Tender Age

To achieve a positive and effective communication with your children all you have to do is to start early, when the children are young. Parents who start to open up at a later stage experience difficulty with this as the children didn't grow with the freedom in them. Parents need to create the free and comfortable environment for their children to allow them freely express what they feel, ask questions and get straight answers or directives that keeps them in track, when this is done effectively they will always see the need to follow the right track and stay disciplined. When children feel love from parents, they will always be free to share thoughts and experiences. Parents therefore take the chance and utilize the scenarios to lead their children in the right path. Even though, some directives may seem too hard to be followed by children, when a child realizes that the directive came out of love, they will always have to act right (Davis & Lange).

Feeling and showing acceptance are two different things that parents must work on. A parent may feel acceptance to their children but may not really know how to show the same. Showing love and acceptance effectively makes a child know how important they are and how much they are loved. Love and acceptance can be shown in two major ways; through verbal way and none verbal way. Other than just saying things showing acceptance to their children, parents should also know how to act effectively to make the acceptance practical. Positive messages that parents send to their children do make a big difference, for example, telling your child "thank you" when they do something good. Comparatively, when parents react negatively to their children, it brings a negative impact. For example telling your child "I am busy now" or "go away" would make children feel bad and have them reduce their level of openness to the parent. For parents to easily win their children's hearts and maintain friendship, they should desist from shouting and being inattentive to them. If parents make use of such bad communication methods, then there is likelihood that they will distance themselves from their children. Because practice makes perfect, parents should learn to tolerate their children even if they don't agree with them every time (Brobst et al.).

Communicating and Reasoning With Children at Their Level of Thinking

Every time when parents are communicating with their children, they should keep in mind they are young and because of the age difference, they should try their best to use age- appropriate language that is very simple for them to understand and not complicated in any way. Parents should therefore simplify their language and step down by using simple words easier for children to make sense of. For example telling children "Don't fight at school" is easier compared to telling them "It is not acceptable to fight in school". It is therefore expected that parents should study and monitor their children so as to be able to know what their children understand and what they do not for the purpose of finding what will be simple and difficult for them. More so, the physical position of parents when communicating with their children plays a role in effective communication, for example a parent who sits on the floor, kneels or stoops low in order to communicate, makes their children feel they are communicating with a partner and therefore makes them feel less intimidated and eye contact becomes easier to maintain. By so doing, parents create an attachment with their children and make them crate a healthy social, emotional, reasoning, and motivational development (Davis & Lange).

Getting Rid Of Distractions

When children show their parents that they wish to engage them in a discussion, it is important that they pay all their attention without letting any form of interference to distract. They should treat it with a high level of importance and actually creating time and sitting down with their youngsters and having an effective communication. If for example parents continue to read newspapers or continue watching their favorite television channels, then the children will get the impression that their parents are either not interested in listening to what they have to say or that whatever they want to say is not important to their parents. It is important that if children shows their parents that they wish to engage them in a communication at a time they are unable to do so because of unavoidable circumstances, they should plan with their children another appropriate time for them both to talk. By doing so, children develop a high sense of belonging and know they matter and they are valuable to our families (Grebelsky-Lichtman).

Planning Regular Family Gatherings With Children Included

Family meetings are very effective communication tool that brings together every family member on board including little ones and these gatherings can happen in many ways. Firstly, the general family meeting can be scheduled for example once a week or whenever a need arises and the family needs to deliberate. These family gatherings can be used to resolve day to day challenges and issues the family members including their children come across like family chores and responsibilities. This is a way of designating and sharing tasks and this is really helpful to remind everybody with youngsters involved is a team player. Children raised in such a setup environment instills in them a high sense of responsibility and would grow up knowing they are expected to contribute in the society in one way or another. Family meetings can also serve as an avenue to address grievances and solve emerging family issues. Similarly, during these meetings the family can decide to celebrate their achievements and milestones made and any other good things that may have happened during the week. The essence and significance of family gatherings is that it gives everyone a chance to speak and be heard by the family as a whole. When children grow up making inputs and being heard in such family gatherings, it encourages them and instills in them confidence and courage. They also know they can become great influencers and future policy makers who are able to think and make good decisions for common good in the societies they live in (Grebelsky-Lichtman).

Admitting It When You Lack the Information

Children as they grow up, they are generally inquisitive and they usually pose a wide range of questions to their parents. When children ask parents questions that they don't know or cannot answer, they should simply admit that they do not know and make use of such instances as learning experiences. For example, parents can guide their children on how to conduct their research and find information they are looking for in libraries or using the internet. This way, parents can show children that they are also humans and do not know everything rather than making it up on everything to seem adequate and always knowledge sufficient. This reminds children that learning is a lifelong process and they always get better by studying and learning more (Davis & Lange).

Attempting To Make Complete Explanations to Questions

When responding to children's questions parents should always try to give their children much information as they require even if the topic in discussion is something the parent is not comfortable with. This doesn't mean there is no limitation on what the parents can discuss with their children but parents should know how much information their children need and give it to them provided that this information is age-appropriate. Additionally, parents should encourage their children to ask questions and this will help parents figure out what information they are seeking. Withholding this information will make these children think and make negative conclusions which are not true about their parents (Davis & Lange).

Being Polite

Parents should not forget the basic simple communication rules just because they are engaging their own children. During moments of disagreements, parents should address their children with an equal amount of respect that they could accord any other person. Children are people as well and they deserve an equal measure of respect that adults accord to other grown-ups. In time of arguments, parents may find themselves throwing words and hurling insults to their children. This results in bad communication and children develop fear, distance themselves from their parents and lose their confidence. Parents should therefore make an effort not to do...