AnalysisofEffectiveStrategiesofCommunication
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Transcript of AnalysisofEffectiveStrategiesofCommunication
Chloe McDaniel
810606771
02/24/2016
HDFS 4860
Analysis of Effective Strategies of Communication
The ways we communicate with children vary greatly depending on their age. As
children acquire more developmental abilities, we can alter our communication strategies to
appropriately convey a message.
Infant communication is very different from communicating with an 18 year old. Since
infants and toddlers have a very limited vocabulary, certain types of verbal communication are
not usually effective in order to guide their behavior. For instance, using imessages directed
towards a 6 month old would not have the same effect as on a school aged child. Back home, I
volunteered in the nursery at church, and on one occasion, I saw one of the teachers talking to a
baby and trying to explain to it what it did wrong, but the baby just looked away. The baby could
not not understand the teacher’s words. Recent studies show that newborns can discriminate
between facial expressions, and they will even respond positively to a smiling face while
becoming upset or avoiding an angry or frowning face. For my infancy and prenatal
development class, I went into the McPhaul center to test this theory. The experiment began by
playing normally with an infant between the ages of 2 and 9 months for two minutes. Then, I was
required to remain still faced and terminate all physical contact for two minutes. I could then
return to playing with the infant normally. When I was smiling and playing with the baby, she
was alert, smiling, and babbling. When I my face dropped, she looked confused and began to
look around her. As my dull face persisted, she cried, but upon smiling and resuming play, she
returned to her joyful babbling and fully alert state. This showed how although a baby may not
understand a verbal message, they can perceive facial expressions and determine appropriate
behaviors based on an adult’s face.
The Guiding Young Children book describes the situation of Kim and Josh to exemplify
indirect guidance. The form of communication here is not the typical adult to child relationship.
This involves preplanning and thinking ahead to enrich the learning space for a child. In the
situation mentioned previously, Josh is disabled but he has a space at the table to join Kim and
work on puzzles positioned conveniently on a shelf close by. The teacher was able to set up the
room in a manner that facilitated independence and autonomy for the students, especially in the
case of a child in a wheelchair who may get left out of many activities due to his disability.
Indirect guidance involves managing the space provided to guide the activities of the children
and inhibit inappropriate behaviors. When a classroom is arranged to keep children entertained
and to direct them to behave in a certain way, there is less of a chance for them act in
inappropriate ways. An ineffective method of communication for preschoolers would be through
praise. These children are beginning to develop a sense of self and identity. They are in Erikson’s
stage of initiative vs guilt. They are learning their control over the world around them and
learning what makes them feel either good or bad. Often times, a young child in this age group
will look to an adult to tell them how something should make them feel. I babysit a four year old
boy who always comes running to me to ask how his painting looks or if I like his new dinosaur
toys. He is constantly looking for the approval of adults while he could be learning what makes
him happy. If someone were to tell him that they did not like his painting, he would be less likely
to paint again, even if he personally really enjoyed the act of painting. Conversely, if I were to
tell Tommy I like his painting, he may only continue painting to get my approval.
School aged children are more developmentally capable of understanding the reasons
behind certain rules or things adults say. Because of this, it is very important for adults to be very
careful in their verbal interactions with these children. Even the younger school aged children
respond to imessages rather than youmessages. Izzie, the 8 year old that I nanny for during the
week, is known to her parents as a problem child. She talks back, gets defensive, and says mean
things to her parents, but after observing an argument between Izzie and her mom, I began
noticing the ineffective way her mother was communicating with her. Her mom was getting on
to her for lying about her homework, and Izzie was arguing back incessantly. Throughout the
conversation Izzie’s mom was using phrases such as “You never do what you’re supposed to” or
“You should be held back a grade if you don’t know how to do this assignment.” Most of the
mom’s side of the conversation was threatening or condescending while Izzie was defensive and
angry. After a long time out, Izzie came back to her homework still huffy and upset, while her
mother was still acting irritated and annoyed with her. Her homework was eventually finished
but not well and everyone was in a bad mood for the rest of the night. The opposite strategy to
this would be expressing primary feelings, including hurt or fear, rather than secondary
emotions, such as anger, through imessages. Sometimes children do not realize that you may
have felt a certain emotion out of love for them. In the PET book, there is an example of a 6 year
old child who kept hitting his baby brother on the head with a tennis racket. Although the mother
initially responded by undershooting her feelings, she corrected her response and realized that by
expressing her intense fear that the tennis racket could injure the baby that she was mad that
someone big would hurt someone small, she could convey her emotions in a way that the little
boy could understand. When a child sees that their actions have an effect on the adult’s emotions
and when they learn that there is a good reason they are not permitted to act in a certain way,
they are less likely to repeat the action.
When a child reaches adolescence, they are beginning to feel closer to adulthood and old
enough to make decisions and an identity for themselves. They have emotions and opinions
separate to those of their parents or other authority figures. My middle child that I nanny for has
just entered adolescence. She has grown and changed so much in these past few years, but
sometimes it is hard to remember that she is developing her own sense of self and that my
actions and responses to what she says affect the way she views herself. She is in an awkward
place where she needs independence and space but also affection and emotional intimacy. One
day earlier in the school year, she came home in a terrible mood. She did not speak the whole car
ride from school, and upon arrival home, she refused to do homework was very mean to me, but
after sitting with her in her room and letting her vent to me about her week at school, I
understood why she was feeling that way. Using active listening, I was able to deduct that some
girls had been mean to her at school and that she was feeling very insecure in who she was as a
teenage girl. The act of active listening allowed me to express my concern and showed her that I
think her thoughts matter. She knew she had my undivided attention, and she was able to say
everything she had pent up inside. Teenagers need to feel that they are important and respected,
but also that they are trusted to be independent. On the other hand, parents or adults who use
criticism or judging to communicate with their adolescent children has the opposite effect. This
belittles them and makes them feel as though their thoughts and feelings are insignificant. My
sister Rachel is 5 years older than me. She has always been the independent and responsible
child in the family, and when she went away to college, she decided that she was more mature
and could act as a second mom to me. Anything I did, she would tell me how immature my
thinking was or how I would understand when I was older. My interactions with her caused me
to avoid spending time with her, and I lost a lot of respect for her. Even today, when I am with
her, she makes me feel like a child when she should be helping me build my own identity and
welcoming me into the adult world.
The ways we communicate differ enormously even from year to year. Each method of
communication must be modeled or altered to reach the correct audience. An infant who has not
yet developed their language abilities will be a very inappropriate candidate for active or passive
listening, but an adolescent would fare very well in a situation where an adult utilizes these
strategies. Likewise, a school aged child who is learning about the environment around them and
how their actions affect it would respond well to imessages while a toddler would have a harder
time understanding this form of communication. However, all of these interactions leave the
child feeling respected and loved. Each child, no matter what age, should be guided in a way that
gives them proper reasons for appropriate and inappropriate behavior.