When your kid will first go to school, park, picnics, etc. he or she will be entrusted with the challenge of communicating with others of their age and make friends. For some children, communication is easier, whereas, for others, it’s not easy. Kids communication skills start by speaking at home, and as such parents can motivate and encourage their child to socialize more.
Telling your child to socialize more is, however, not enough. You will also need to teach them about toddler communication skills and how to start, as well as end a conversation. Some children are intimated by conversations as they don’t know what to say and what not to say. In such scenarios, parents are the best guide for their children.
You can read on and understand how you can help your child communicate effectively with others, as well as how to improve it.
Tips to help your child communicate:
1. Talk with your child
When you will talk to your child, they will learn the tones of communication skills. They will understand the undertones of the question mark, exclamation, pause, etc. A regular conversation will help them to talk, learn new words, as well as be free to talk whenever they wish to.
2. Describe something
If you want to improve communication skills of your child, and then ask them to describe something for you. They can describe their house, feelings, day, school assignment, etc. When they will describe something, they will understand how to have a monologue that will keep people interested and the flow of the conversation.
3. Listen and reflect
Often when parents want to improve communication skills kids, they listen to what the kid said and then reflect the same. The idea is to get your child to open up. For example, listen to the description of the day of your child, and then reflect by saying “wow, that sounds like you had fun”. Once your child hears this, he or she will talk more about the fun they had and what they partook from the “fun exercise”.
4. Role play
At times it’s easier for a child to speak in their home, but they shy away in public and while talking to people their age. One of the ways to improve communication skills toddler, you can have role-playing conversations. You can pretend to be a boy or girl they met in the park, and have a conversation. The next time they will meet someone, they will know what to say and how to say it with confidence.
5. Body language
Body language help kid communicate. It is the most universal language, but sometimes children cannot pick on it. You can point out various body language and tell them what it means, as well as when a person adopts a particular stance. This will help them recognize these cues in their friends.
6. Conversation starters
To help toddlers communicate, you need to teach them communication starters. They need a sentence or word to break the ice and take the conversation ahead. Practice some conversation starter sentences with them that they can use in their daily conversations. They could be about the movie they saw, the school assignments, a book they are reading, something fun that they did, etc.
7. Read and discuss
One of the important communication tips is to read with your child everyday and discuss what you read. You can pick the same book every day but read it together. You can even take turns reading out loud to ensure that your child doesn’t skip the important and new words. Reading will help them come up with new words and increase their general knowledge, whereas the discussion will help them to understand the flow of a conversion. It will also instill the good habit of listening and then responding.
8. The chat catch
The catch is the most common game played between children. For tips for kids’ communication, they can play the game “chat catch”. In this, every time someone passes the ball, they have to do so with a conversation line that the person who catches the ball has to finish, and so forth. This game will teach them a lot about conversation starters.
9. Child’s opinion
One of the best tips for communication toddler is to ask for their opinions. Whether it is about what they wish to wear or eat or play today, or where do they want to take a vacation, it is very important. When children will be asked opinions frequently, they will mull over the concept and then think about what they wish to say.
Sometimes children cannot talk because they cannot form a train of thought. They need to plan or write down their thoughts. To improve the communication skills of kids, you can ask them to journal their thoughts. This will help them to learn to talk to someone, as well as have a clear understanding of their thoughts.
Communication skills that you will teach today will help your child tomorrow to be a good speaker and listener. Which communication skills toddler will you try today?