Engaging your children in conversation
I have come to learn that, in our house, engaging actually means we need to find things to get her involved or doing something. My daughter is a very busy bee who wants to help and be involved with everything. Kids, in general, can’t sit still to save their lives. They are fidgety little creatures that must be on the move, doing, dancing, twirling, running, jumping, and more.
This is one of the reasons I created Bright Littles Convo Cards. All I could find were books to introduce big topics, but they lacked the engagement she needs and bedtime has always been a struggle for her. I needed a tool that would help me engage Poppy in big conversations. I found that the best way for her to learn something was to involve her in the conversation. I made talking about the big stuff feel like a game to her. She actually asks to play the conversation game at dinner all the time!
Tips to engage:
- Engaging in everyday activity.
- They are talking and learning about really big important stuff at school from safety on the internet to being an alley. I try to continue the conversation at home and share with her my own experiences. She loves hearing stories from when I was little.
- Regularly introduce new words, phrases or ideas.
- Poppy is in a Spanish immersion school so she (we) are always looking up new words and phrases.
- Other ideas would be to learn about voting, activism or take a current issue in your community and learn about it. Don’t be afraid of big topics. Currently in Austin homelessness is very visible and much talked about positive and negative. It’s allowed us to talk about mental health and ways we can help at home by donating no longer used or needed toys and clothes. Poppy wants to raise money to help and so we are actively planning a lemonade stand.
- Ask open-ended questions.
- Do you know what this game is made from?
- Look up how that material is made.
- I find she takes better care of the item once she knows a little more about it
Find what works for your family! You don’t need to go buy anything or create anything, just share and talk to your kids. At the end of the day, I find what they love and crave is your undivided attention, even if you only have three minutes.