4 Simple Ways To Help Your Child Develop Better Communication Skills
Children develop and learn skills through observations. Most children develop communication skills as they grow and observe the world around them. But some children may fall behind in developing age-appropriate skills for many reasons such as shyness or lack of self confidence. If you have ruled out any medical reasons for your child’s lack of communication skills and wish to help them overcome their problems then read more to find out.
Here are simple ways that can help improve communication development in children.
1. Keep Things Normal:
If you want to know how to develop communication skills for kids, then keeping things normal is one of the best ways. For parents it is absolute vital to keep things normal for their kids who are dealing with underdeveloped communication skills. By all means keep track of your child’s development but it is important to not let your kids get the impression that they are lacking important skills. This may hamper their self-esteem and may negatively impact any progress they might have made with their communication skills.
Jumpstart conversations at home that don’t seem forced. A simple comment from you when watching a television show together can encourage your kid to respond with a related comment. Prompt your kids to respond in social situations like a playground. Ask them if they want to join the kids playing ball and if they respond positively and you sense shyness in them then help them formulate a response. A simple sentence such as ‘go on, ask them if you can join them’ can encourage your kids to communicate with their peers.
Along with the verbal responses of your kids, it is also important to be mindful about their non-verbal responses also. They may answer to you in negative about wanting to play with other kids but their non-verbal cues might be telling you a different story. In such cases a few more prompts from you may help. But remember to take it easy.
[ Read: Personality Development Tips For Children ]
2. Showcase Through Example:
It is important for parents to teach the kids through examples of normal conversations. Help your child practice conversations by engaging with them in friendly conversations. To make it easier for kids, keep the conversations limited to questions or comments with simpler responses and revolve them around their interests. Simple questions asking about their day at school can help your child formulate appropriate responses.
[ Read: How To Help Your Child Make Friends ]
3. Help Them Improve their Listening Skills:
Good listening skills are important for good communication. If your child shows lack of listening skills then it makes sense to work on them. One excellent way to improve listening and communication skills is through daily reading habits. (1) If your kids are small you can read books to them and assess how they listen and retain information. You can ask them questions related to the story as you progress through it and this would give you a clear idea as on your child’s listening skills.
[ Read: Activities To Develop Effective Listening Skills In Children ]
4. Provide Opportunities For Creative Engagements:
Make learning fun for them by providing your kids plenty of opportunities for creative activities. Ask them to help you bake cookies or indulge with them in DIY projects at home. But keep your object in sight, which is to help you on how to develop communication skills in children.
Keep the conversations going for the duration of the activity with simple questions such as ‘should we add more chocolate in the cookies’, ‘do you think we should make more candles to for our holiday gifts’ etc. This will enable the kids to respond and even encourage them to pipe in with their own ideas. Other creative pursuits can be word games such as rhyming words or opposites; describing any object in the playground or mall with five-line descriptions etc.
Hope you liked our post on ways to develop communication development in children. Do share your views in the comment section below:
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