How we Interact Matters
Here are the basic strategies that will help you make a connection with children so that they will feel safe and relaxed and motivated to express themselves with you. The trick is to be persistent!
1. Get Face-to-Face with children. Get down to their level, square off your shoulders so that you are across from them, and watch the magic happen!
2. Observe what they are doing and what is grabbing their attention. Listen. What are they saying? If they are playing with a toy, what is it that they are enjoying about it? The colour? The texture? The way it moves? The way it allows them to create? The feeling of it? The sensation of hot or cold? The way it allows them to be social?
3. Copy them! Do not take what they are playing with to do this. Find a similar toy and copy what they are doing with it. They LOVE this. It makes them feel connected when we simply copy their sounds or words or actions. This has worked miracles for me when I am persistent in copying exactly what they are doing. But the key to this is to...
3. Wait! After you take a turn copying their sounds or actions, PAUSE for about 10 seconds. This gives them time to process what you did. This also gives them time to process how they want to respond. Often, they will do that sound or action again and try to get you to copy them again. And then you have...
4. Set up Turn-Taking! When you are able to take turns with children and go back and forth and back and forth with them, this is the foundation of all language development. One day when they are about a year old, they will begin to copy your words!
ndbeese (November 23, 2011). Ava (24 months old) British Sign Language Dinner Chat. [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o8Z2lzS764
How many ways does Ava's mother keeps the conversation going?
Weitzman, E., & Greenberg, J. (2002). Learning Language and Loving It: A guide to promoting children’s social, lan-guage, and literacy development in early childhood settings (2nd ed.). Toronto: The Hanen Centre.
Research Summary retrieved from http://www.hanen.org/Helpful-Info/Research-Summaries/Learning-Language-Research-Summary.aspx
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5 Steps for Brain-Building Serve and Return
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Center on the Developing Child: Harvard University (May 15, 2019). 5 Steps to Brain-Building: Serve and Return. [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNrnZag17Ek