It's been years since I began to discover the "Secrets" of interpersonal communication; It was thanks to a fellow work psychologist, and his clinical orientation based on problem solving.
With him I trained in a course in which I learned a lot about nonverbal communication, neurolinguistic programming and therapeutic techniques; I discovered Paul Watzlawick and his “Invented Reality” and felt the passion for family therapy who guided me in those lessons.
Since then I know that elaborating very open questions can give terrible results if what we want is to know about the other; although I have to be honest: it is difficult to put into practice.
Difficult because when your children enter the house and ask them “how was school today?”, You may be satisfied with the answer (or the absence of it), or simply having asked.
But if there really is an interest in maintaining a fluid communication channel, we may have to work harder
And I say this knowing that there will be children who look !, you ask them this question and they start talking for minutes, and tell you “how they have done”; I do not know them of course, but surely there are.
Others will say "good," or they will feel upset when you repeat exactly the same question. and they will ask you to leave them alone, and there will even be those who pass by your side, ignoring your presence.
Questions to get answers
Well, the fact that they pass by you as if you were invisible can also be that you have chosen a bad time, or that they are tired, or fed up with that teacher who…
The same happens when we want to highlight positive aspects of our children (I learned this later), we express exactly "what we liked".
I mean, instead of "how good you do it all!" (It's an exaggeration, nobody does everything right); We say "I like how you combine the colors", "I feel proud of your determination", "I'm sure you're the fastest in the class doing homework, and you're glad you have so much free time", etc ...
We say it this way because we would also like others to notice our details.
With the communication something similar happens: "How have you been?", "Good" (with reluctance) ... and the father or mother think "how lucky they always do well." But it is not so, because when they say "good", you are left wanting to know more, because the answer says little (or nothing).
What to ask
Don't ask me, you will know the concerns of your children, dreams, their difficulties, their concerns.
If you know, the questions should be directed towards those key issues, how do we clarify it later; but as an appetizer if you ask “What is the best thing that happened to you? And the worst? ”, You will probably get more satisfactory answers than insisting on“ how was the morning? ”.
Do not question
If asking very open questions is a mistake, "Interrogate" too. What do we not question parents? Go no! "How did it go today?", "Don't you want to tell me?", "Come on, I'm your father", "You told me before you would tell me later" ...
This is mainly because we don't know how to handle communication silences well (as enriching as they are), but we get effects contrary to those expected: quieter, moody, aggressive or evasive responses, etc.
With a little patience you enjoy the silences and recognize the nonverbal responses of our children, which in turn they will give us clues about how they feel, or what they want from us.
Some examples
I will not lie to you, some of the proposals of the blogger liz Evans, I put them into practice often; but I recognize that it is very creative, and why not admit it? It does us all a favor.
In a post published in The Huffington Post, and titled 25 ways to ask your children 'how was your day at school?' . It delights us with various formulas that can work for us (if not some, the others).
Read it yourself and judge, or put it into practice. Too it is necessary to believe that it works, and have a good mood with the possible answers.
When asking: "Who is your most popular partner?", "Who have you had more fun with?", "What would you like to learn?", "What word would you like the teacher to stop repeating?" ... you really get to know your child's life a little more (the one in which you are not present), and you show an obvious interest in children. Depending on what you want to know, what you think children want to tell you, you should guide the issues.
Finally, another basic communication skill is knowing how to listen to children (at any age). And listening is patience, accepting the answers (yes, also when they have more than 10) without judging, empathizing ... and identify what they want to tell us, and what they would want from us.
I say the latter because sometimes after glimpse of the anguish on his face, we get them to tell us that "since the course has started" his tablemates remove the markers.
If we are going to say “wing, how exaggerated, today I will take you an ice cream and you will see how it happens to you!”, The child will feel misunderstood and believe that you do not care (besides not, it will not happen) . Do you mind? Then attend your demands or give you solution tools to practice them.
Images | Lars Plougmann, Michael Coghlan, Tim Griffin.
In Peques and More | Get close to your children to talk to them: you will improve your communication
