Effective communication skills are critical to achieving success in our every day lives. The ability to express yourself clearly can make the difference between a successful outcome and one that is less so. The same principles apply not just in our professional relationships, but in our personal ones including parenting.
Sophia has recently ushered herself into the age of terrible two’s or trying threes or whatever you’d like to call it. As such, we’ve had to adjust our discipline strategies to address and cope with this age. We have introduced the words “upset” and “disappointed” to convey our displeasure. Though, as my mother-in-law pointed out, we cannot or rather should not say that we’re upset with her or disappointed in her. Instead, we are disappointed in her behavior and upset with her behavior. It seemed obvious that this is our sentiment, but we have to make sure that we communicate ourselves clearly and that we do not lead her to believe that we are disappointed in her.
Children’s emotional well-being is and should be of the utmost importance and accurate communication is the key to achieving that. I am very glad that my mother-in-law is perceptive enough to pick up on that and help us navigate the sometimes confusing world of disciplining your child. We are not keen on placing children into time outs. In fact, I don’t think we have placed Sophia into a single time out and view the practice as more of a time-out for the parent rather than the child. Instead, we prefer to get down to the child’s eye level and try to talk to them. Sometimes, that works, and sometimes it doesn’t.
And speaking of never being disappointed, though on a completely different topic — here’s the long-missed picture of Evan’s chicken schnitzel he made last weekend after we came back from our weekend away.
