Seabrook McKenzie Parenting Course Session Four: Communication and Social Skills

I communicate by… (from Marie Bell and Val Burns Teachers Refresher Course, Blenheim, Jan 1980) Body posture Gestures and movement Eye contact Facial expressions Voice and volume Timing Content

Communication Skills Braswell & Bloomquist (1991) Cognitive behavioural therapy with ADHD children. Guilford Press, NY Dealing with children who have poor communication skills: Be Brief: make statements short, preferably 10 words or fewer Make “I” statements: stay away from statements like “You should do…” Instead say things like “ I would like it if you…” Be direct: State exactly what you want or need from another person. Avoid being vague or confusing in stating what you want. State specific behaviours you want someone else to do. E.g. “ I want you to be in at 10.30 and if you will be late, you will have to call me”

Congruence: communicate the same message on verbal and non-verbal levels. E.g. “I love you” should be said in calm, sensitive manner and not by yelling Give Feedback: after someone has spoken to you, say it back to him/her. This will let the other person know that you understood him/her. This also gives the other person a chance to clarify anything you did not understand correctly Make Impact Statements: Tell the other person what effect his/her behaviour or statement has on you. E.g. “when you do…. I feel…” Be an Active Listener: When someone is speaking to you, let him/her know that you are really listening. Maintain good eye contact, nodding, leaning forward, giving feedback

The Kline Scale Children with LD often have difficulty identifying feelings and emotional states E.g. they may report they are really “mad” at friend and may “hate him”, but actually the child may be feeling jealous over real or imaginary things Before a child can deal effectively with his emotions, he must be able to identify them The Kline Scale was developed at Riverview School by Adam Kline, of the National Center for Achievement

Kline Scale continued… Assists child to identify emotions by providing a list of feelings under the broad headings of SAD, MAD, and GLAD When children report feeling for example, “mad”, the parent/teacher can use the chart to initiate discussion, aimed to identify true feelings. Important for the child to understand that there is wide variety and intensity of feelings

Encouragement: building your child’s self confidence and feelings of self worth From: Self-esteem pamphlet (Mental Health Foundation) Encouragement is the process of focusing on your children’s assets and strengths in order to build their self-confidence and feelings of worth Focus on what is good about the child or the situation. See the positive Accept your children as they are. Don’t make your love and acceptance dependent on their behaviour Have faith in your children so they can come to believe in themselves

5) Let your children know their worth 5) Let your children know their worth. Recognise improvement and effort, not just accomplishment 6) Respect your children. It will lay the foundation of their self- respect 7) Praise is reserved for things well done. It implies a spirit of competition. Encouragement is given for effort and improvement. It implies a spirit of cooperation 8) The most powerful forces in human relationships are expectations. We can influence a person’s behaviour by changing our expectations of the person

9) Lack of faith in children helps them to anticipate failure 10) Standards that are too high invite failure and discouragement 11) Avoid subtle encouragement of competition between brothers and sisters 12) Avoid using discouraging words and actions 13) Avoid tacking qualifiers to your words of encouragement. Don’t give with one hand and take away with the other. E.g. “that’s wonderful, but…”

14) The sounds of encouragement are words that build feelings of adequacy: “I like the way you handled that” “I know you can handle it” “I appreciate what you did” “It looks as if you worked very hard on that” “You’re improving” Be generous with them

Basic points regarding communication Good communication is a skill that can be learned like any other skill Communication involves a “sender” (or speaker) and a “receiver” (or listener). The sender has a message he/she wants the listener to understand All communication takes place within a social context that involves other people. There are many different social contexts and each ne has its own “rules”. In many cases, the rules for communication in a specific context aren’t well defined and problems may arise when the rules are not clear

Basic points regarding communication continued… Communication usually involves words, but part of the message is also conveyed through nonverbal communication that involves facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language Sometimes the person who is listening receives a message that isn’t what the sender meant to communicate. This is called a communication breakdown

Rules for active listening Restate the sender’s message in your own words Begin your restatement with phrases like: “you feel…” or “ it sounds as if you think…” or “let’s see if I understand what you’re saying” Don’t show approval or disapproval of the sender’s message General Rule: you can speak up for yourself only after you have restated the sender’s message to his or her satisfaction