Communication is a way of expressing information or ideas between two or more persons. As a family engagement, the practice of communication is essential in raising awareness of the significance of speech, language, and communication. Language is an important ingredient in the development of children because it helps them communicate with their fellows and classmates, teachers, parents, and doctors in different spheres of life. It enables them to make sense of the world around them and at the same time, develop relationships with the others. As a matter of fact, it is communication through which the young people can express their desires to their parents and develop future majors and careers.
Constant mental and physical development in children requires a given communication pattern, which is influenced by people around them. Children always develop non-verbal and verbal communication through diagrams and sounds that are helpful while they are still developing more sophisticated methods. They, therefore, develop means of raising concerns to their parents when needed. Communication helps the young ones and the whole family to get feedback for requests that they make and for desires that they want. When communicating, families always use language that is best understood by all. This helps reduce confusion, and as a result, children are taught the language that best suits family effective communication. Communication helps develop accessible channels that are accepted by all at any time without unnecessary barriers, and it improves honesty when passing information.
When a family has a particular language to be used for communication, everyone can listen to and respond without any language barriers. Therefore, communication enables families to listen to young ones without difficulty. Moreover, communication facilitates easier interaction with others in the community and in the learning institutions (Auerbach, 2009). People can easily go to places where large groups gather, such as churches and markets, for example, and interact with each other. Children from different families can also join together through communication and play together without difficulties when they use a common language. Decision making (that needs to be made together) can be made easier through language in communication. Different people can easily highlight their ideas and make one best decision to stand with. Children can also make decisions in their places of learning about the programs to use provided to them when they promptly communicate with their parents and teachers.
Communication enables young children to interact with each other and with their teachers. A child that can easily communicate has high chances to know more compared to one who does not use any form of communication. Communication enables children to articulate sounds and words formed when tongue, jaws, and lips alter the sound movements through the mouth. Vocal folds also produce sounds such as loudness, pitch, and resonance that help in the development of children’s language and communication capability. In the process of learning, communication enables children to develop fluency that leads to smoothness when one speaks. As a result, children can form words that, in turn, form sentences and paragraphs that aid in the communication process (Kaisner & Hancock, 2003). This enables the young ones to be able to communicate with their families and peers and at the same time, foster school achievements.
Early childhood development is primarily characterized by how they are brought up at the family level. The social setting in which the education system exists also plays an important role in this endeavor. In all these processes, communication is essential because it is the only means through which information may be passed, and actions may be taken. For guidance to be effective, an educator needs to understand the family’s goal for the young one. For educators to carefully and adequately provide good care, they need to sensitize on the family and cultural differences. There should be some level of acceptance of these differences by each child and parent for them to feel the sense of belonging to a given program. Cooperation and mutual respect between the parents and the educators, together with shared responsibility, are essential for objectives to be achieved. This can help the families improve understanding of their children as well as respecting the child’s development values (Barnyak & McNelly, 2009).
Language and communication skills that children are exposed to at an early age are essential for a child’s success not only at school but also beyond it. It is evident that children with good communication skills and well-structured language have strong desires to learn compared to their counterparts; hence, they have improved chances of accomplishments. At an early age, the brains of young ones develop speedily; therefore, this marks the foundation of learning. They interact with the others and in the process, share commonalities. To facilitate easy interaction, they use language that is well known to them depending on well-laid rules that are followed. They mostly try to assimilate language that both the educator and the child’s parent use and in the process, develop with it as they grow (Brock & Rankin, 2008). They will commonly try to learn the language and movements that they see the educators and parents use. Therefore, good collaboration and joint responsibility should be upheld through the practice of one common and good language for the young ones without which they may develop their own form of communication, which may affect their ability to learn.
Barriers to communication are numerous and varied, and an educator is likely to face a cultural barrier in the process of communication due to diversities in culture across the country. People are brought up in different social setups and as a result, have different arguments for and against certain things. To remove the barrier, an educator needs to have a common ground of approaching the parent of the child so that their potential differences may not be highlighted. Language difference is another common drawback. The educator should use language that can best be understood by his interviewee so that to limit misunderstanding between them. Gender differences may also hinder interview because of difficulties in misconstruing words from either party (Arora, Johnson, Lovinger, Humphrey & Meltzer, 2005). The educator should have directed visualization guided by the aim of the interview and not confuse work with personal side effects. In addition, there may be physical barriers that result from the environment. In some places, there may be a wall or a door that makes noise hindering the communication process. The interview space may also not be spacious enough to enable the interviewee to respond adequately. The process should be carried out in a spacious environment where people communicate easily and without any form of physical hindrance.
References
Arora, V., Johnson, J., Lovinger, D., Humphrey, H., & Meltzer, D. (2005). Communication failures in patient sign-out and suggestions for improvement: a critical incident analysis. Quality and Safety in Health Care, 14(6), 401-407.
Auerbach, S. (2009). Walking the walk: Portraits in leadership for family engagement in urban schools. School Community Journal, 19(1), 9.
Barnyak, N., & McNelly, T. (2009). An urban school district’s parent involvement: a study of teachers’ and administrators’ beliefs and practices. School Community Journal, 19(1), 33-58.
Brock, A., & Rankin, C. (2008). Communication, language and literacy from birth to five. London: Sage.
Kaisner, A., & Hancock, T. (2003). Teaching parents new skills to support their young children’s development. Infants and Young Children, 16(1), 9–21.