I would advise that you start
communicating with your children
even before they can talk back to
you. It is true that children learn
understanding of a language long
before they learn to speak the words.
If you create an environment where
there is lots of open communication,
you will find that your children will
involve you with their life’s challenges
even into adulthood.
Special example of sibling
communication:
We’ve introduced a method of sibling
communication any time when there
is in-house fighting between siblings.
Instead of becoming involved and
trying to fairly diffuse the situation, we
send the children involved in the fight
to a neutral room with the instruction
to “find a solution and report it back to
us”.
For example the children might
disagree about who gets to play with
a specific toy. When we hear about
the dispute (usually because they
start fighting loudly about whose
turn it is) we call both children out
and send them to another room for
solution-finding. Be prepared for some
more fighting and even louder yelling
between the kids as they try to find
a solution. Sometimes we need to
mediate their communication and help
them find a good working solution.
After a few practices, however, they
will be able to find a solution without
your involvement. They might come
out and report that they have decided
to take turns playing with the specific
toy; or they’ve decided that neither of
them should play with it. The solution
will be theirs to implement, and you
will not have to play referee between
their disputes.
You may notice that I do not give
specific guidelines, as I believe it
is every person’s responsibility to
carefully think about, discuss with
significant others and decide in their
own situation. I assure you that my
situation is different to yours and
therefore a different style will apply.
So whether you decide to let your
September/November 2015•