Building Self Esteem in Your Children: Actively Listening to Your Child

Communicating with our children can be a difficult task at times. We feel like they're not listening to us; they feel like we're not listening to them. Good listening and communications skills are essential to successful parenting. Your child's feelings, views and opinions have a lot of value in the family, and it is important for their self esteem that you sit down, listen openly and discuss them honestly.

It is a natural tendency to react rather than to respond. The first thing we tend to do if form a judgment based on our own feelings and experiences about whatever it is our children are saying. That quick reaction is the thing that does the damage in the long term – feeling judged is one of the least pleasant experiences we can have. Think about how you like it when a boss, a friend or a co-worker does it! However, responding means being receptive to our child's feelings and emotions and allowing them to express themselves openly and honestly without fear of a negative judgement from us. By reacting, we send our child the message that their feelings and opinions are up to be shot down and made invalid. But by responding and asking open, interested questions about why the child feels that way, it opens a dialogue that allows them to discuss their feelings a bit more, and allows you a better understanding of where they're coming from. Responding also gives you an opportunity to work out a solution or a plan of action with your child that perhaps they would not have come up with on their own. Your child will also appreciate the fact that maybe you do indeed understand how they feel. And most of all will really appreciate that you are not jumping into quick judgements of them. This is the kind of closeness that will make the family a happy and healthy one and is the kind of skill used by ‘emotional coaches’. Watch out for more articles on how to be an emotional coach for your child. It will boost their self esteem better than anything else.

It's crucial in these situations to give your child your full and undivided attention. Put down your newspaper, stop doing dishes, or turn off the television so you can hear the full situation and make eye contact with your child. Keep calm, be inquisitive, and afterwards offer potential solutions to the problem.

Don't discourage your child from feeling upset, angry, or frustrated. Our initial instinct may be to say or do something to steer our child away from it, but this can be a detrimental tactic. Again, listen to your child, ask questions to find out why they are feeling that way, and then offer potential solutions to alleviate the bad feeling.

Just as we do, our children have feelings and experience difficult situations. By actively listening and participating with our child as they talk about it, it demonstrates to them that we do care, we want to help and we have similar experiences of our own that they can draw from. Remember, respond - don't react.