Teaching Conversation Skills-tip

Teaching your children good conversation skills is one of the most helpful and beneficial things you can do for them. Here are some practical, easy-to-use skills you can teach your child and practice together as a family:

To contribute to a conversation:

• Look at the person who is talking.
• Wait for a time when no one else is talking.
• Make a short, appropriate comment that is related to the topic that is being discussed.
• Choose words that will not offend or confuse others.
• After you've spoken, give other people a chance to talk.

To keep a conversation going:

• Maintain a relaxed but attentive posture.
• Nod your head to show you understand and to give ongoing encouragement to the person who is speaking.
• Ask follow-up questions that are related to what another person just said.
• Avoid fidgeting, looking away or yawning.
• Don't interrupt when another person is speaking.
• Take turns speaking during the conversation.
• Check to see if others understand what you have said.

To close a conversation:

• Change topics only when everyone appears to be finished talking about a particular issue.
• Change to a topic that somehow relates to the previous one.
• Give everyone a chance to talk about the new topic.
• Wait for a comfortable break in the conversation to leave.

Additional Resources

• Making Friends Is an Art! by Julia Cook
• Why Don't They Like me? by Susan Sheridan, Ph.D.
• Helping the Child Who Doesn't Fit In by Stephen Nowicki Jr., Ph.D. and Marshall Duke, Ph.D.
• Teaching Your Child the Language of Social Success by Marshall Duke, Ph.D., Stephen Nowicki, Ph.D. and Elizabeth Martin, M.Ed.