THE EDITOR, Sir:

One way for parents to help their children to be well trained and grounded in life is to use positive communication and positive actions.

Children who live in abusive situations more often than not turn out to have low self-esteem, lack confidence, become aggressive and underperform in school and society.

Some word weapons are:

"You'll never turn out to be anything good."

"You are stupid!"

"Get out of my sight!"

"You're just like your father."

These terms lead to the negative beliefs the children will have about themselves like:

"I am stupid."

"I am no good at anything."

"I can't achieve ... ."

"I am worthless."

Those types of negative statements are related to children behaving in negative and unpro-ductive ways.

As well as mental abuse and emotional abuse, some chil-dren go through physical abuse too.

Negative things

Many of us do not realise that we carry around the negative things that have been said/done to us from our childhood into adulthood if they have not been dealt with in childhood.

Parents can look at how they communicate and act with their children. Just think about the effects the negative communi-cation and actions have on your child and then think about the effects positive communication and actions will have on your child.

When your child does something you disapprove of, instead of scolding the child, find out what is happening for the child to have behaved in that way. Ask open-ended questions like 'What?', 'Who?', 'Where?', 'When?'. Asking these types of questions will get you the facts. 'Why' and 'how' questions are not effective because it can seem that you are accusing the child and he/she will get defensive.

Communicating and acting in positive ways will benefit not only your child but you.

I am, etc.,

Christine Morris

Business and Life Coach

christinemorriscoach@

yahoo.co.uk