Communication: Your Part - Reflect MORE Feelings

When you correctly describe your child's feelings, your child may send you another code. As the process continues, your child moves step-by-step to a deeper level of communication.

Reflecting feelings is like a mirror, not an echo chamber. Simply parroting or echoing your child's words is not helpful. Summarising, and reflecting their feelings to them is.

Your child then sees themself more accurately and is frequently able to solve his/her own problems. When he or she DOES need your help with a problem, they will be much more receptive if they feel, from past experience, that you truly understand most of the time.

Your child needs to feel UNDERSTOOD before they will be able, and willing, to understand what YOU are saying to him/her.

If WE do not clearly understand our children, WE distort the image WE reflect back to them of themselves, and THEY gather wrong concepts about themselves.

"See what I made! See what I made Dad..." says your son...

Your reply 1: Dad ignores the statement and says "I'm busy, don't bother me now"
Your child will think "I'm not important; I'm not interesting; I'm a bother; I am not much good am I?"

Your reply 2: "Oh yes... I see you made that yourself? Why didn't you saw it off straight?"
Your child will think "I can't do anything right. I must not be much good."

Your reply 3: "You made that all by yourself? You seem proud that you could do it."
Your child will think "I must be good. I can do something by myself!"

Try it! Then try again... "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again!"
Practice makes perfect...

Your child is learning to be a whole and wholesome infant/todler/child/adolescent.
You learn to be a whole and wholesome parent.

From "Becoming a Better Parent" LDS Social Services