Fern Michonski / Fern’s Music
Pre-School Music Education Expert: The Children’s Advocate for Love and Kindness, Inspiring Creativity and Joy.
January 23, 2013—How to keep the lines of communication open with your kids. 
My children have always talked to me. From the time they were preschoolers right through high school and college, they always talked with me about things going on in their lives. I’ve had many people ask me how this happened. What did I do? I had to stop and reflect about what I did that kept the lines of communication open between me and my children. Here are my suggestions:
- Be interested and involved in their lives from day one. Raising children isn’t just about providing their physical needs such as food and clothes. The most important thing is letting them know you really care about how they are feeling and what they are doing. Every day when my children came home from preschool, I would ask them what they did that day. Hint: Ask the teacher before you ask your child. Then when your child says, “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember” or “nothing”, you can jog their memories and get them talking.
- Eat supper together every day. During the evening meal all sorts of topics come up. Chat together. Ask your spouse how his or her day was. Children will observe that you are interested and that you listen. Take turns around the table chatting with everyone. Hint: Cell phones are absolutely NOT allowed at the dinner table. That is family time. If this has always been the rule, it becomes acceptable and simply a given.
- Make a chart with all of your kid’s names on it. If you have more than one child, (I have 3), it can get a bit crazy when everyone gets home from school at the same time and they all want to talk at once. To solve that problem, I made a pretty chart with all my children’s names on it. I made one moveable item. (My moveable item was a paper flower with tape on it.) Each day I would move the flower beside a different child’s name. Everybody knew if the flower was beside their name, they got to talk about their day first. We took turns and rotated who went first every 3 days. This excited my kids because they loved to know it was their day to talk first and they all knew everyone was going to have a turn talking with me about their day. Hint: Change what your moveable item is. I created different things based on the month or holiday.
- Don’t judge your child. This is very important. If you really want to keep your children talking to you about their day, don’t flip out and get angry the minute they tell you about something you don’t like. Listen. If my kids told me they had failed a test at school or had done poorly, I never yelled at them. I would ask them if they knew why they had failed. Usually they did. However, if they didn’t, I would ask them if they had any ideas as to how they could do better next time, or how to fix it. Then, together we would act on the situation.
- Don’t interrupt. This is not easy to do. While your child is telling you about his day, you might suddenly want to burst in and offer your ideas about the situation. Try not to do that. I would wait until my child was finished with the whole story before I started up with my ideas. By waiting my turn, this demonstrated to my child I had really listened to him.
If you do these things every day, beginning with their preschool years, your children will want to talk to you as they get older. They will trust your opinion and know that you have their best interest in your heart. Of course there will be days with their ups and downs, but the point is to create a solid base of security in your children. Be there for them to listen, offer support and provide advice. You will become their confidant and they will not be afraid to ask for help.