Now you have the opportunity to practice Active Listening Skills that will help improve overall communication with your children. It can be very helpful to parents to be able to practice new skills outside the potentially emotionally-charged interactions with children. During a more relaxed time, parents can practice new active listening skills to become better prepared for the results of active listening during emotional exchanges. This will help parents be more calm and confident with the new skills.
To practice active listening skills, it’s best to “role-play” different parent-child situations, with a parent acting as themselves in the role-play and then also taking a turn as the child during the exercise.
Healthy communication promotes connection and trust. Giving the gift of active listening can help promote stronger connection and bond between parent and child.
Marty Wolner (BA Communications – Temple University) is a Certified Parenting Educator for the Parenting Resource Education Network, and New Paradigm Training Institute in Ft. Washington, PA and the Institute for Family Professionals in Philadelphia, PA, and the parent of two teenagers.