Member Advice on Communicating with your Child

I've always prided myself on being able to talk to my mother about nearly anything. Even now, as I'm about to go off to college as an almost 19 year old, I still talk to her constantly - at night, in the car, at the table, wherever. I'm very grateful to be able to talk to her so freely most of the time, and we have a generally great relationship with it's hiccups here and there. However, there are always some things that I can never bring myself to talk about, and when that happens, I used to resort to writing letters to my parents to tell them why I was upset or angry. We never really talked ... more

***** update due to recent information***** The following is a tribute to the strength and courage shown by Holly and Jessica's family. Hopefully it will open up questions on how we talk to our children about the dangers of the outside world. I would like us all to take a moment’s silence for the two little girls Holly and Jessica and their families. I have wanted to express my feelings for a few days but it is such a difficult thing to imagine, let alone write about. How can our society allow such things to happen? How can we prevent it from happening again? I don’t think we can. Holly and ... more

There are many forms of communication with children, this opinion is just about one of them, attempting to prepare your child/ren for the big bad world. There are so many dangers out there and our children have to be made aware of them, talk to them now before it's too late. As a couple of my close friends on Ciao already know my oldest son, Lee, was the victim of an attempted abduction just before Xmas last year. It inspired me to write in this section. One Friday around 4pm, Lee, his brother and his cousin were all safe and sound in my kitchen asking me if they could stay at their Nan's ... more

Communicating with your child gets harder as they get older. I have 2 girls of different ages the eldest is 12 and in the first year of high school. The youngest is 4 and will start school in September; she is the easiest to communicate with. Although she is very opininated and knows her own mind she more or less believes everything her parents tell her unless her big sister steps in (we won't go into that). I believe you don't lie to your children if they are old enough to ask a question then they are old enough to have it answered. (it may have to be limited to their age). This I believe ... more

I have been inspired to write my thoughts on this subject by an op in the same category by pagan, who wrote about how you would attempt to explain to children what had been happening in America with the terrorist bombings. As someone who left teaching in August, thankfully, I wasn’t in the position of teaching children who were coming in asking me all about the bombings, and what was going on. I do remember the Gulf War, and how children were coming in with comments such as ‘Bomb Iraq’, ‘blow them all up’ and so forth which ha unfortunately come from listening to ... more