Let’s face it: even with our closest friends and family, communication can sometimes be a challenge. It can be even harder to communicate with your own young kids. Talking at, talking to, listening, asking questions, exchanging answers—it’s all a dance. Today over at Keeping Her Cool, Colleen is talking about communication with her young son, and the role of silence. Click HERE to read.

Communication is no less an art with young children than it is with your spouse or your colleagues. Through communication we not only exchange information, but we also let these little people know that we love and value them. And there is so much more to communication than simple words.

Here are a few of Welcome Baby Care’s favorite resources on communicating with children. Even if you’ve already got this skill mastered, these articles can offer some tips and healthy benchmarks for parent-child communication.

• This article, Winning Ways to Talk with Young Children, is a comprehensive primer on what works and what doesn’t when it comes to communicating with your kids.

• For effective ways to communicate with kids at all ages, check out the book The Gentle Art of Communicating with Kids by Suzette Haden Elgin.

• This list of Top Ten Tips for Communicating with Children offers practical advice you can use to help untie their tongues.

What has worked for your family? How do you balance talk time and healthy silence?