May 31, 2023 • 9 mins
It's not enough to set boundaries because there is a lot of impact on how your boundaries are perceived by the people around you, including your kids.
So what are the 3 types of communication styles and how would your message sound different when you change the way you deliver it?
Tune in and tell me if it's intriguing something for you HERE.
Related episodes:
- #26 Time Boundaries For Parents And Kids
- #27 Sharing is caring! Is that so?? What do healthy Material Boundaries look like?
As a certified parent coach, I aim to help you set boundaries with compassion.
So grab your FREE Compassionate Parenting Guides now!
You can also:
- Join an ONLINE workshop
- Contact me
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- Learn how I can help you.
Remember to treat yourself and your children with compassion and curiosity. 🫶
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tammy Afriat (00:12):
Hey, and welcome back to the
Playground Talks podcast.
I'm Tammy Afriat A parent coachand at your host, and I'm here
to help you navigate nowadayschallenges with your kids.
So, We had about fiveepisode around boundaries,
and today I want to touch anew topic, which is what's
your communication style?
(00:33):
Because it's not only thatwe set the boundaries, but
there is a lot of impactof the way we communicate
and we set those boundaries.
For example, thereis a huge different,
if I'm saying, Hey,I need some quiet time now,
versus if I'm saying, I have tofinish up writing this email.
(00:53):
So I need another 10 minutes andthen we can hang out together.
So when we talk aboutcommunication style, it's
not only what we say, butit's also the tone we were
using, how fast we say it.
It also goes to yourfacial expressions and
your body language.
And to be more specific, Ialways like to talk about
(01:15):
the scale, which in oneside of the scale, you can
be a passive communicator.
You might have a child thatrather , chooses not to
speak, not to advocate forhimself, avoid a conflict.
You might think of yourself.
Those things might resonatewith yourself as being a
passive communicator Who'smostly choosing to not talk.
(01:40):
Then in the other sideof it, we have the
aggressive communicator.
Those are the kids thatsometimes we call them bossy
or leaders or strong wheels.
And again, we also know someadults that we have like
that, that when they havesomething, they would be more
impulsive, tending to use ahigher peach or use their voice
(02:02):
strongly in a higher volume,it many times perceive when
someone talk aggressively, as if he's mad or angry
or something like that.
And then in the middle, if wetalk about this scale again,
we can talk about assertivespeaking, which is when you.
Express whatever you want,whatever you need or
(02:23):
whatever it is on your mind.
You're not afraid of theconflict, but you handle
it in a very objective way.
. So ideally we want tocommunicate everything
to our child fromassertive perspective.
I always think about it.
That when we talk aassertively, we have an
intention of what we're saying.
(02:44):
We know what's the vision ofthe message that we wanna say.
We are respondingversus reacting.
So it's not that theysaid something and it was
triggering for us, so we saidthat, but we were actually.
Already I'm thinking about,we already have the script.
That's really helpful for me.
So let's go over some of thosescript that I tend to use a lot.
(03:07):
for example, let'stake material boundary.
Okay.
So just today I have my waterbottle, the one that I'm
using the whole day long.
It.
Prevent from me having aheadache and that's a healthy
style I'm trying to implement.
So my daughter forgot herwater bottle at her friend's
house and she wanted totake my water bottle.
(03:30):
And I was like, you know what?
That's my water bottleand I needed to prevent
from having a headache.
So please leave it to me.
And find another waterbottle we have in the house.
You can use the other one.
So as you can see, I didn'tsay, how dare you take my
water bottle, which is anotherway to set the boundary where.
(03:53):
The message is just the same.
Don't take my water bottle.
But in fact, I gave thereason why I want to
have my own water bottle.
I set the boundary and Igave her another options,
which honestly she couldthink about it herself,
I chose to help her and.
Guide her into being moreflexible with finding
(04:15):
other solutions thentaking my water bottle.
Another example in terms oftime boundary could be it's
now it's summertime, right?
And then the kids.
Wants to go to a movie or theywant to hang out with friends,
or they want to have sleepoverand you know, they have so
many things they wanna do andthey don't get that we, the
(04:37):
adults still have work to do.
So my perspective on that is,well, it's my responsibility
to make sure you have somestuff to do to entertain you
to, so you can grow your skill.
But also you can be a littlebit independent, especially when
you are five and six years old.
(04:58):
You can spend an hour withoutme doing something with you.
So let's say a kid comesto you and say, Hey mommy,
let's play together.
Hey mommy, . Take me to themovie or whatever, and then you
can either say, leave me alone.
I need some time to work.
But I think the rightway to approach it would
be, I need to work.
(05:19):
I know you have some freetime . So go ahead and find
something else that you areinterested in doing that brings
you joy, that interests you.
Let's, let's have a listof what you can come up.
As a project for thefollowing days, and then
you can support and bringwhatever else they need.
But you know, in this scenario,you set a time boundary
(05:43):
where, you need to work.
They need to entertain themself.
And at the same time,you're supportive.
You are being supportiveof the process.
And if they need, forexample, they wanna do this
crazy doll model or a carmodel, then you will help
them bring the material.
But they are the one thatcan do it by themself.
(06:03):
And again, I'm talkingin regard to older kids.
We're two, three years old.
Yes, you do need to bearound them most of the time
watching them, making surethey're not climbing, not
opening anything, cuz theircuriosity and their perspective
taking is not developed.
So it's your responsibilityto make sure they're safe.
(06:25):
Okay, so let's take last examplearound emotional boundary.
For example, if one ofyour kids is saying, I'm so sad.
My brother just saidsomething mean to me.
There's one way to approachit and say, To the sibling.
Yeah.
How could you possibly talk tothis, to your brother like that?
Don't you know it's notacceptable in our house?
(06:46):
Or you could say, you know what?
We treat respectfully each otherhere in our house, so Please
rephrase whatever you wanted tosay in a kind way so you see,
again, you're not invalidatingwhatever the sibling wanted
to say, cuz it could bethat he was hurt himself.
But anyway, I.
(07:07):
You make the point of thisis not the way we communicate
with each other, and youlet them practice again.
I am doing it all thetime with my ketos.
if they whine or cry, I wouldsay, I can't understand you
when you talk like that.
Let's practice how you talkwith no whining and no crying
because I'm listening, I wantto hear whatever you wanna say.
(07:29):
So again, it's not only toset the boundary, but it's
also to guide our kids of howto communicate effectively
and use not the passiveway not the aggressive
way, but the assertive wayand last reminder.
It's always about how wemodel our children, so please
ask yourself, do I reallycommunicate in an assertive
(07:53):
way, or do I let my anger andmy own madness to manifest
when I'm talking to my child?
So that's it for today.
As a reminder, we talked aboutthree types of communication
style, the passive way, whichif your child is being a
passive, your role as a parentis actually to help him advocate
for himself and speak up togo towards the assertive way.
(08:16):
the other thing is aggressivecommunication, which
sometimes I think aboutit, in a graphic way.
It's like a child that tendto be aggressive is like
a square that you want tocurve their vertex, so you
want to make it more likea circle to communicate
more smoothly and softly.
And then the passive childis more of like an oval
(08:40):
that you want to sharpenthe ages to make it.
More a assertively.
So I hope that image helps you.
and I would love to hear, yourfeedback around the podcast.
if you think about anytopics you wish the podcast
to cover, please me amessage you can find.
A link to leave me a messagein the show notes., And
(09:02):
Leslie, if you need divinginto what's going on for
you and your life and yourkids, . Please book your free.
Call with me.
I would love to get toknow you better and see
if we can work together.
So as usual, treatyourself and your kids with
compassion and curiosity.
(09:23):
See you.
Bye.
Hey, and welcome back to the
Playground Talks podcast.
I'm Tammy Afriat A parent coachand at your host, and I'm here
to help you navigate nowadayschallenges with your kids.
So, We had about fiveepisode around boundaries,
and today I want to touch anew topic, which is what's
your communication style?
(00:33):
Because it's not only thatwe set the boundaries, but
there is a lot of impactof the way we communicate
and we set those boundaries.
For example, thereis a huge different,
if I'm saying, Hey,I need some quiet time now,
versus if I'm saying, I have tofinish up writing this email.
(00:53):
So I need another 10 minutes andthen we can hang out together.
So when we talk aboutcommunication style, it's
not only what we say, butit's also the tone we were
using, how fast we say it.
It also goes to yourfacial expressions and
your body language.
And to be more specific, Ialways like to talk about
(01:15):
the scale, which in oneside of the scale, you can
be a passive communicator.
You might have a child thatrather , chooses not to
speak, not to advocate forhimself, avoid a conflict.
You might think of yourself.
Those things might resonatewith yourself as being a
passive communicator Who'smostly choosing to not talk.
(01:40):
Then in the other sideof it, we have the
aggressive communicator.
Those are the kids thatsometimes we call them bossy
or leaders or strong wheels.
And again, we also know someadults that we have like
that, that when they havesomething, they would be more
impulsive, tending to use ahigher peach or use their voice
(02:02):
strongly in a higher volume,it many times perceive when
someone talk aggressively, as if he's mad or angry
or something like that.
And then in the middle, if wetalk about this scale again,
we can talk about assertivespeaking, which is when you.
Express whatever you want,whatever you need or
(02:23):
whatever it is on your mind.
You're not afraid of theconflict, but you handle
it in a very objective way.
. So ideally we want tocommunicate everything
to our child fromassertive perspective.
I always think about it.
That when we talk aassertively, we have an
intention of what we're saying.
(02:44):
We know what's the vision ofthe message that we wanna say.
We are respondingversus reacting.
So it's not that theysaid something and it was
triggering for us, so we saidthat, but we were actually.
Already I'm thinking about,we already have the script.
That's really helpful for me.
So let's go over some of thosescript that I tend to use a lot.
(03:07):
for example, let'stake material boundary.
Okay.
So just today I have my waterbottle, the one that I'm
using the whole day long.
It.
Prevent from me having aheadache and that's a healthy
style I'm trying to implement.
So my daughter forgot herwater bottle at her friend's
house and she wanted totake my water bottle.
(03:30):
And I was like, you know what?
That's my water bottleand I needed to prevent
from having a headache.
So please leave it to me.
And find another waterbottle we have in the house.
You can use the other one.
So as you can see, I didn'tsay, how dare you take my
water bottle, which is anotherway to set the boundary where.
(03:53):
The message is just the same.
Don't take my water bottle.
But in fact, I gave thereason why I want to
have my own water bottle.
I set the boundary and Igave her another options,
which honestly she couldthink about it herself,
I chose to help her and.
Guide her into being moreflexible with finding
(04:15):
other solutions thentaking my water bottle.
Another example in terms oftime boundary could be it's
now it's summertime, right?
And then the kids.
Wants to go to a movie or theywant to hang out with friends,
or they want to have sleepoverand you know, they have so
many things they wanna do andthey don't get that we, the
(04:37):
adults still have work to do.
So my perspective on that is,well, it's my responsibility
to make sure you have somestuff to do to entertain you
to, so you can grow your skill.
But also you can be a littlebit independent, especially when
you are five and six years old.
(04:58):
You can spend an hour withoutme doing something with you.
So let's say a kid comesto you and say, Hey mommy,
let's play together.
Hey mommy, . Take me to themovie or whatever, and then you
can either say, leave me alone.
I need some time to work.
But I think the rightway to approach it would
be, I need to work.
(05:19):
I know you have some freetime . So go ahead and find
something else that you areinterested in doing that brings
you joy, that interests you.
Let's, let's have a listof what you can come up.
As a project for thefollowing days, and then
you can support and bringwhatever else they need.
But you know, in this scenario,you set a time boundary
(05:43):
where, you need to work.
They need to entertain themself.
And at the same time,you're supportive.
You are being supportiveof the process.
And if they need, forexample, they wanna do this
crazy doll model or a carmodel, then you will help
them bring the material.
But they are the one thatcan do it by themself.
(06:03):
And again, I'm talkingin regard to older kids.
We're two, three years old.
Yes, you do need to bearound them most of the time
watching them, making surethey're not climbing, not
opening anything, cuz theircuriosity and their perspective
taking is not developed.
So it's your responsibilityto make sure they're safe.
(06:25):
Okay, so let's take last examplearound emotional boundary.
For example, if one ofyour kids is saying, I'm so sad.
My brother just saidsomething mean to me.
There's one way to approachit and say, To the sibling.
Yeah.
How could you possibly talk tothis, to your brother like that?
Don't you know it's notacceptable in our house?
(06:46):
Or you could say, you know what?
We treat respectfully each otherhere in our house, so Please
rephrase whatever you wanted tosay in a kind way so you see,
again, you're not invalidatingwhatever the sibling wanted
to say, cuz it could bethat he was hurt himself.
But anyway, I.
(07:07):
You make the point of thisis not the way we communicate
with each other, and youlet them practice again.
I am doing it all thetime with my ketos.
if they whine or cry, I wouldsay, I can't understand you
when you talk like that.
Let's practice how you talkwith no whining and no crying
because I'm listening, I wantto hear whatever you wanna say.
(07:29):
So again, it's not only toset the boundary, but it's
also to guide our kids of howto communicate effectively
and use not the passiveway not the aggressive
way, but the assertive wayand last reminder.
It's always about how wemodel our children, so please
ask yourself, do I reallycommunicate in an assertive
(07:53):
way, or do I let my anger andmy own madness to manifest
when I'm talking to my child?
So that's it for today.
As a reminder, we talked aboutthree types of communication
style, the passive way, whichif your child is being a
passive, your role as a parentis actually to help him advocate
for himself and speak up togo towards the assertive way.
(08:16):
the other thing is aggressivecommunication, which
sometimes I think aboutit, in a graphic way.
It's like a child that tendto be aggressive is like
a square that you want tocurve their vertex, so you
want to make it more likea circle to communicate
more smoothly and softly.
And then the passive childis more of like an oval
(08:40):
that you want to sharpenthe ages to make it.
More a assertively.
So I hope that image helps you.
and I would love to hear, yourfeedback around the podcast.
if you think about anytopics you wish the podcast
to cover, please me amessage you can find.
A link to leave me a messagein the show notes., And
(09:02):
Leslie, if you need divinginto what's going on for
you and your life and yourkids, . Please book your free.
Call with me.
I would love to get toknow you better and see
if we can work together.
So as usual, treatyourself and your kids with
compassion and curiosity.
(09:23):
See you.
Bye.
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