How to Speak to Children

We would like to say “Don’t talk down to your children”, but then that would be against one of the guidelines we feel are important, ie. that noone but yourself knows how to best parent their child.

However, we have found that explaining the consequences of the behaviour you wish to improve, greatly improves the responsiveness of a child.

For instance, if your child is eating with a knife and putting the knife in their mouth. Explain the reasons behind good table manners, what people will think of your child if they have poor eating etiquette and the painful consequences of cutting one’s lip, mouth, or tongue.

Such an explanation will take more longer initially, but hopefully will only need to be explained once, and will hopefully save time in the long run and lots of “Don’ts” that may not have the desired effect.

Another aspect to this is literally “Don’t talk down to children”, ie. children will be much more responsive if you kneel or crouch down so that your head is roughly at the same height as theirs is, when you are speaking to them.

And of course, the other aspect of “Don’t talk down to children”, is to show them the respect they deserve. They may be small people learning their way in this world, but they have as much right to be here as the adults. Showing them the respect and honour they deserve will go a long way in having them respect you as their parent.