Communicating for Results, How to calm down our children when they are angry or overly excitedCommunicating for results for me involves not just getting my children to calm down when angry or overly excited, it is also about accepting and validating their feelings. The first thing to remember is that all of ours and our child’s emotions are okay. However there are times when we need to be able to teach our kids to calm themselves down before the feelings lead to the unacceptable behaviours that we sometimes see. This article on communicating for results is all about how to do this in an effective yet still loving and supportive way. To heighten our children’s positive emotional experiences we mirror the body language they use. If you want to read more on this click on using body language in communication However, when communicating for results this technique is no good because this time we want to change or calm down our children’s emotions. So the first rule when trying to calm down our kids is not to mirror their emotions. If they are yelling you are only feeding their anger by shouting back at them. Instead this is the time we need to be the sensible adult who has control of our emotions. In this calm state we need to do the following: With older children the calm voice might not initially be successful. When I talked to angry callers as a telephone counselor we often would raise our voices initially to a level just below the callers. The tone we would use would be one of upset or anger but not yet out of control. And our words were always something to the effect that we understood and could see that they were really angry. The important point here is that we didn’t buy into the anger or judge the caller for being angry we simply stated how we could see that the caller was upset. This would convey understanding to the caller, once we have this rapport we would then start to bring the tonality of our voice back to a calm and even state. These techniques work just as well with our children. The younger children need our calm voice straight away. However as our children become older and especially for teenagers we need to convey understanding and respect for their feelings in a more adult way. So when communicating for results with our older children we may need to remember to raise our voices a little to a level that is just under the intensity of their emotions before trying to calm them down. Using body language in communication with our children is a skill that is easy to develop. However when starting out it can seem a little uncomfortable and strange, so give your self some time to develop the techniques discussed. One final thing to remember is that all of us are unique. So remember to tailor the body language you use for each person to their unique way of using their body and voice to communicate. And of course enjoy and have fun developing these skills to learn the art of communicating for results.
Although our non verbal clues account for as much as 93% of all of our communication with our children our words still do count. To read more ways on communicating for results using both our words and body language check out these other article
Improving Communication Skills
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