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Constructive
Communication Skills For Child Care Professionals
Communicating With
Empathy
Julie Bartkus
Feelings and emotions—that’s what the child care profession is all
about. Feelings for the children, the families, and yes,
even co-workers is what makes this profession so
fantastic. Yet, feelings make it so difficult to
maintain professional boundaries and communicate
constructively on an ongoing, consistent basis.
Perhaps you share, along with many of my clients, one of the biggest
challenges in maintaining professional boundaries and
consistently communicating constructively. This
challenge is managing your feelings while communicating
or while working to resolve an issue.
Here are a couple of case scenarios to illustrate how feelings can get
in the way of communicating constructively.
Case Scenario 1:
Joanne is Sarah Smith’s teacher. Here’s what she said to
a co-worker today. “Mrs. Smith just doesn’t care! I
can’t believe she continues to send Sarah to school with
a doughnut and chocolate milk for breakfast in spite of
our efforts to get the children to eat healthier. Not to
mention the fact that Sarah has a weight problem. And
not to mention the fact that all the other children see
Sarah with a doughnut and they want one, too! She’s
hopeless!”
Case Scenario 2:
Joanne has to talk to a parent today about late fees
that are owed for late pick-up. Joanne struggles with
this because she knows the parent doesn’t have a lot of
money and she can totally relate because she often feels
she, herself, never has enough money, either. So she
feels it’s better to put off trying to collect the money
because that’s what she would like the people to whom
she’s indebted to do for her.
In each case scenario can you identify the feelings and emotions that
may prevent Joanne from communicating constructively?
In the first case scenario Joanne is feeling anger and resentment.
Additionally, she’s judging the parent instead of
empathizing with the parent. In the second case scenario
Joanne is actually relating with the parent to the point
where her own feelings are preventing her from
addressing the issue at hand.
When it comes to communicating constructively, empathy is a vital tool
to implement. Empathy allows you to understand things
from the other person’s perspective without judging
(including making snap judgments or jumping to
conclusions) and without blaming. This is so important,
yet requires much skill to implement.
So how can you master this skill of communicating with empathy? Here are
a few tips to help you.
1. Focus
on the facts and benefits of resolving the issue and
solutions.
2. Remember
another’s behavior is not an attack on you personally.
So leave yourself out of it.
3. Ask
yourself or brainstorm with others about the reasons the
person may be displaying the undesirable behavior. Why
is this person doing what they’re doing?
4. Ask
yourself or brainstorm with others about the possible
motivation the person has to make changes in what
they’re doing. What is important to this person? Why
would what I’m requesting be important to him or her?
5. When
having positive and direct communication with the
person, use phrases such as: “I value,” “I trust,” “I
understand” and “I appreciate.”
Let’s put these tips to work to see how Joanne in Case Scenario 1
communicates with empathy and achieves positive,
constructive results.
Joanne follows tip 1 and 2: She focuses on facts, benefits and solutions
and removes herself personally. She asks herself: how
can I best communicate with Sarah’s mom to help her help
Sarah eat healthier?
Next Joanne follows tips
3 and 4: She truly seeks to understand things from
Sarah’s mom’s perspective through reflecting upon why
Sarah’s mom feeds Sarah a doughnut for breakfast and
what could possibly motivate her to change.
Did she want to give
Sarah a treat? Was she simply in too much of a hurry to
feed Sarah something healthier? Or perhaps was it a
little of both?
After
brainstorming with her director, Joanne now feels ready
to communicate with Sarah’s mom with empathy. She
follows tip 5: Starting on a positive note, Joanne
states, “I understand your wanting to give Sarah a treat
because you don’t get to spend much time with her. One
of our priorities in working with children and families
is to make sure their nutritional needs are met. We
can’t do this alone—we have to partner with families to
meet this goal. Is this a goal that you value? Great!
Here’s how we can make this happen…”
The conversation
continues and positive, constructive results are
achieved!
