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Parenting Articles about Communication
Parenting techniques and strategies you can really use for better parent-child communication. Tips from our experts on communicating with teens and younger children.
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Does this sound familiar? Your teenage son is taking forever in the bathroom (again), but you need him to get ready so you can get to work on time. You’re thinking, “How could I have raised such an inconsiderate kid? He’s so disrespectful!” Meanwhile, your child is locked in the bathroom, consumed with his image in the mirror. He’s thinking, “No way am I going to school with this pimple on my nose.” Outside in the hallway, you start pounding on the door, yelling at him to hurry up. He screams, “God, you just don’t understand! Leave me alone!” You end up late for work and completely overwhelmed, wondering, “Why doesn’t my kid listen to me? Does he have to fight me on everything?” |
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Kids use the silent treatment as a way to freeze you out, to get you to leave them alone, and to push your buttons. What most parents don’t realize is that under the surface, something else is going on: the silent treatment is giving your child a feeling of power and control over you. |
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Pouting, sulking and whining are three of the most annoying ways that kids communicate their displeasure with a situation. This behavior is not just limited to young children, either—teens do it because they haven’t always learned the skills to express their frustration in an appropriate way. Simply put, it works for them. |
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I often joke that kids with ADHD would make great politicians or lawyers, because they never give up a fight! Trying to cope with a child who argues at the drop of a hat can test the patience of any sane person. Not surprisingly, over the years many parents have asked me what they can do to make the arguing stop. What you can do is help your children turn their ability to argue into a positive trait rather than a negative one. |
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Interrupting comes from a variety of sources, including over-stimulation, competition with siblings and peers, impulsivity and family patterns of communication. It’s helpful to pinpoint what combination of these factors contributes to the interruption that you’re seeing today. Whatever it is, the most effective thing to do in the moment is to calmly and simply say “Don’t interrupt me until I’m done.” |
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It was meant to be an innocent question, but when my son E asked it to a friend of mine who is already sensitive about the topic, I could feel the blood drain out of my face. (I will not say what he said to protect this friend’s privacy, but it was not something he should say to ANYONE!) After they left, we had a talk with him about things he should and should not ask other people. I also wrote my friend an e-mail to apologize and they accepted my apology, saying they knew he didn’t mean it to be harmful.
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What words do you use when your child says or does something inappropriate?
When my son sprayed me in the face with water recently, apparently I said, “Do it again”-- and never added the time-honored parental follow-up, “ -- and you'll be in big trouble.” So guess what? My normally not-so-compliant son did “it” again. Eyes laughing, he looked right at me, sprayed me in the face, and said, “What? You said do it again.”
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Actually, the slogan on the JC Penney T-shirt, marketed to girls age 7 to 16, reads, I'm too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me.
That's right, you read those words correctly. The description for the shirt on their site?
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The issues teens struggle with have not changed in several hundred years; these days, they are just broadcast to everyone through text messaging, cell phones, and Facebook. Most of the struggles I see teens talking about can be categorized into two themes: fitting in socially and making sense of the world. Their social life is second to nothing -- confusion may be an over simplistic word describing what teens feel as they work to bring into alignment their perception of things with the messages they get from TV, the internet, and caring adults.
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Just this past May, in the weeks before my daughter was to graduate from 5th grade, I was at my children’s school and I ran into their Art teacher. She was one of the teachers who participated in filling out the ADHD testing forms back in 1st grade when the doctor suspected my daughter had it. Looking back on her answers, she definitely put a lot of thought and energy to this evaluation. I remember that this teacher spoke kindly and with understanding as I was going through some real struggles.
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In my last post, I wrote about the importance of mutual respect when it comes to parenting teens. Here are three things that have helped me with my 16-year-old daughter:
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One way I've always viewed parenting is through the eyes of mutual respect.
It seems to me there is a lot of talk about controlling behavior, and less RESPECT when it comes to the parent/child relationship. Almost like an authority type relationship. You might be thinking, WELL Yeah, I do have authority over my child, I am the adult here! And that is obviously true. But that is not ALL there is, right?
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One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn as a Mom is this one: It’s not personal. Meaning, I can’t take things personally in regard to my teenager. A lot of what we go through with them will feel like its personal, or maybe I’m just more sensitive! I’ve come a long way with not taking things personally, but it still creeps in now and again—I’m only human, right?!
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It all began spontaneously last week while slicing a 15-pound watermelon. I wasn’t prepared for “the talk,” but the date was fast approaching that the school would be administering the county-sponsored ‘Aids and Human Sexuality’ program. So it was fortuitous when my ten-year-old daughter gave me the opening and almost on cue, I went for it. And miraculously, ad lib, the words came down from the heavens and flowed through me effortlessly.
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