These Notes are late, after a full on week which included a couple of meaningful meetings and a great conversation with a client that blew my mind and really made me reflect and think about the details of communicating with parents.
Communication was a hot topic of last week, largely because it is an increasingly important part of my work with parents and I know how easy it can be to miss things out and to get things wrong.
Good communication helps with:
realistic expectations - so you can plan and prepare. And this need varies from person to person, more neurodiverse people might need more details to feel informed, supported and ready. We all different so it can be important to ask questions, to gather the information you need and to feedback how communication could be made better.
assumptions - it isn’t helpful when practitioners, health care professionals and service providers make assumptions about needs and questions. As a practitioner, I understand the common themes and questions but I never try to assume what someone could be struggling with or what they are curious to know more about. Listening is a really powerful communication skill.
powerful conversations can be had when we keep things simple. Whether it’s an individual chat or a small group, there’s a real art to not over complicating it. Taking over, leading the topic and controlling the conversation stops it from flowing which gives no benefit to the people we are talking to.
Effective communication is often overlooked. which is why I think it is important to feedback experiences and needs so it is given more consideration.
Communication and connection is really important to me, I try to learn from the parents I work with so I can reach and work with them in a way that makes a difference to how informed, supported and reassured they feel.
I would love to hear your comments, experiences and thoughts about this because everything is communication.
Focusing on you
what are you finding challenging at the moment?
how are you dealing with these challenges?
what are you doing well?
what are you grateful for?
It can help to bring really quick and simple breathing skills into your day. This can help with calm and focus and to manage stress and anxiety. Using it during your day can help it to become a familiar and easy to use skill.
Please do leave me a comment and you can also work with me if it would be helpful to talk things through.
Excellent post on communication. Open-ended questions are a powerful yet not commonly used style of questioning that illicit much more engaging conversations.