The Growing Communication Crisis between Parents and Their Kids (and What Parents Can Do Right Now) with Elizabeth Bennett

Find Elizabeth HERE Get her gift, The 5 Strategies of Dedicated Listening here.  About Elizabeth Elizabeth is an award-winning school principal with over 35 years of teaching, administration, and coaching experience. Elizabeth’s passion for transforming this broken, violent, and socially isolated environment of dysfunction into a space of courageous conversations is the catalyst for her work and her upcoming book. When she’s not working with youth and parents, Elizabeth enjoys distance running, writing, travel adventures, fine food, wine, the ocean, and life! She lives in Calgary, Alberta Canada with her partner and their curly, cuddly dog.   Show Notes One of the biggest challenges for parents today is being present and emotionally available.  Distractions and sometimes relaxed or unclear boundaries with our children contribute to the difficulty in relationships.  Social media tends to lead to less communication and fewer conversations between parents and their children. We can learn how to connect with our children no matter their age.   We need to make time to be fully available.  It is very helpful to be curious, interested and engaged when we're talking/listening to our children.  When we come from curiosity, it gives our children space to express their ideas and an acknowledgment of them. It tells them that they can have an opinion, too.  Tips for Communication from Elizabeth (these are all skills that can be learned): When communicating with our children, listen from a place of wanting to understand, not judge.  Give kids time to find a flow in the conversation.  Make yourself available to them for at least 20 minutes a day (with no distractions).          If this resonated, there's probably an open loop of your own worth closing. My free Close the Loop tool walks you through it in about 15 minutes — a gentle place to start. 💛 → closetheloopsnow.com/tool