Appendix 5 - 12 Communication Roadblocks: A Catalog of Effects

12 Communication Roadblocks: A Catalog of Effects of the Typical Ways Parents Respond to Children

1. ORDERING, DIRECTING, COMMANDING

   These messages tell a child that his feelings or needs are not important; he must comply with what his parent feels or needs. ("I don't care what you want to do; come into the house this minute.")

   They communicate non-acceptance of the child as he is at the moment. ("Stop fidgeting around.")

   They produce fear of the parent's power. The child hears a threat of getting hurt by someone bigger and stronger than he. ("Go to your room-- and if you don't, I'll see to it that you get there.")

   They may make the child feel resentful or angry, frequently causing him to express hostile feelings, throw a tantrum, fight back, resist, test the parent's will.

   They can communicate to the child that the parent does not trust the child's own judgment or competence. ("Don't touch that dish." "Stay away from your baby brother.")

2. WARNING, ADMONISHING, THREATENING

   These messages can make a child feel fearful and submissive. ("If you do that, you'll be sorry.")

   They can evoke resentment and hostility in the same way that ordering, directing, and commanding do. ("If you don't get to bed right away, you're going to get spanked.")

   They can communicate that the parent has no respect for the child's needs or wishes. ("If you don't stop playing that drum, I'm going to get really upset.")

   Children sometimes respond to warnings or threats by saying, "I don't care what happens, I still feel this way."

   These messages also invite the child to test the firmness of the parent's threat.

   Children sometimes are tempted to do something that they have been warned against, just to see for themselves if the consequences promised by the parent actually happen.

3. EXHORTING, MORALIZING, PREACHING

   Such messages bring to bear on the child the power of external authority, duty, or obligation.

   Children may respond to such "shoulds," "oughts," and "musts" by resisting and defending their posture even more strongly.

   They may make a child feel the parent does not trust his judgment-- that he had better accept what "others" deem is right. ("You ought to do the right thing.")

   They may cause feelings of guilt in a child-- that he is "bad." ("You shouldn't think that way.")

   They may make a child feel the parent does not trust his ability to evaluate the validity of others' blueprints or values. ("You should always respect your teachers.")

4. ADVISING, GIVING SUGGESTIONS OR SOLUTIONS

   Such messages are often felt by the child as evidence that the parent does not have confidence in the child's judgment or ability to find his own solution.

   They may influence a child to become dependent on the parent and to stop thinking for himself. ("What should I do, Daddy?")

   Sometimes children strongly resent parents' ideas or advice. ("Let me figure this out myself." "I don't want to be told what to do.")

   Advice sometimes communicates your attitudes of superiority to the child. ("Your mother and I know what's best.")

   Children can also acquire a feeling of inferiority. ("Why didn't I think of that?" "You always know better what to do.")

   Advice can make a child feel his parent has not understood him at all. ("You wouldn't suggest that if you really knew how I felt.")

   Advice sometimes results in the child's devoting all his time reacting to the parents' ideas to the exclusion of developing his own ideas.

5. LECTURING, GIVING LOGICAL ARGUMENTS

   The act of trying to teach another often makes the "student" feel you are making him look inferior, subordinate, inadequate. ("You always think you know everything.")

   Logic and facts often make a child defensive and resentful. ("You think I don't know that?")

   Children, like adults, seldom like to be shown they are wrong. Consequently, they defend their position to the bitter end. ("You're wrong, I'm right." "You can't convince me.")

   Children generally, hate parental lectures. ("They go on and on and I have to just sit there and listen.")

   Children often resort to desperate methods of discounting parental facts. ("Well, you are just too old to know what's going on." "Your ideas are totally outdated and old-fashioned." "You're a geek.")

   Often children already know very well the facts parents insist on teaching them, and resent the implication that they are uninformed. ("I know all of that-- you don't need to tell me.")

   Sometimes children choose to ignore facts. ("I don't care." "So what." "It won't happen to me.")

6. JUDGING, CRITICIZING, DISAGREEING, BLAMING

   These messages, probably more than any of the others, make children feel inadequate, inferior, stupid, unworthy, bad.

   A child's self-concept gets shaped by parental judgment and evaluation. As the parent judges the child, so will the child judge himself. ("I heard so often that I was bad, I began to feel I must be bad.")

   Negative criticism evokes counter-criticism. ("I've seen you do the same thing." "You're not so hot yourself.")

   Evaluation strongly influences children to keep their feelings to themselves or to hide things from their parents. ("If I told them I'd just be criticized.")

   Children, like adults, hate to be judged negatively. They respond with defensiveness, simply to protect their own self-image. Often they become angry and feel hatred toward the evaluating parent, even if the judgment is correct.

   Frequent evaluation and criticism make some children feel that they are no good and that the parents do not love them.

7. PRAISING, AGREEING

   Contrary to the common belief that praise is always beneficial to children, it often has very negative effects. A positive evaluation that does not fit the child's self-image may evoke hostility: "I am not pretty, I'm ugly." "I hate my hair." "I did not play well, I was lousy."

   Children infer that if a parent judges positively, they can also judge negatively some other time. Also, the absence of praise in a family where praise is used frequently can be interpreted by the child as criticism. ("You didn't say anything nice about my hair so you must not like it.")

   Praise is often felt by the child as manipulative-- a subtle way of influencing the child to do what the parent wants. ("You're just saying that so I'll study harder.")

   Children sometimes infer that their parents don't understand them when they praise. ("You wouldn't say that if you knew how I really felt about myself.")

   Children are often embarrassed and uncomfortable when praise is given, especially in front of their friends. ("Oh, Daddy, that's not true!")

   Children who are praised a lot may grow to depend on it and even demand it. ("You didn't say anything about my cleaning up my room." "How do I look, Mother?" "Wasn't I a good little boy?" "Isn't that a good drawing?")

8. NAME-CALLING, RIDICULING, SHAMING

   Such messages can have a devastating effect on the self-image of a child. They can make a child feel unworthy, bad, unloved. The most frequent response of children to such messages is to give one back to the parent. ("And you're a big nag." "Look who's calling who lazy.")

   When a child gets such a message from a parent who is trying to influence him, he is much less likely to change by looking at himself realistically.

   Instead, he can zero in on the parent's unfair message and excuse himself. ("I do not look like a loser. That's ridiculous and unfair.")

9. INTERPRETING, ANALYZING, DIAGNOSING

   Such messages communicate to the child that the parent has him "figured out," knows what his motives are or why he is behaving the way he is. Such parental psychoanalyzing can be threatening and frustrating to the child.

   If the parent's analysis or interpretation happens to be accurate, the child may feel embarrassed at being so exposed. ("You are not having dates because you are too shy." "You are doing that just to get attention.")

   When the parent's analysis or interpretation is wrong, as it more often is, the child will become angry at being accused unjustly. ("I am not jealous-- that's ridiculous.")

   Children often pick up an attitude of superiority on the part of the parent. ("You think you know so much.")

   Parents who frequently analyze their children communicate to them that the parents feel superior, wiser, cleverer.

   The "I know why" and "I can see through you" messages frequently cut off further communication from the child at the moment, and teach the child to refrain from sharing problems with his parents.

10. REASSURING, SYMPATHIZING, CONSOLING, SUPPORTING

    Such messages are not as helpful as most parents believe.

    To reassure a child when he is feeling disturbed about something may simply convince him that you don't understand him. ("You couldn't say that if you knew how scared I am.")

    Parents reassure and console because they are not comfortable with their child's feeling hurt, upset, discouraged, and the like. Such messages tell a child that you want him to stop feeling the way he does. ("Don't feel bad, things will turn out all right.")

    Children can see through parents' reassurances as attempts to change them and often distrust the parent. ("You're just saying that to make me feel better.")

    Discounting or sympathizing often stops further communication because the child senses you want him to stop feeling the way he does.

11. PROBING, QUESTIONING, INTERROGATING

    To ask questions may convey to children your lack of trust, your suspicion or doubt. ("Did you wash your hands like I told you?")

    Children also see through some questions as attempts "to get them out on a limb," only to have it sawed off by the parent. ("How long did you study? Only an hour. Well, you deserve a 'C' on that exam.")

    Children often feel threatened by questions, especially when they don't understand why the parent is questioning them. Note how often children say, "Why are you asking that?" or "What are you driving at?"

    If you question a child who is sharing a problem with you, he may suspect that you are gathering data to solve his problem for him, rather than let him find his own solution. ("When did you start feeling this way? Does it have anything to do with school? How is school?")

    Children frequently do not want their parents to come up with answers to their problems: "If I tell my parents, they will only tell me what I should do."

    When you ask questions of someone who is sharing a problem with you, each question limits the person's freedom to talk about whatever he wants to-- in a sense each question dictates his next message.

    If you ask, "When did you notice this feeling?" you are telling the person to talk only about the onset of the feeling and nothing else.

    This is why being cross-examined as by a lawyer is so terribly uncomfortable-- you feel you must tell your story exactly as demanded by his questions.

    So interrogating is not at all a good method of facilitating another's communication; rather, it can severely limit his freedom.

12. WITHDRAWING, DISTRACTING, HUMORING, DIVERTING

    Such messages can communicate to the child that you are not interested in him, don't respect his feelings, or are downright rejecting him.

    Children are generally quite serious and intent when they need to talk about something. When you respond with kidding, you can make them feel hurt and rejected.

    Putting children off or diverting their feelings may for the moment appear successful, but a person's feelings do not always go away. They often crop up later. Problems put off are seldom problems solved.

    Children, like adults, want to be heard and understood respectfully. If their parents brush them aside, they soon learn to take their important feelings and problems elsewhere.