effective communication with children

Last night, Renzo and Rynus were playing happily together with a new easel our friends bought as an early Christmas present for Rynus. As there are 2 sets of magnetic letters, they were sharing them happily and the conversation went:
Renzo: "Rynus didi can I have the letter A please?"
Rynus: "Yes sure.."
Renzo: "Thank you Rynus didi!"
Rynus: "You are welcome!"

It went a few rounds and as hubby and I were having our dinner and watching them at the same time, we enjoyed the kind tones from the boys which were so pleasing to the ears.

But suddenly, Rynus changed his mind and decided not to share his new toy with Renzo anymore. You can imagine what happened next. We had one busy Rynus who's trying hard to put all the letters on the easel (so nothing is left for Renzo), and one upset Renzo who collapsed on the floor with an angry face. I tried to calm Renzo down and encourage him to ask again later or offer to exchange his other letters with Rynus to get the letter he needs. But that didn't work at all and it only made Renzo even more frustrated. Worse still, Renzo's frustration got rubbed on onto Rynus and made him even more unwilling to share.

After I attempted one last try to ask the same question to Rynus again in the softest voice I could ever have, and got rejected by him, I decided to change my "strategy". I went closer to Rynus and said to him,
"Rynus, you know that Renzo korkor needs the letter 'E' and since you have 2 of them, do you think you can share just one of them with him? Otherwise he will be very upset, so do you think you can help to make korkor happier by giving one of the Es to him?" 

Immediately, Rynus took down BOTH letter Es on the easel and passed BOTH of them to Renzo.

I was pleasantly surprised that my changing in strategy, by making the right choice of words actually worked on Rynus. As I often mentioned, Rynus has rather high emotional intelligence so I know that by relating to him and helping him understand the impact of his behavior to others, might work better than giving him commands and instructions forcefully and expect him to follow.

So yes, the way we talk to our kids has a huge impact on their learning and ability to listen to us. I've mentioned many times that being a positive role model is the key to successful parenting, and the way we talk to our kids and people around us, fits right into this category, and it also shows them how we want them to speak back to us and people around them too.

Basically there are 3 different ways that parents communicate with their kids.
1. Aggressive way, often yelling..
2. Passive way, muttering softly..
3. Assertive way, positive, warm, consistent and firm..

Obviously I am trying to tell all parents who are reading my post, the 3rd way is by far the most effective way I've found. It even works well with Renzo who's still learning to control his own emotions well. So it's a daily habit for hubby and I to check with Renzo, "How's school? What is one thing that made you happy in school? And did anything happen that made you upset or unhappy?".

These questions might sound simple and maybe even insignificant, but they invite him to open up, let him know we are really listening. These questions also help us to acknowledge his feelings and encourage him to respond with a specific answer. Not just that, believe it or not, effective communication leads to happier kids! Yes Renzo used to be rather grumpy and somber but now, he's perennially sunny. And I strongly believe it's because we put in a lot of efforts communicating with him, understanding his feelings and helping him feel connected with us.

Once we were having a conversation about "fierce looking people", so we asked Renzo if there's anyone he knows who has a fierce looking face. Alright, personally I was expecting an answer like "nainai" from him, sorry my beloved mother-in-law but yes, you do have a fierce looking face, in my eyes, oops..  Renzo responded, "Let me picture the person's face in my mind and think about it, hmmm, nope, no one looks fierce to me at all, everyone has a happy face!!"

His response means the whole world to me!!

"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver."