Helping your child navigate childhood with non-confrontational communication

I recently read the worrying DCU survey on primary school students in Ireland. It shows that Mental health issues are a real problem among younger children, stating that children as young as four years old have presented with self-harm or suicide ideations and that general family issues are by far the most common problem encountered (36.4%).

I find myself asking the question – while waiting on the HSE to put better mental health facilities in place, and the Government to ensure better safeguards for children online, what can we, as parents, do to help our children negotiate the increasingly difficult journey through childhood?

For more than 20 years, as part of my work, I have been having conversations with up to 30,000 young people every year. The issues we discuss are interesting and varied. Anything from bullying, online behaviour, sexting, empathy and consent.

I have no doubt that internet use, and particularly the popularity of Social Media is a huge contributing factor in the escalation and intensity of many issues faced by our young people, particularly in the past 5 years.

For the first time in history, many of our very young children are streets ahead of us in understanding everything about technology, and the age old statement ‘you just don’t understand!’ is now more often true than ever. Parents’ ability to guide and influence their children is regularly replaced by the “Google it” mantra and this is now the more common ‘go to’ option for help and advice rather than a family member.

I am often asked to work with parents to help them become better communicators with their children, as, the parent/teen gap, while it has always existed, has widened so much as a result of internet use that one parent stated “even when my son is at home, I still don’t know where he is, because his head is always somewhere else “.

In my work with Key Conversations I regularly discuss these issues with young people, and three of the most common reasons that children tell me why they keep their problems to themselves rather than share them with their parents/guardians are:

a) They fear the parent will jump in with ‘I told you so’ advice before they have really been heard or understood, and then take action which could make the situation much worse.

b) If the problem is with content on their phones, they fear their phones will be confiscated, which they say is ‘punishment for telling’. This is a huge fear among young people and often prevents many essential conversations taking place with their parents.

c) Many children state that there is simply no point in even telling the parent, as, when they really need to talk, their parent is either too busy or keeps getting interrupted throughout the conversation by their own phones.

Ironically, this can be summarised in one simple sentence:
We want our children to talk to us and our children want us to listen to them.
Sounds like it should be easy? Well, it’s not that difficult. Having balanced non-confrontational conversations can take a bit of work but is well worth sticking with it.

Having someone in our lives that will really listen and not judge us has a hugely beneficial effect on our mental wellbeing, and the earlier in life we have this support, the better our chances of coping with what life throws at us. Children who feel they are not heard or understood, can begin to believe that they don’t matter. They can become overwhelmed, depressed and anxious, which can lead to self-medication (drink/drugs), depression, self-harm and even suicide.

Below are some suggestions that can help avoid confrontation while helping parents achieve the outcomes they are aiming for:

1. Turn all phones off before chatting. There is nothing more likely to close a discussion down than calls or messages interrupting the flow of conversation. It is tragic when a young person reaches the conclusion that there is simply no point in trying to talk because they are never ‘really heard’.
2. Face to face conversations can feel like an interrogation. Try sitting side by side, or better still go for a walk, or a long drive. You will be amazed at how a conversation can go from stubborn silence to fluent flow.
3. Don’t stop listening because you don’t agree – allow your child to finish their sentences – stay silent when they pause –sometimes children need time to work out what to say before they say it.
4. Watch your body language – if you disagree with something or become defensive it will appear as though you have ‘switched off’. Try to sit back and remain calm– your body language should show that you are really listening and trying to understand.
5. Believe what your child is telling you, as this is their perception at the time.
6. Get comfortable with silences – even very long ones. Young people can find it very difficult to express their emotions and a long silence can very often encourage them to share more than they had even intended to in the first place.
7. Ask questions to make sure what they say is what they mean (It very often isn’t!) such as:

What I heard you say was.….
When you said you were fed up, what did you mean?
Can you explain what you meant when you said…?

8. Validate their feelings:

That sounds like it might have been difficult?
You seem very sad/angry/happy about that?
It’s understandable why you might feel upset…

(then… stop talking! … give your child time to absorb the question and mull over an answer – true patience is needed here!)

When I role play with parents, it is encouraging to see how quickly it is possible to change the way we approach conversations, and many arguments can be avoided by simply learning to ‘say the same thing a different way’.

One parent used what she called the: Apology, Introduction, Compromise approach in an interesting conversation outlined below:

Apology: ‘I owe you an apology. I’m responsible for your health and safety, and I’ve realised recently that I’ve not been doing a very good job of it’. So, I’ve decided to put it right and become a better mum (focus on herself instead of her child)

Introduction: I’ve been learning (i.e.-this info. is from experts not just from her) about the negative effect smart phones can have on our lives and I’m thinking of introducing a few new ideas to make sure our family don’t suffer from poor health. So, I suggest (not –‘I’m enforcing’) a No Phone Zone in the following areas: the bedrooms, while studying, at meal times, in school and while in the car or out for walks. (introduce more than you expect to succeed on) How do you feel about that? (letting her daughter know that her opinion matters)

Mum was then silent while her daughter gave her rather colourful reaction. Then, after the initial shock had passed she continued:

Compromise: Ok, what I hear you say is this (reiterating, to show she heard): that all your mates’ chat during homework; that there’s only one meal we all sit down for, and sometimes in the car I’m preoccupied with traffic and don’t really hear you. I think you’re right. Maybe introducing all of this at once is a bit much. However, I really feel I need to introduce some of these rules so …how about No phones at mealtimes and walks, phone in the bedrooms only at weekends, and during study, having set 10-minute breaks to use your phone, then turning it off and getting back to homework.

Her daughter decided this was fair if her mother was prepared to do the same.

(It is very important that mum here sticks to her own rules as the whole exercise will have been in vain if she doesn’t).

This mother came away from the conversation having achieved even more than she expected to, and her daughter came away having had her opinions heard and her feelings validated.

This approach is a way of communicating in which everyone is heard, and while the ‘family issues’ mentioned above will always exist, perhaps by including our children in many of the conversations around issues that will affect them, we can go a long way towards a more harmonious home life, which can only benefit everybody’s general wellbeing.