Five Simple Steps for Stimulating Interactions with Children
When we play and interact with children, we are laying the foundation for child’s future growth and development. We are helping build the neural connections in the brain that support communication and social skills. When we interact with children in a back and forth manner, we are shaping children’s brain architecture. This is referred to as “serve and return”. This creates a strong foundation for future learning. Five Simple Steps for Stimulating Interactions with your Children to Boost Young Brains.
The below suggestions were collected from the Unstable Knowledge website and the resources were developed and tested at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. Images within the text were collected from the Usable Knowledge website and illustrated by Wilhelmina Peragine. These five simple ways that were tested for parents, caregivers, and early educators to practice.
Number One: What grabs your child’s attention?
First is to notice what grabs your child’s attention and the simplest way to do that is to pay attention to what your child is paying attention to or what he or she is pointing at. You can pay attention to their physical movements, which includes their arms and legs, body and facial expressions. Keep a mental note of this while you’re at home or out in public.
Reasoning: The reason you do this is to know what your child’s interests are, needs, abilities and so on. This is also referred to as your child’s “serves”, which you can strengthen and encourage once you know what they are.
Number Two: How to respond to your child’s “serves”?
Offering gentle words, comforting help and acknowledging what your child is doing is the next step. It is important to pay attention to your body language at this point and your facial expression. You can simply smile while nodding to acknowledge what your child is pointing at. This tells him or her that you are both looking at the same thing and experiencing the same things. You can take this step further by picking up the item if possible or letting him or her touch it.
Reasoning: Responding to your child’s interactions and interests let’s him know that you understand his feelings and that you feel his feelings. When your child is calling your attention, or is pointing at something and you don’t respond, this can actually be stressful for your child.
Number Three: How to name your child’s “serves”?
An element that goes with responding to your child’s “serves” is naming what your child is seeing, feeling, doing and experiencing. Doing this simple step of naming for your child can form important language connections in his or her brain. For instance, if your child points at his feet, you can also point at his feet and say “yes those are your feet” and you can even do this before your child knows how to speak or understand words.
Reasoning: When we name what the child is experiencing, we are helping them understand the world around them. We are also helping them prepare for what to expect and giving the child words in which he and she can use to express themselves.
Number Four: How to keep this going and continue turn-taking?
After you respond to your child’s “serve” wait. Give your child a chance to respond to your response. Your child might make a noise or repeat your words or action in an effort to respond to your response. He might also make a completely different response. This turn taking can last for a long time but waiting for your child’s response is crucial as this helps them process the information you just gave them. Also, keep in mind that your child’s response might take time as they need a bit more time to form a response.
Reasoning: The importance of taking turns is simply an activity that helps your child learn self-control. Furthermore, your child learns how to get along with other people and by waiting your giving him or her time to form their own ideas, build confidence, and understand their own needs.
Number Five: How to practice Endings and Beginnings?
Be mindful that your child might be done with something verily quickly. Watch to see what your child’s next shared point of interest and focus is. Children are very good at letting adults know when they are done with something, so follow along. Older children will say “All done”, while others might just walk away. Follow their lead and end the focus.
Reasoning: By doing this your helping your child lead and explore his or her world according to their interest. Furthermore, by allowing these interactions to continue, you are making more of these “serve and return” interactions possible.
The above five simple steps are very easy to incorporate into your daily experience. The magnitude of benefits for your child’s development and social skills is huge. By simply applying these five steps into “serve and return” interaction, you are building a strong foundation for your child’s good behaviour, lifelong learning, and giving them skills to face life’s’ challenges.
Images taken from: https://www.gse.harvard.edu/