Communicating with Children

Executive Director Gina Malin sits down with Parents League School Advisor Elaine Perlman to talk about how parents can better communicate with children.

How we talk to kids can determine their behavior. Here are Elaine’s recommendations for fostering learning, care, empathy and closeness:

• Ditch your phone, or, at least, schedule screen-free times. Screen time is a lost opportunity for connecting time.
• Share your day. Share your thoughts. Don’t ask questions like a District Attorney. Teach the art of conversation, like a tennis game, back and forth.
• Teach and model daydreaming. Boredom doesn’t exist. Daydreaming is where the magic happens.
• Help them develop a positive, nurturing and encouraging the narrator in their mind.
• Infuse high level vocabulary. Instead of “sad, say melancholy.”
• Get philosophical. Young people love big ideas: What is love? What is the right thing to do?
• Don’t be afraid of silence. Read together, think together.
• Triple the display of love. Affection is vital.
• Resist the rushing!  

Elaine Perlman is a Parents League School Advisor and the author of Be the Parent You Wish You Had available for purchase here.