Bro. Boon Keat led the Parenting Workshop on effective communication with our children.

On 10 March, Nalanda Dhamma School organised a Parenting Workshop for parents and facilitators to explore effective strategies in understanding and connecting with our children.  Dhamma speaker and counsellor, Bro. Ooi Boon Keat started with an exercise to list out our expectations towards our children and vice versa.  Parents realised that our expectations greatly outweigh that of our childrens’ capabilities and reflected that we must be realistic to avoid causing unnecessary stress and conflicts.

Listing expectations towards their children including behaving well and managing time properly.

A light moment as parents reflect on their long list of expectations towards their children.

A self-evaluation was then carried out to assess our individual parenting and communication style.  Bro. Boon Keat reminded us that children respond better when we listen openly and encourage them to express their thoughts.  Through role play, we practiced our enquiry skills in difficult conversations with our children, and learned how to help them surface their feelings.  Putting aside our own judgment, advice can be offered after we have gained a better understanding and when it is readily accepted.

Participants role-played a difficult conversation between a child and parent.

By the end of the workshop, participants committed to further develop their communications skills to improve their relationship with children.  We thank Bro. Boon Keat for the experiential workshop!

We thank Bro. Boon Keat for his practical advice and coaching cultivate a more harmonious relationship with our children.