FHF Blog #11: New Year’s Resolution: Communication

Communication is so essential to relationships yet these skills are seldom taught. Don and I empower parents to be the best versions of themselves to best help their children grow. Our philosophy centers around: Consciousness, Collaboration and Respect. Communication is the key to any relationship and as parents we often see first hand how our responses affect our children’s behavior. Our workshops on communication are one aspect of our program. We facilitate Parent Communication Workshops based on the book: How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, and Listen So Kids Will Talk. I love this book because it takes positive, mindful parenting philosophy and gives you concrete skills you can learn and practice in a simple one step format. The workshop is designed for 6 weeks with 2 hour sessions. We have recently converted it to 1 hour sessions, twice a week for 6 weeks. We had parents who said taking 2 hours was difficult to do either due to caring for kids, having only one parent in the house or just busy life. The book has 7 chapters and the first six are the six areas addressed. They include:

• Helping Children Deal with Their feelings
• Engaging Cooperation
• Alternatives to Punishment
• Encouraging Autonomy
• Praise
• Freeing Children from Playing Roles (labels)

The final chapter of the book is about bringing all the concepts together and we incorporate that idea throughout the course. The great thing about this workshop and the information learned is that these skills apply to communication with all relationships from our friends, parents, co-workers, health care providers, the sales person helping you make a major purchase, and anyone! I was recently talking to an adult family member and really thought about what I was saying, making a concerted effort to really listen and acknowledge their feelings. Afterwards, I realized that because I was able to do this, this person was able to really open up to me and likely shared things they might not otherwise have said. It helped me understand them better and the issue. And maybe it helped them to process some things they might not have been overtly thinking about. What better way to start the new year than by improving your communication skills. Check out the latest: www.focusedhealthyfamily.com/workshops