Interpersonal Communication: Barriers, Skills and Resources for Communicating with Children Group

This report discusses the barriers, skills and resources required for effective interpersonal communication with children group. It covers the importance of communication, barriers faced while working with children, skills required for effective communication and applicable resources. The report emphasizes on the need for culturally sensitive communication with children.

Running Head : INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION
Interpersonal Communication
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION
Introduction
Communication is the most important aspect of living among people. It means an
exchange of information between two or more than two people. It is a process through which
people do exchange feelings, information and meaning through either verbal or non-verbal
messages. Most of the interpersonal skills can become grouped under many forms of
communication such as verbal, non-verbal, written and others. Some of the skills such as stress
recognition and attitudes are pretty important to almost all types of interpersonal communication
(Manias et al.,2018). It can be easily improved through feedbacks, knowledge and practice. It
takes place when two or more than two people are well concerned about the presence of each
other. It can be in the form of gesture, speech , dress, expression of the body. It is the essential
factor that it must be a message sent to the receiver by the sender (Giles, 2016). The online
conversation has become one of the most commonly used medium of communication especially
for the official purpose. In this report, children group will be selected and the barriers in
worming with this group will be described. The report will further demonstrate a clear
understanding of the communication skills needed for proper communication with the children
group. It will lastly recognize all the applicable resources helpful in communication with the
chosen group.
Discussion
Barriers of working with the children group
There are professionals who face various difficulties during working with children
group.

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 The barriers are mainly created by the diagnosis of the child’s mental health as many
children have had faced hardships such as abuse, poverty, instability and other
unfortunate circumstances. Children may feel scared, stigmatized and alone too
(O’Sullivan & Carr, 2018).
 It can also be difficult to build rapport with children. This is because many children may
have had some expected traumatic experiences by other adults in their lives.
 They also might have trust issues and might not want to talk to people.
 It is difficult for children to understand the concept of transparency. Hence, they might
not tell everything clearly whatever is asked to them.
 There can be difficulties in understanding and interpreting some symbolic gestures of
children. It is complex to grasp the nuances of expression and words along wth their body
languages.
 There can also be difficulties in understanding the cultural norms in communicating with
children. There are some cultural norms regarding the appropriate forms of expression
such as eye contact, physical touch vary country wise and culture wise (O’Sullivan &
Carr, 2018).
The communication skills needed for communicating effectively with children group
In the business or social context, communication is the right of every human being.
Communication supports the people in the business to take proper decision through supplying
exact information to the right person at the right time. There is development of co-operation and
mutual understanding between people (Winter et al., 2016).It develops an atmosphere of
confidence and mutual trust. The ability to communicate with children effectively is extremely
important for gaining information. It is also necessary to communicate her or his concerns, or to

3INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION
protect and assist the child. Accuracy of information can empower the child and help in their
involvement in appropriate decision-making. The required skills are as follows:
 The ability to feel comfortable with children and engage with them is required. It can be
done through playing with them, sitting with them talking with them.
 The ability to tolerate all kinds of aggression and expressions of distress are required.
 There has to be the ability to use concepts, language, which are appropriate to the age of
the child, culture and development stage.
 The children who underwent distressful circumstances might find difficulty in trusting
unknown person. Hence, enough tenacity to hold patience is also required for
communicating openly with him/her comfortably (Silverman, Kurtz & Draper, 2016).
 Additionally, the ability to appreciate children in terms of the situation is required which
is different from communicating with an adult. The ability to calm the child is also
required when there is any frightening sight or situation.
The applicable resources assisting in communicating with the children group
The communication with children effectively needs a specific approach (Crompton,
2017). There are some of the techniques which vary culture wise but the common aim is to help
the child express himself or herself. The ways are as follows:
 The introduction is the most important part so that the child gets to the person who is
communicating or interviewing. Along with its, the purpose and subject of the meeting
should also be communicated with the child (Eleftheriadou, Noble & Bor, 2018).
 During communication, confidentiality should be maintained but the information should
also be carefully conveyed.

4INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION
 The interviewer should use simple language so that the child can easily understand.
When the child does not seem to understand what is said, the person should repeat it or
paraphrase it.
 The tone should be friendly, relaxed and informal so that the child feels at ease.
 The child should be given adequate time and space to feel relaxed and develop mutual
trust. Sending time with the child or playing can ease the situation (Winte et al., 2016).
 There has to be a non-judgemental attitude which enables the acceptance of the child
which is extremely essential. It is essential for conveying respect for the beliefs the child
has, the behaviours and the feelings.
 During communicating with the child, proper scope and time should be given to the child
to ask questions, summarising what has been said and say anything else. It should be
always ensured that there is proper follow-up support provided to the child.
 The quite voice tone can help the child to feel safe, relaxed and gestures as nodding can
help the child to proceed with talking.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be said that communicating with children is an extremely crucial task
which requires specific skills. These skills should be different from talking to the children. The
communication between adults and children should be conducted in a way which is culturally
sensitive. There has to be a detailed understanding of the process and the objectives.

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Reference
Crompton, M. (2017). Children, spirituality, religion and social work. Routledge.
Eleftheriadou, Z., Noble, L., & Bor, R. (2018). Communicating with children and young
people. Clinical Communication Skills for Medicine, 111.
Giles, H. (2016). Communication accommodation theory. The International Encyclopedia of
Communication Theory and Philosophy, 1-7.
Jennings, S. (2017). Creative storytelling with children at risk. Routledge.
Manias, E., Kinney, S. B., Newall, F. H., Cranswick, N. E., Williams, A. F., Wong, I. C., ... &
Borrott, N. (2018). Communicating With Hospitalised Children and Families in
Managing Medications: Examining Possibilities for Engagement.
O’Sullivan, P. B., & Carr, C. T. (2018). Masspersonal communication: A model bridging the
mass-interpersonal divide. New Media & Society, 20(3), 1161-1180.
Silverman, J., Kurtz, S., & Draper, J. (2016). Skills for communicating with patients. CRC Press
Winter, K., Cree, V., Hallett, S., Hadfield, M., Ruch, G., Morrison, F., & Holland, S. (2016).
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