Why Is It Difficult for Parents and Children to Communicate - Research Paper Example

Why Is It Difficult For Parents And Children To Communicate? Introduction The communication process persisting within a family signifies sharing of thoughts, viewpoints, opinions along with ideas within the family members. A proper line of communication between parents and their respective children is necessary for the evolution of new ideas as well as concepts. Communication within a family can be of multiple types. It might be of verbal, non-verbal and expressive type at certain times or conditions. It is worth mentioning that communication between parents and their children is quite vital in terms of strengthening family bonding. Proper communication between parents and children also project that they hold individual value to the family, which in turn helps in developing their overall confidence level by a considerable level (New Mexico State University, n.d.). However, it becomes quite difficult for the parents to maintain a smooth communication with their children specifically during the adolescent stage. In this particular stage, the parents and the children experience much tension, which eventually results in deteriorating the parent-child relationship to a major extent (Swerdlow-Freed Psychology, P.C, 2014). With this concern, the prime intention of this research paper is to identify along with discuss about the various stress related factors that are faced by the children during their childhood stage, which results in improper parent-child communication. The various sorts of parent-child communication issues would be presented in this research paper with the aim of determining about why it often becomes quite difficult for parents and their children to communicate in an effective manner. Discussion Types of Parent-Child Communication Issues Adolescent Stage Issues. As already discussed above, parent-child communication issues mostly occur during the adolescent stage of the children. During this stage, every child desires to be independent in terms of taking own decisions and act accordingly. In this stage, every child starts demanding for his/her own individuality within the family and friends circle, resulting in raising disturbances and tensions at large (Swerdlow-Freed Psychology, P.C, 2014). Thus, in this regard, it often becomes much difficult for parents and children to communicate. Ignorance from Parents. At certain times, it can be seen that the communication link between parents and children also get decimated due to the ignorance made by the parents towards the children. Majorly, it is observed that due to the lower level of family income, the parents of the children are forced to work outside. This eventually gives rise to situations wherein the children spend a majority portion of their entire day either alone or with their friends. Even, if they need to discuss any sort of issue with their parents, they are not paid due attention to solve those in an effective manner. Thus, due to facing these kinds of situations over prolonged period of time, the children often becomes frustrated, resulting in raising conflicts within the family. In such cases, it is necessary that the parents provide equal time to the children in order to listen to their issues and advice or support them accordingly (Zolten, n.d.). Negative or Inappropriate Response from the Parents. In multiple cases, it has also been seen that in order to settle such parent-child conflict, the parents often use negative or punishing techniques with the intention of rectifying their child’s mistakes. This often results in laying significant impact on the psychology of the child and thus the child avoids communicating or sharing his/ her feelings with the parents. For instance, with the fear of being scolded by his/ her parents, a child will often try to hide his/her lower marked report card. In these cases, the parents need to understand the consequence level of the child’s mistake and counsel him accordingly in order to show him/her a proper track (Zolten, n.d.). Lower Importance Provided By Parents to School Problems Faced By Children. Multiple studies have projected that children during their school days often face numerous problems that lay significant impact on their psychological and sometimes on their physical health. These problems include children being bullied by their classmates, depression, lack of self-confidence, stress due to excessive study loads, physical health of the child and anger management issues. Children often fear that their teachers will be complaining about them to their parents and that they will be receiving punishment for that. As a result, they starts hiding such issues from their parents, which in turn hampers the smoothness in the communication process between the parents and the child (Raising Children Network (Australia) Limited, 2010). Children Hiding Issues From Parents. In the current scenario, multiple cases related to physical or sexual harassment of children are coming up. In majority of the cases, the child feels irritated and uncomfortable in terms of discussing these matters with his/her parents. They fear that they will receive severe punishment for revealing these sorts of issues to their parents and thus often try to hide them. The children even start misbehaving on being asked to share these problems with their parents. This hampers the parent-child relationship to a major extent in terms of communication between them. The children start getting isolated from their parents to avoid interactions. This often results in emerging various psychological and physical problems within children from a very early stage, the consequences of which might become severe in future. In certain scenarios, the parents need to be careful and make the child understand in a soft manner rather than implementing harsh techniques (American Humane Association, 2013). Parents Distinguishing Between Children. It can be apparently observed that in families having two or more kids, parents often remains much bias in terms of providing equal attention to every child. Children in their early stage mostly seek attention and try to prove their value above their siblings. Thus, in this context, biasness in parental attention often adds up to make the situation more deteriorating (Vision.org, 2011). In this case, the less preferred child often feels unattended by his / her parents and starts isolating himself / herself in terms of attending in any sort of family meeting or discussion session with the parents. Rather, they start committing certain ill-mannered actives for gaining attention. This process has been also found as a major cause of mental and emotional issues faced by the children. It even leads to hamper communication prevailing between the parents and the children (Vision.org, 2011). Conflicts between Parents. Communication type between the parents also plays a decisive role in terms of determining the relationship between the parents and the children. Children often feel irritated due to regular conflict and arguments prevail between their parents. Moreover, due to this sort of inter-parent arguments, the parents start avoiding the children and thus fail in providing necessary attention to them. With the passage of time, the children gradually start avoiding their parents and stops discussing their issues with them (St. Matthews Baptist Church, 2006). Thus, the entire communication process between the parents and their children gets affected. Ignorance to Children’s Opinions. This type of problem has been in continuation within every family since long. Moreover, this problem can also be duly considered as one of the major issues, which results in making the communication process between the parents and the children much more difficult. Since past, multiple parents have always projected a tendency of being ignorant towards the opinions placed by their children. They tend to believe that the opinions of their children will not be much effective and thus result in failure. This often makes the children to lose interest and confidence on their parents (Davey, 2010). In such situation, children often starts limiting themselves from participating in any sort of family discussion and even stops listening to their parent’s advice. They start behaving as per their own liking and thinking and to a major extent end up being in troublesome situations (Davey, 2010). In such cases, it is necessary that the parents take the opinions of their children into concern in terms of making any sort of family decision. This helps in making the children to feel that they are valued within the family. Moreover, this might significantly help the children in improvising their decision-making capabilities along with maintaining a steady communication with the parents (Davey, 2010). Thus, the above discussed situations eventually demonstrate the difficulty for the parents and the children to communicate in an effectual manner. Conclusion As per the above analysis and discussion, a projection of the types of conflicts that normally arise between the children and their parents can be ascertained. All these sorts of conflict eventually contribute towards hampering the bonding between the parents and their children to a major extent. As a result of parent-child instability, a child starts avoiding communicating with his/her respective parents, which further worsen the situation. As a corrective step, it is quite necessary that the parents spend specific amount of time with their children on daily basis in order to understand the problems or the issue and subsequently discuss with them about how they would overcome from such difficult scenarios. Through this way, the communication procedure between the parents and the children can be developed at large. References American Humane Association. (2013). Child sexual abuse. Retrieved from http://www.americanhumane.org/children/stop-child-abuse/fact-sheets/child-sexual-abuse.html Davey, C. (2010). Children’s participation in decision-making: a summary report on progress made up to 2010. Children’s Rights Alliance for England, 4-8. New Mexico State University. (n.d.). Communication is the key to healthy family relationships. Family Times, 1-4. Raising Children Network (Australia) Limited. (2010). Problems at school: the basics. Retrieved from http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/school_problems_teenagers.html Swerdlow-Freed Psychology, P.C. (2014). Improving communication between parents and teenagers. Retrieved from http://www.drswerdlow-freed.com/articles/improving-communication-between-parents-and-teenagers/ St. Matthews Baptist Church. (2006). Parent/child conflict. Retrieved from http://www.stmatthewsbc.org/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=3386&view=post&articleid=28678 Vision.org. (2011). Parenting issues: playing favourites. Retrieved from http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/parenting-issues/family-favoritism/43568.aspx Zolten, K. (n.d.). Parent/child communication. Center for Effective Parenting, 1-4. Read More