Observing Communication

Yesterday, the weather man issued a winter weather advisory for our area. And as I looked in the cabinets to see what we needed, I made a list and ventured out to the grocery store to get some items.  A few minutes into my shopping I observed a family of five. They included a mom, dad, two sons and a daughter. One of the sons was sitting in the cart the other was walking next to the daughter. Mom and Dad were talking to each other about what kind of meat they should get. The children were busy looking at what was being put in the shopping cart. The daughter, who appeared to be the oldest, interrupted her parents to ask if she could get a bag of cookies. At first, they ignored her request; I’m not sure if the parents were deliberately ignoring the daughter’s request, or if they were just so involved in their own conversation that they really didn’t hear her. She persisted and persisted in a louder voice. Eventually, mom turned around and tells her to “shut up. “The son that was walking looked at his dad and is asking for ice cream. The dad reminds the son that it is supposed to rain and sleet and that the lights could go out, and that means that things in the fridge and freezer will go bad, maybe they could decide on a snack that can be kept in the pantry. The son immediately made his request for a bag of candy. Dad took him by the hand and they walked down the candy aisle. The daughter seeing this asked why he got to get candy and she couldn’t get a bag of cookies.

Watching these two parents and children, I noticed the daughter’s request went unnoticed, maybe because she persisted, where as her brother, look and asked. I also noticed that the mother was abrupt with responding to the daughter, she could have responded in a softer tone of voice and maybe offered to help the daughter pick a specific type of cookies. The father response did not surprise me; dads are usually easier going when it comes to their kids. And not to talk stereotypical, but mom probably deals with the kids and grocery shopping more than the dad and therefore just reacted (although I didn’t care for her choice of words) out of the situation. Crowded store, people with children, probably just getting off work, and picking the kids up from after school care programs.

Children need to feel respected, and they need to feel grounded in themselves and accepted for who they are, and heard. Children communicate, really, all different ways and use their bodies so much that if you're sensitive, you can really pick up cues about how to communicate (Laureate Education, Inc. Producer. 2011). The conversation I observed between these parents and their children was different from the way I would communicate with children. First I would never tell a child to “shut up.” I think that’s such a strong word with negative undertone. I would have been communicating with all of the children   throughout the shopping trip. I learned that there is no reason to raise your voice when talking to a child, especially when you are not being attentive to that child. Children are only persistent when their requests are ignored.  The lesson I learned regarding communicating with children is listen more than talk. We can learn so much more from listening than talking. As the old saying goes, we were born with two ears and one mouth, therefore we should listen twice as much as we speak.

Reference:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer).

 “Communicating with Young Children”

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