Pat Ritter. Books

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'Closing The Gap' - Page 14:

RATIONAL EMOTIVE THERAPY:
A very effective stress reduction technique is Rational Emotive Therapy (or RET for short). The theory behind RET indicates that there are always three elements to any behaviour.
There is the situation itself, the interpretation that you put upon that situation and the outcome.
It is suggested that the way you interpret the situation is directly related to your self image. If you are not confident of your ability to tackle a particular situation, then you may be afraid of failure. This very fear could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The more you expect to fail, the greater is the belief that you will, irrespective of your ability. The more you fail, the more you expect to fail. We then tell ourselves that we aren’t any good and we believe ourselves.
The result is a negative self image and a negative interpretation of similar situations in the future, which then leads to the expected failure.
Proponents of RET enthusiastically point out that if we can learn to fail, then by changing the messages we send to ourselves we can learn to succeed.
Once we realise that we have choices in the way we behave, then we realise that the situation itself doesn’t determine the outcome but rather, our interpretation does. Therefore, the outcome of a situation can’t and won’t change until our interpretation does, but if we change our interpretation from a negative to a positive one then we will change the outcome.
The key to changing an unfavourable outcome to a favourable outcome lies in changing our interpretation of the event.
We are always placing our interpretation on the people and events that make up our life. For example, suppose you were walking down the road and a friend jogs past. You say, ‘hello’ but your friend ignores you and keeps running.
If you have learnt to behave negatively then you are likely to put a negative interpretation on this event. The outcome will then be negative ‘well if he is that rude to me, then in future I’ll be rude to him’.
On the other hand, someone with a positive self image will put a positive interpretation on this event. The outcome will be positive ‘he must have been concentrating so hard he didn’t hear me’.
In this example, the different interpretation will certainly lead to different outcomes when these two people next meet.
Even though you have learnt to behave in a certain manner, this does not mean that it is necessarily an effective reaction. Once you are aware of being uneasy in a certain situation, you can examine your expectation of that situation. You can then change you interpretation and thus change the outcome.
RELAXATION:
One of the most natural responses to stress is relaxation. It is easy to learn and easy to use. It is effective regardless of the cause of stress. If you haven’t tried it before, try it now. Read through these instructions first and then give it a go. Perhaps you may like to make a recording and relax while you play the recording back.
Like any physical skill, practice makes perfect. The more you practice, the more effective this technique will be. Twice a day is more effective than once a day.
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'Closing The Gap' - Page 15:

RELAXATION:
One of the most natural responses to stress is relaxation. It is easy to learn and easy to use. It is effective regardless of the cause of stress. If you haven’t tried it before, try it now. Read through these instructions first and then give it a go. Perhaps you may like to make a recording and relax while you play the recording back.
Like any physical skill, practice makes perfect. The more you practice, the more effective this technique will be. Twice a day is more effective than once a day.
THE 8 MINUTE RELAXATION PLAN:
Minute 1:
In a quiet room and in a comfortable chair assume a restful position and a quiet, passive attitude.
Take four deep breaths. Make each one deeper than the one before. Hold the first inhalation for 4 seconds, the second one for 5 seconds, the third for 6 seconds and the fourth one for 7 seconds.
Pull the tension from all parts of your body into your lungs and exhale it with each expiration. Feel more relaxed with each breath.
Minute 2:
Count backwards from 10 to 0. Breathe naturally and with each exhalation, count one number and feel more and more relaxed as you approach 0.
With each count you descend a relaxation stairway and become more deeply relaxed until you are totally relaxed at 0.
Minutes 3-7:
In your mind go to a place that you find particularly pleasant and restful. Stay there for about four minutes. Visualise the beauty around you, listen to the sounds. Using all your senses try vividly but passively, to capture the feelings of that place and time.
Minute 8:
Bring your attention back to yourself. Count slowly from 0 to 10. Feel the energy, vitality and health flow through your body. Open your eyes. Feel alert and ready to resume your activities.
DIET:
The computer industry has a very explicit phrase. It is ‘garbage in, garbage out’. It’s simply means if you put useless data into the computer, you can only get useless data out. Our bodies work along the same lines.
The food we choose to nourish our body with can have a positive or a negative effect. It can assist us to live a long and full life or it can impair both our physical and mental performance.
Unfortunately many of us have learnt bad eating habits, and it is interesting to note that these bad habits were learnt from others. Therefore the example we set for our children could have a life-long effect on them.
We have the choice to be a positive or a negative influence on our children. By eating a sensible well-balanced diet, we will have a positive influence. We will also feel better, look better and in fact be better.
EXERCISE:
Exercise utilizes the energy that our body has built up for fight or flight. It is a constructive outlet for this energy. Your body will become fitter and better able to cope with a hectic lifestyle.
Parents who exercise regularly achieve both physical and emotional rewards. The physical rewards are to feel good, to have energy and be able to interact with your children in strenuous activities.
All this as well as the emotional rewards of being a positive influence on your children’s life habits, puts the argument for exercise in the essential class even if you have to alter your lifestyle to do it.
If you are saying that exercise just isn’t for you, then try relaxation and good dietary habits first. You will begin to feel better and exercise will become much easier for you.
Relaxation, diet and exercise actually have a combined effect greater than their individual contribution to your health. A small improvement in each area can make a big difference to you.
WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAY WE FEEL:
While the importance of what we have been talking about cannot be underestimated, diet, relaxation and exercise are only one side of the coin. The other side is our mental well-being. The way that we use our mind has implications for the health of our body.
Follow through this exercise. Record the following words very slowly giving yourself 30 seconds between each paragraph. Then play the recording back while you are lying on your bed or sitting in your favourite chair.
(START OF RECORDING)
Sit back and relax. Close your eyes. Let the pressures of the day fall away. Think of a favourite spot where you go to relax. Visualise yourself resting in this special place.
How does your body feel? Are you relaxed and comfortable?
Now into your idyllic scene comes someone that you care about – someone you love and trust. Someone who has given you pleasure and comfort. Visualise yourself with that special person.
How does your body feel now? Are you more comfortable and relaxed?
But then your companion moves on and a person you dislike intensely comes into your line of vision. You see that person approaching you. Closer and closer.
What is happening to your body now?
(END OF RECORDING)
After you play back the tape, relax for a minute and read on. Did you find that your pulse quickened? Were you tense? Did your muscles tighten up? If so, why did these things happen to you? Not because a person you dislike had entered into your idyllic scene. For this person isn’t actually near you. You were in no way physically threatened by this person. Then why did your body react this way?
Your body reacts this way because your mind cannot always tell the difference between what you see and experience in reality, and what you see and vividly experience in your imagination.
As far as your mind is concerned, this person actually came into your personal space. The person didn’t do anything to you and was never going to do anything to you, but his presence in your imagination was enough to trigger a stress reaction in your body.
If someone was looking at you while you were doing this exercise, they may have noticed tightening of the facial muscles. This would be evidence of an outward involuntary physical reaction to a mental picture.
Now let’s look at this logically. This person isn’t doing anything to cause your reaction. What is happening is that you are causing the changes. In other words, you are allowing your body to react in this way in this situation.
While there was no physical danger during this exercise, many of the symptoms that you experienced would occur in an actual threatened situation. Your body was on a ‘fight or flight’ footing.
Let’s develop this example further. Imagine the person you dislike is in reality someone you often come in contact with or think about reasonably often, because as we’re just determined, you don’t have to be in contact with someone for that person to have an impact on your body.
Previously we mentioned three stages of stress. First was the alarm stage, and then came the resistance stage and finally the exhaustion stage. It’s entirely logical that if you hate someone badly enough, then that person will frequently come into your thoughts.
If he occupies your thoughts, then your body will react as if you’re in physical danger. If you continue to hate that person, your body will continue to react. You will go through the alarm stage, the resistance stage and perhaps the exhaustion stage. Remember that this last step is where the body actually begins to wear out.
If you hate someone badly enough, for long enough, you will injure yourself both mentally and physically. This hate that you feel for someone is something that is inside you. Something you have control over.
If we choose to hate, we are actually causing ourselves a disservice. Note that you would hurt yourself, not that he would hurt you, because you have control over your thoughts, you have choices. You can choose to hate and therefore hurt yourself, or you can choose not to hate and consequently not hurt yourself.
John’s experience when he was a youth is an example of being responsible for the way you feel. John was brought up in the bush and managed to accumulate an amazingly large number of enemies in a short space of time.
His reaction to his enemies was to fight; in fact, he had more fights than he had hot meals. He made enemies out of everyone he met because he thought everyone hated him. He was probably right.
He walked around as tense as a loaded spring, ready to fight at a moment’s notice over real or imagined provocations. If people were friendly, John wondered about how they would betray him.
Then he would look out for any signs that would back up his suspicions. He would then interpret their actions (whatever they were) as confirming his suspicions. His health began to show the effects of his body’s constant tension, caused by the hate he carried. He was like a time bomb ready to go off at any time.
John began to realise that if he was to have a future, he must change. What choices did he have?
He had two choices. He could change his enemies or he could change himself. Obviously he couldn’t change his enemies. He realised that to change any relationship, you have to change yourself. So this is what he did.
He decided he wasn’t going to hate his enemies anymore and that they were now going to be his friends. He was determined to be friends no matter what their reactions were. So the next time a situation arose where he usually would have fought, he simply smiled, slapped them on the back, joked and walked away.
Imagine the confusion! Someone that you’re used to fighting with, suddenly acts differently and not only that, but is friendly as well. John said, ‘the boot was now on the other foot.’ As far as he was concerned, they were his friends and he would always treat them as such.
How they reacted to this was their problem. If they still hated him, that was up to them but he would look to find evidence of friendship in all that they did.
What he did, was to do himself a favour. Instead of carrying around a hate, he carried around forgiveness. He didn’t know if the others were any happier from his change of attitude, but he did know that he was certainly happier and healthier.
Giving up hate worked for him. If you hate or have negative feelings for someone, it doesn’t hurt that person. The only person who gets hurt is you.
Forgiving others is a necessary step in helping yourself.
You are simply happier and healthier when you don’t hate anyone. Think back on the times when you’ve been happy. Weren’t these times when you felt neither hate nor distrust? One of the objectives of this guide is for you to be happier and more comfortable with yourself.
It can’t happen all the time, because after all, we are human. When you are feeling off-side with someone analyse what is happening and why, and take the appropriate corrective action. People who are able to do this will be noted for their good humour and their friendliness. It simply makes better sense to be friends rather than enemies. You gain more personally from being a friend, even when others let you down.
To lead a healthy lifestyle, not only does the body have to be healthy, but the mind has to be healthy as well. If you have negative thoughts, release them now. Examine what is happening around you and learn from it. If events are not going your way perhaps you can still learn from them.
One of the reasons why we give ourselves negative feelings about other people is because we expect them to think like us. We then misinterpret their actions as John did and say to ourselves ‘OK, you don’t like me so I don’t like you’, and proceed to act in a negative way towards them. This in turn draws a negative reaction from them and of course thereafter we feel justified in disliking them.
One of the reasons why we fall for this cycle of events is that deep down we’re unsure of how we feel about ourselves. If we don’t feel that we are confident, lovable individuals, then it is very difficult for us to realise that someone else can love us or have a positive relationship with us. So if we’re not positive about our own self-worth, these sorts of situations tend to occur.
One of the causes of this behaviour lies in each person’s perception of the other. You can do your part to improve relationships by changing your perception of the other person. Then you will tend to change your actions and this will then have an impact on the other person.
We can all learn from Will Rogers, a famous American comedian who once said, ‘I have never met a man I didn’t like’.
I don’t think this quite reflects upon the type of people Will Rogers mixed with, as much as if it reflects his own personal philosophy and his positive approach to life in general.
Sometime during his lifetime, he would have experienced something unpleasant for him personally but he still managed to say this statement and believe it. We can all learn from this. We may not be able to make the same statement but certainly we can forgive others and go on to build a better life for ourselves.
Someone who is confident about their own self-worth will have fewer enemies and negative feelings than someone who isn’t. This may be because they feel that they can deal with any problem more easily than a person with little confidence feels they can.
In other words, they are more confident and possess a more positive attitude. We must be at peace with ourselves before we can be at peace with others.
The two important issues that have been raised here in terms of mental health are:
* We must develop and maintain a positive image of ourselves.
* We must be capable of forgiving ourselves and others.
These issues go hand in hand. They are inseparable.
AFFIRMATIONS (Positive Self Talk)
The most powerful force for self change that we have available to us is our self talk, that is, what we say to ourselves. Our self-talk directly influences our self-esteem. Therefore one way in which you can build your self-esteem is by using your self-talk constructively. This is done by sending yourself positive messages that your mind will eventually come to believe in.
If you tell yourself something long enough, your subconscious will accept it and you will begin to act that way. If you act as though you like a person you might build a friendship. You certainly will lose an enemy. After all, it takes two to fight.
John Lennon sang an affirmation in one of his songs: ‘Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better’. Those simple words are important and if you repeat them frequently, you will find yourself believing them. Used as part of an overall program for change, affirmations can be very effective in raising your self-esteem.
When your self-esteem rises, it is easier to apply the other techniques of relaxation, a balanced diet, sensible exercise and rational emotive therapy.
Here is a good mental diet that is relevant to all of us.
* Carry no grudges.
* Put the best possible interpretation upon everyone’s actions.
* Send out a kindly thought towards any person who is being antagonistic.
* Think hopefully at all times.
* See only the best happening.
Once you become aware that you are the ‘captain of your ship’, you begin to realise that you need only experience stress when you choose to do so.
TO PURCHASE THIS BOOK: CLICK HERE: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52861.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: I'LL BE ABSENT UNTIL 19TH MAY 2018. SHORT BREAK!

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'Closing The Gap' - Page 16:

CHAPTER 4
HOW TO REACH YOUR CHILDREN AND HOW TO LET THEM REACH YOU
Without communication, no family can function well. In fact, one of the main characteristics of a successful family unit is good communication.
Unfortunately many families fail to communicate effectively. There may have been times when you said something which was interpreted differently from what you meant.
There may also have been times when you wanted to say something but couldn’t bring yourself to do so. People fail to communicate effectively not for lack of trying, but through lack of skill.
Some people need to improve on their technical communication skills. By this I mean those skills which involve formulating the message you want to send, how you send it and how you go about checking to see if the message was received correctly. These skills are relatively easy to master and will be dealt with later in this chapter.
Most people need to improve their emotional communication skills. These can be harder for us to master. For example, we can talk very eloquently to ourselves. We can mentally rehearse exactly the right words, but when we do say them, they either don’t come out the right way or they don’t have the effect we think they should have had.
This is mainly because we got over-emotionally involved in important conversations and our good intentions fly out the window as our anxiety rises. This anxiety leads to an emotional breakdown in the communication process.
For example, think back to the last time you had an argument within your family. Can you recall what the other person was saying? Think carefully before you answer ‘yes’.
When we are in an emotional situation, we tend to be thinking of what we want to say next. We are full of the self righteousness of our position.
Because we believe we are right, we tend to want to prove it, rather than listen to see if we could be wrong. If the other person feels exactly the same way then he also wants to prove he is right.
When this happens both people are wasting their breath, as neither is listening to the other. They read the other’s body language and come to the same conclusion: ‘I can’t talk to him – he doesn’t understand me.’
Effective communication simply doesn’t take place. Not only that, but because of the emotional messages, future attempts are also less likely to succeed.
However it is not only when we are in an argument that our emotional communication skills let us down. When was the last time you quietly told someone how important they are to you and of the positive feelings you have towards them?
This is sometimes so difficult that we simply don’t do it. We can rationalise our failure to do so, by saying to ourselves ‘that sort of thing is just not for me’ or ‘she really knows that I love her, I don’t need to tell her so’. Both these statements are fallacies.
You do need to tell her or she won’t know. We were all made to give and receive affection but some of us have learnt not to do so. If you wish to, you can relearn to show the affection you feel.
We often send and receive distorted messages which inevitably cause misunderstanding in our families. If we don’t take the opportunity to correct these misunderstandings, then relationships can deteriorate and if this happens, problems will occur. These problems inevitably have an effect on all members of a family even though it may start with only two members.
If bad communication can be the disease then good communication can be the cure. Let us learn from Janet’s experience. Janet was 14 years old at the time. Her mother, a nurse, telephoned Pat (co-author of Closing The Gap – his position at the time was Detective Sergeant in-charge of the Juvenile Aid Bureau at Petrie a Brisbane northern suburb in the Queensland Police Service) and asked for his advice concerning Janet who had run away from home but had since returned.
Janet and her mother decided to come to the Pat’s office to discuss their problems. Janet’s mother started to explain how she and her husband had tried to give their child a sound education at great expense and personal sacrifice. She spoke of how hard they had worked on her behalf and of the feelings of anger and disappointment she now bore.
When Janet was asked how she felt about her parent’s disappointment, her reply was, ‘I don’t care. They don’t care about me, so I don’t care what I do to them.’ Back at home after having run away, Janet had decided not to return to school. She just wanted to watch television.
Here was a proud and angry mother and a non-motivated, stubborn, daughter. It seemed to be an impasse which would be difficult to bridge. The interview began badly when Pat also became emotionally involved.
Pat started telling Janet that if she was his daughter, he would flog her to within an inch of her life. Janet’s mother nodded in agreement while Janet’s facial expression and resolve stiffened.
Fortunately Pat read Janet’s body language. He realised that by becoming emotionally involved himself he was worsening this family’s problem rather than assisting them to solve it.
He knew that to reach Janet he must encourage her to talk and listen to what she said. After apologising to Janet he tried another approach. He asked her what she wanted to be when she left school. She replied that she wanted to be a hairdresser. It was then that the barriers came down. They were able to discuss how she could reach her goal.
Real communication was taking place. Janet came to realise that the only way to achieve her ambition was to repeat grade 10 and this she decided to do. Both mother and daughter came to realise the importance of good communication in order to avoid future misunderstanding.
The act of volunteering to meet a goal is critical. If Janet’s parents had forced her to repeat grade 10, she would very likely have failed. Instead of trying to prove that she could succeed, she would have been trying to prove that she couldn’t. Janet needed her family’s help, but despite their good intentions, there simply was no effective communication.
Whenever her parents thought they were communicating with Janet, the emotional content of their words produced the opposite result to the one that they intended.
We must realise that communication does fail in many instances. It seems that in many critical situations our reactions are on automatic pilot and we tend to say things that we regret later. Yet when we think about it, communication is the life blood of our relationships – at school, at home and in the work place.
There is a world of difference between talking and communicating.
Just because there is a conversation doesn’t mean that there is communication as well. For effective communication to take place, the message sent by one person has to be understood, but not necessarily agreed with, by the other person.
In other words, if someone has an idea which you don’t agree with, but to which you listen and understand, then communication has been successful. You don’t have to agree with what is being said in order to communicate.
For families to work effectively as a team there must be good communication between the members. Let’s look at 15 ways we can improve our technical communication skills.
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'Closing The Gap' - Page 17:

1.LISTEN INTENTLY
One of the most important skills in communication is the skill of listening. This vital skill is one which parents frequently forget to practise.
You simply cannot listen if you are talking and you cannot listen if you are not giving your full attention to the person who is talking. You cannot listen effectively if you’re thinking of something else or if you’re thinking of what you are going to say next.
When you’re actually listening, not only do you hear the words, you also hear the tone of voice, you see their body position and facial expressions. A lot of messages that we send to each other are communicated through our body language.
In fact, a person’s body language can often tell us much more than his actual words do. This means that it is very important for your body language to be consistent with your words.
Nothing gets people more frustrated than to communicate with someone whose whole behaviour is saying one thing while his words are saying something else. If anyone has praised you while their facial expression was severe or criticised you while they smiled, you will know how uncomfortable this can be. It is not conductive to good communication.
2.SHOW YOU WANT TO LISTEN
Look and act interested. Listen to understand rather than listen to oppose. This skill is not difficult to master but it does require your full attention. This means always having time to talk to your child.
Whether you really want to listen or not will be obvious to the other person.
3.PUT THE SPEAKER AT EASE
In order to put the speaker at ease, it is important for your body language to communicate openness and friendship. You can put someone at ease by smiling, or general light conversation.
Putting your child at ease and showing him that you are always ready to talk to him is very important. If you take up a defensive, closed posture, then your child may not feel comfortable talking to you.
This is particularly relevant when talking to children who have a problem. No one likes to come out and say they’ve done something wrong. Neither do they want to start a conversation that might lead to some type of punishment.
4.USE EMPATHY
Empathy is an aid to communicate that deserves your attention. You use empathy when you try to put yourself in your child’s place to see a problem from his point of view.
A good manager tried to empathise with his subordinates before he communicates with them. For example, if a manager has some potentially unpleasant news to tell his workers, he could use empathy to assist him to get his message across.
He would imagine himself as one of the workers and then he would imagine how he would feel when he heard the news. After assessing how the worker would react, the manager is then in a position to determine the most effective way to communicate his news.
The same principle can be applied in your home when you are communicating with your family. Perhaps you can recall doing something in your childhood which your parents disapproved of. Do you remember how you felt? If you do, then you should be able to put yourself in your child’s place. You will then be able to communicate with him more effectively.
By using empathy, we are in a better position to understand the way our children react to us
It is easy to assume that your child shares your knowledge and experience and, because you know that you are right, that he will know that also. However, he judges from his knowledge and experience. He sees things through his own eyes, not yours. He acts on his perceptions, not yours.
If we were rebellious when our parents acted in a certain way towards us and we now find ourselves acting in a similar manner (with the best intentions of course), then it is quite likely that our children will react in the same way as we did. The use of empathy is a very effective method of improving your communication success rate.
However, be careful not to confuse empathy with sympathy. Sympathy is when we feel sorry for someone. Parents, feeling sorry for their children, may withhold information from them to protect their feelings. However the rest of the world is unlikely to be so charitable and children quite naturally will become angry if they feel that their parents have withheld information which is important to them.
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'Closing The Gap' - Page 18:

5.AVOID ARGUMENT
When we are arguing, the natural reflex action in all of us is to go on the defensive, whether the criticism of us is warranted or not. When we go on the defensive we don’t listen because we are thinking about what we want to say next. We do this even if we are not allowed to answer back.
Naturally if you’re continually negative towards your family, the situation becomes even worse. If you keep telling someone that they are stupid, then they will come to believe it and so act accordingly. The way you communicate with your children has a direct bearing on their self-esteem and motivation.
Criticise the act, not the child
Think about the words and the posture that you use when you criticise your child. Are the words and posture used always (or nearly always) the same? The way you criticise your child is behaviour that you have learnt.
If you are not happy with the way your child responds to your criticism then change the way you do it. Constantly make the effort to be constructive. After a while this new approach can become a habit. You can effectively change a bad habit for a good one. Both you and your family will be pleased with the results.
Be constructive, not destructive, with all criticism. This of course is easier said than done but it is possible. Practise this skill whenever you can.
6.HOLD YOUR TEMPER
It is extremely important to hold your temper because if you’re angry, you are not listening. If the other person is angry, then he is not listening to you. So no meaningful communication is taking place.
When your emotions rise, you stop thinking logically. The only thing that is taking place is the sharing of anger and hostility and this is not the way to build stronger family relationships.
7.BE PATIENT
Do not rush anyone while they are speaking. If you rush them, you will demonstrate that they are not worth listening to and if you don’t listen, you may never get the real message.
Try not to interrupt or finish someone else’s sentences and never start to walk away before the conversation is over. If you do you may find at some future stage that that person rarely talks to you anymore. After all, why should he talk to you if you don’t listen?
Allow plenty of time for regular family discussions. These discussions can take the form of family meetings or just ‘quality’ time with each child.
8.REMOVE DISTRACTIONS
Take time off from whatever you’re doing and give your undivided attention to the person you want to communicate with. If you’re watching television and your child wants your attention, turn the T.V. off. By doing this, you’re sending a message to your child about his self-worth. The message he receives is that he is worth listening to.
If you can’t give your undivided attention when asked, suggest an alternative time which would be both suitable for both yourself and your child. If you continue to watch television while your child is talking, then the message you are sending is that your child is not important enough to listen to and your child will act on that understanding.
That may not be the message that you want to convey, but it will become the child’s perception and this in turn will influence his behaviour.
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'Closing The Gap' - Page 19:

9.ASK QUESTIONS
Asking questions encourages your child and shows that you are listening. Ask ‘open’ questions, and by this I mean questions such as ‘how did you feel when this happened to you?’ Open questions have to be answered with words rather than with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ statements. This encourages a child to give an explanation which may not have been given if the answer could have been simply ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
Open questions are very useful where feelings are concerned. Don’t be afraid to ask questions which deal with the feelings of someone else, as feelings are the cornerstone of relationships.
10.USE FEEDBACK
Another technique we can use to ensure that our message has been understood is to ask for ‘feedback’.
Feedback is simply the obtaining of evidence from your child that he has understood your message correctly. This is done most effectively by asking ‘open’ questions based on the message you are communicating.
So if you are asking a child to change his study timetable because of some family activity, one way to ensure that he understands this is to ask him a question such as ‘how are you going to arrange your timetable?’ If you don’t ask, you will never know if your intended message was received accurately.
When messages are passed from one person to another, slight changes can often be made, so the message the recipient gets may be distorted. By receiving the right feedback, you will be assured that your message has been received correctly.
11.USE APPROPRIATE LANGUAGE
Just as listening is vital to communication, so too is the language that you use. When talking to a child make sure the language you use is readily understood by him.
By using language that children understand, you are better able to communicate with them.
12.TIME YOUR COMMUNICATION FOR MAXIMUM EFFECT
If you want to discuss something with your child, you have to pick a time that fits in with the child and of course, yourself.
If your child is starting out for a game of cricket or if he is studying, then wait until he returns from his game or until he has finished his homework, so that effective communication can occur. If our minds are on another activity, communication breakdowns are likely.
Communication requires the attention of both parties. If either one is actually thinking about something else, then the attempted communication will not be successful.
13.SAY ‘I’ RATHER THAN ‘YOU’
Communicate your feelings by using sentences starting with ‘I’ rather than ‘you’. This way you will be assisting your child to develop responsibility for his actions.
It is better to say ‘I am not happy with you leaving this room in such a mess’ than it is to shout ‘you never tidy up after yourself – do you?’ The latter statement generally gets the unspoken answer: ‘so what!’ and it generally isn’t effective in changing the child’s behaviour.
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'Closing The Gap' - Page 20:

14.USE ONLY CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM
Part of the skill in being specific when criticising is the use of neutral or non-explosive language. This type of language helps to stop people becoming defensive. If the way we speak causes other people to react defensively, then we seldom achieve our goals. Defensive people are more interested in justifying their actions than communicating effectively or solving a problem.
It is easy to use explosive, emotive words when we’re upset. These words then trigger emotional reactions in the other person, which generally means both people lose interest in what is best for themselves and others. Always be open and receptive to others.
Part of being open is the desire to listen and if we listen effectively, we could find out things that otherwise we wouldn’t have found out.
We can find knowledge in all sorts of unlikely places if only we allow ourselves to do so. Do you really know how your children see you or how they see the world they live in? You can find out by communicating effectively. That will assist you to reach them.
It will also allow them to reach you. It will help to promote a better understanding of each other’s problems, hopes and fears. This leads to a stronger relationship.
The way we feel about ourselves is largely determined by the way others relate to us.
A lot of criticism in our society tends to be personal criticism which doesn’t help anyone to grow and therefore doesn’t help them to avoid the same mistakes. Sending the message ‘you did a lousy job’ is nowhere near as effective as saying ‘I think that this was done well but this could have been done better’.
This way the criticism becomes more impersonal. You’re not attacking the person’s self-worth, only the unacceptable behaviour.
Constant negative criticism can destroy our self-worth and lead to negative self-fulfilling prophecies coming true. After all, the intention behind the criticism is to help the person grow so that they won’t make the same mistake again. It should not be used to reinforce a negative self-image.
15.TALK LESS
If you are talking all the time then you simply cannot be listening and if you’re not listening, then there is no way you can communicate effectively.
PRACTISING YOUR SKILLS
These skills, like all other skills, need to be practised. I am not advocating that you go around consciously thinking of these techniques all of the time. If you do you will lose the spontaneity which is essential in close human contact.
Instead you could concentrate on one point, such as good listening and practise that. Then you could take another point, such as sharing your feelings with ‘I’ statements and practise that. Eventually your communication effectiveness will improve and, as a result, people will get positive messages from you.
It is also important to try and relive in your mind past communication attempts to see how you could have been more effective. This is worth the effort, as mastering these skills is vital when discussing matters important to you and other members of your family.
Developing these skills is similar to learning to drive a car. You don’t just hop in and enter a Grand Prix event after your first lesson. You practise, you experiment, you learn gradually and then when you’re ready to take the test, you have the confidence to do it well.
Learn these simple skills and practise them, because with practise they will be available when you need them. Communication skills are like any other skills. If they are not used, they’ll get rusty.
Communication skills can be learnt. They are effective and using them will enrich your life and enrich the lives of those around you. They will help to strengthen your relationships with other family members.
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