Online Child Care Training Courses to Improve Communication

Communication is key, especially in fields like eary child care and education. It's important to be able to speak with parents and your coworkers in a clear, respectful way. Communication is critical for ensuring that a team works to the best of its ability, especially in the sometimes chaotic environment of early child care. Childcare training courses are helpful in teaching and reminding us of ways to improve and enhance communications.

If you would like to keep clear communications with your parents and staff, remember the following four tips:

1. Recognize communication barriers
The first step toward solving communication challenges is recognizing what barriers contribute to these difficulties. If you learn what is causing communication challenges, it will make it easier to find the best solutions.

2. Start with important things first
Sometimes less is more when it comes to communicating clearly. If you have an important point you want to convey, don't let it get lost in all the details. In an interview with Forbes, Karen Friedman, head of communication coaching firm Karen Friedman Enterprises, recommended being direct and concise, and leading with that critical piece of information first.  

"People don't need to know everything we know," Friedman said. "Think about what the single most important point is that you need to make, the central idea. If your computer died or the fire alarm went off, what would be the one thing they needed to hear?" 

Communicating clearly with your co-workers is an important component of succeeding in the workplace.

3. Ask smart questions
In communications, listening is as important if not more important than speaking. If you want someone to think carefully about a particular topic or task, asking smart questions and listening to the answers can be more effective than treating that person to a lecture on your opinion.

For example, if a co-worker is struggling to perform a task, ask what challenges he or she has been dealing with in accomplishing the task. You will likely gain more valuable information by framing the conversation in this way, and it will make the person more responsive to your input than if you started off the conversation with criticism.

4. Remember to follow-up
Whenever you speak to someone in person about an important topic, make sure to follow up via email to create a hard copy of the conversation once you get back to your desk. That way you can refer back to the notes later if the topic needs to be revisited. In doing so, you also ensure that you got in all the information you wished to convey. 

To learn more about workplace success in early childhood education, consider enrolling in online education courses from ProSolutions Training.  Two courses you might want to consider.

•  The Art of Communication Part 1: Listening to Children: This course will take a close look at communication and the art of listening to young children.
•  The Art of Communication Part 11: Communicating with Families: This one-hour class will help you understand the 'whys' and 'hows' of developing and preserving good communication with parents to reach positive results.