The consulting psychologist, Ms. Lee Li Li has conducted a sharing session at Victoria International School, Banting on October 5, 2019 (Saturday) 9:00am-10.30am.

Parents often use a few different ways which include over permissive, accommodating or even criticizing to manage children’s emotions. In fact, there are different means of dealing with children with different stages of age.

Comforting and dealing with child's emotions:

0 - 1 years old
Crying is one of the interaction methods used by infants in this stage as they are in need of a sense of security. Parents have to avoid using ignorance in managing their emotions. On the contrary, parents may provide them with a sufficient sense of security by using physical interaction. For example, comforting children by touching with hands, patting their shoulders or hugging is efficient to manage their negative emotions.

2 - 3 years old
As part of language development, children begin to communicate and speak more rather than crying. Parents are suggested to communicate and interact with children with different themes of the topic in this stage of learning.

3 - 6 years old
At this stage of learning, parents have to be a good role model in cultivating a calm and peaceful state of mind among children. Parents have to pay attention to use positive words, avoiding negative words when talking to children. For example, “Please be silent” or “Please leave now”. The situation will worsen if the parents show negative emotions when children are already crying.

Parents should spend precious time for children as well as communicate more with them. The Structure of Communication can be broken down into 3 components:

Self: Let the children learn to express their feelings and needs

Other: Are parents willing to show concern and accept children’s feelings and needs as well as willing to listen and explore more?

Context: Both parties are willing to negotiate and handle all kinds of problems despite the environment and different conditions.

When there are a balance and equality among the 3 components of communication, it will ensure smooth parent-child communication.

Note: The above content is adopted from the sharing session at Victoria International School, Banting - “A talk on improving Parent-Child Relationship!” on October 5, 2019. Kindly contact our office for more information and further assistance. Thank you.