This is part two of a two part series on effective communication with young children. You can find part one here.

As I’m sure you gathered by now, this is a post about communicating with young children. My original draft of this post was entirely too long for my taste so I split it into two. Last week, I posted a part one and this week I’m sharing the rest with you. The following tips are things I’ve learned in the last 15 years of working with children. Tried and true, they’re bound to make your interactions with your children much smoother.

Avoid sarcasm; be direct

Sarcasm is a form of wit based on mockery and derision. Think about a time when you were in conflict with someone close to you, a friend, a partner, a sibling, and they used sarcasm to make a point. It doesn’t feel very good, does it? And the sting is all the more painful due to the closeness of your relationship. Young children aren’t yet capable of understanding the subtlety of sarcasm, but they can tell when something’s not quite right. One study says that kids can begin to notice sarcasm at age 6 but don’t fully understand the meaning until around age 10.

There are just too many hoops to jump through to get to the intended message and instead kids are left confused by the tone of the snide comment. “Wow, thank you so much for writing all over our brand new chair. Oh, you used a Sharpie? Fantastic,” may just result in more writing on your furniture. Instead, try something more direct like “We only write and draw on paper/canvas/art materials. The chair is not for drawing on. I need your help to clean this up.” This is much more likely to result in your expectations being followed and you won’t confuse your child in the process.

Be aware of your countenance

This is similar to sarcasm and respectful behavior. Kids pick up on facial cues and vocal tone from a young age. You can be real with your kids — maybe you were late for work and spilled your coffee all over yourself right before an important meeting then went to your car to find you got a parking ticket and traffic was terrible and you got home to see that your dog got into the trash again — but don’t let your problems become their problems by taking your frustration out on them. Try to cheer up for them; it might even make you feel better too.

Give them autonomy

When you think of autonomy, you probably think of Elon Musk and Google and autonomous vehicles which is super fun, but autonomy for children is absolutely essential. Autonomy in the context of childhood is simply allowing children to make decisions for themselves. Imagine going through life without ever being able to make any decisions, even down to what clothes you wear or what dishes you use. In the grand scheme of things, does it really matter that your children’s clothes match every day? Does it really matter which cup they use for their milk? Avoid the fights by letting them dress themselves, choose their dishes, pick their after school at home activities, etc. Give children opportunities to make choices and they’ll feel more in control of their lives and be less likely to have meltdowns when they don’t get to choose. Even in situations where kids don’t get to choose for themselves, you can create choices within the routine to ease the tension. “I know you don’t want to go to school. Do you want to skip to the car or hop?”

Get on their level — physically and otherwise

I have two theories on why getting on a child’s physical level by squatting or kneeling helps reinforce your message: one is about easing power dynamics and the other is about showing basic respect.

Power dynamics
Most people would agree that meeting someone who is much taller than they are can be intimidating. Even my 6 foot 3 inch husband feels oddly uncomfortable when he meets someone taller than him. Unfortunately, one of the ugly truths of Western civilization is that people use their height and physical strength for power. (People have actually been studying heightism for decades and it seems that it might stem from a “survival of the fittest” evolutionary mentality.) Since kids are shorter than nearly everyone they interact with, you can give them a break from feeling powerless by making yourself smaller. Simply by squatting down you can put your child at ease and make them feel more equal.

Respect
Typically, in American culture, one of the most respectful things you can do during conversation is to look people in the eyes when they’re speaking to you. That said, looking someone in the eyes can be super intimidating and uncomfortable and by no means should you expect a very young child to do so, but by lowering your own body to their height, you exhibit that same type of respect to them. It sends the message that you respect them enough to make the effort to meet them where they are.

Speaking of meeting children where they are, this also applies to their level of development. Just like you might not understand or want to hear a dissertation about concrete, asphalt, and the environment upon being told you can’t park in certain area, kids don’t need to hear dissertations on why they can or can’t do a certain thing — they’ll just tune out. Obviously this is dependent on your own child’s development and there are always outliers but in general, there’s a simple way to remember how to approach explanations:  less years, less words.

Acknowledge their emotions and help them name it

The biggest disadvantage to being little is having a limited vocabulary with which to express your feelings. Stay emotionally present with your children to help them understand their feelings. Say your four year old comes home from preschool and is upset because her friends didn’t want to play with her that day. Instead of going into Mama/Papa Bear mode and projecting your own feelings onto your child, help her process her feelings. If the mood is right, gently try to gain a better understanding of the situation. Maybe she wanted to play astronauts and they wanted to play kitties. Maybe she was feeling disappointed, sad, or angry that her friends didn’t want to play. Help her find the word to how she’s feeling and empathize with her. Sometimes all it takes for a child to feel better is to vent and feel heard.

If I could sum up everything I’ve told you here . . . if I could give you one very basic instruction on communicating with your children, it would be this:  remember about your two-, three-, four-, five-year-old? They’ve spent less time on this earth than some of us spent in college. They’re new at this thing called Life. Cut them some slack. Be patient. Be understanding. Be compassionate. But most importantly, treat them the way you want to be treated.

Did you try out any strategies from part one?
Are you planning on trying some from part two?
Do you use any strategies that aren’t listed here?
Let me know in the comments!