Listening and Talking

Perhaps the single area that you can gain the most benefit from with a little improvement is communication. How you say things and how you listen make a big difference in the tone of a relationship.

Much has been written over the years about both. I have found the most useful approach is to work on listening first (two ears) and then on sending clear messages (only one mouth).

LISTENING. Over the years the single best skill has been called lots of things: Active Listening (from the old Parent Effectiveness material), Reflective Listening, and the one I like the best because it reminds me of how to do it in the name is Drive-Through Listening (from Gary Smalley). Fairly easy to describe but harder to remember to do. The skill is basically doing a short recap of what the person said to be sure you heard accurately. And best to learn with your children. Kids from a very early age can learn the skill and when everyone knows it you can be helpful to each other in practicing, that is doing it.

TALKING. Not too difficult to do when the emotional level is low. Much harder as the emotional level rises. The best skill for sending clear messages is called "I" messages. Strongly emotional messages that start with "I" sound less threatening than when they start with "you".
I like the four part "I" message:
1) I feel (identify the emotion you are feeling)
2) ...when you (identify the specific behavior you are concerned about)
3) ...because (identify how it affects you directly)
4) ...and here's what I would like instead (what is the behavior you were expecting)
Here is a link for some practice examples.