Communication and professional relationships with children, young people and adults 1

The importance of effective communication in developing positive relationships with children young people and adults

Teaching Assistants work closely with the children, and often with individual pupils when providing specialised support. It is essential that you show you are interested in the pupil by using correct communication skills. As regarding colleagues, fostering and maintaining productive working relationships is vital in order to provide children with quality education. Finally, it is part of the work of the teaching staff to be confident when liaising with parents who supports their work from home.

Communication includes verbal and non-verbal communication; therefore it is not only about using the correct words but about controlling facial expressions and maintaining eye contact. Effective communication consists of several parts: not only talking, but listening to what the other person says, informing, e.g. the pupils or their parents about school issues. Praising the children is a very important and effective way of motivation, and if we place a negative remark into a “sandwich” of two positive ones, pupils will not feel to be told off when we have to call their attention to mistakes. As a TA it is essential that we constantly develop our communication skills and learn to speak in a different way to the children that to e.g. colleagues.

The principles of relationship building with children young people and adults

Effective communication belongs to the principles of positive relationship building, and also includes respect and consideration towards others, listening to what other people have to say and remembering important personal issues, being clear when talking to others and having a sense of humour when the situation demands so.

When building relationships and communication with children and young people we have to be clear about the stages of linguistic and social development they are going through so that we know what they can possibly understand at a certain age and what form of communication we can expect from them. Young children say their first words at the age of 12-18 months and start forming sentence s and questions around their second and third years. It is only from age four when they start to use language to develop relationships independently and they cannot usually form complex sentences before they are around eight years old. That is when they also start using language for negotiation and discussion.

When communicating with children, a Teaching Assistant always has to be approachable and friendly so that the pupils know they can ask the TA any time.  It is essential that we speak clearly to them, always maintaining eye contact. We have to keep in mind the stages of communication development of children. It is advised use simpler words and short sentences when talking to the younger ones so that they do not get confused by a language they do not understand. As the children grow, however, it is useful to introduce them to more complex sentences and increase their vocabulary by new words and synonyms. Whatever the child’s age is, it is vital that we listen carefully, do not interrupt and be sympathetic to their problems and questions.

The effect of different social, professional and cultural contexts on relationships and on the way people communicate

As we live in a multicultural society, school community also embraces all individuals regardless of their cultural, ethnic or national origin. Differences in communication and social behaviour in the different cultures, however, have to be taken into consideration and can cause clashes between individuals.

The example of a little boy named Umar shows the possible problems arising from cultural differences. Umar was misbehaving in school and following the school’s behaviour management policy, the teaching assistant sent him to stand by the wall and think about what he has done. When his mother heard about this, she was very upset and complained to the teacher about the sanctions. Since this family comes from a different county with different cultural and social norms, making somebody stand by the wall might be such a disrespectful thing to do that a mischievous little boy could not possibly deserve.

Obviously, problems like this cannot be foreseen and the school’s senior management team cannot be expected to make research on every country’s cultural norms before writing the school’s penalty policy. However, if a problem occurs due to cultural and linguistic differences, those involved have to be treated with respect and offered an alternative solution. On the other hand, being a foreigner living in the UK myself, I believe immigrants have to learn about the cultural norms of the host country and build it into their everyday lives if they want to fit in and live there for a long time.