I’m trying out a new experiment.  Many of you are parents, grandparents,  teachers, counselors, youth pastors, stay at home moms, etc. who have invested countless hours in figuring out how to communicate with the children in your life.  I want to use your experience to add value to a talk I have coming up this weekend.  Here is a little bit of info about the talk…

• The talk is about, “Communicating with Children.”
• I have approximately 30 minutes
• I won’t know the ages of children we are dealing with until the parents get in the room
• I have countless resources on my book shelf, but I want to hear from you
  

Comment below, e-mail me (jonathan@calvaryofpensacola.org) or write a response on facebook.  Thanks for sharing.  I’ll share this as 3 separate blog posts next week with more substance to the outline.

4 tips for Hearing what your kids have to say

Hugs & High fives or other forms affirmation like smiling

Eye contact & other physical cues to let them know you are listening

Ask good questions

Rephrase to make sure you know what they are saying.

5 ways to BLESS your kids when you talk to them

Be Available

Level appropriate

Empathetic

Straight forward

Simple

5 Ways You don’t want to CURSE your children

Cut off your child while they are speaking

Undermine your own credibility by manipulating your children or being untrustworthy

Reduce Praise by adding Criticism

Shut down and stop communicating

Expect them to communicate on your level

1. What do you like or not like about this outline? What would you change, clarify, add, delete, etc? (you won’t hurt my feelings)

2. In your opinion what are the 3 most important things to remember about communicating with children no matter what their age?

3. What advice would you give to parents who have a desire to work on how they communicate with their kids?