You’ve been teaching an important skill set to your child since the day they were born. From baby talk to bedtime stories and everything in-between, you’ve been showing your child how to communicate.
In this article, we’ll walk through seven essential communication skills for kids and explain how to teach them to your child.
Key Takeaways
- Seven important communication skills are active listening, expressing feelings, asking questions, communicating nonverbally, speaking with respect and kindness, practicing empathy, and resolving conflicts.These skills are key for children’s social, emotional, and cognitive growth.
- You can help your child learn and practice these communication skills in many ways, including role-playing, leading by example, and playing communication games. You can even use technology tools like apps and computer programs to reinforce these skills.
- Communication skills are important because they give your child the tools to express their needs, thoughts, and feelings. These skills help your child develop stronger relationships with friends and family and give them more confidence.
What Are Communication Skills?
The term “communication skills” encompasses a broad range of interpersonal interactions, including listening, speaking, reading, writing, and using nonverbal cues like body language. These skills are essential for your child’s social, emotional, and cognitive growth.
As soon as your child is born, you begin communicating with them through physical touch, speaking and singing to them, showing them picture books, responding to their babbling, and making silly faces. These early interactions provide the foundation for your child’s communication skills.
The Importance of Communication Skills for Kids
Communication skills allow kids to express their needs, thoughts, and feelings, whether it’s at home, at school, or out in the broader world.
When kids communicate effectively, they’re more apt to have positive learning experiences, make friends, and develop self-confidence and a sense of independence.
7 Communication Skills for Kids
1) Active Listening
Being an active listener means not just hearing words, but understanding what’s being said and retaining it. Your child will usually signal that they are actively listening through their body language and by asking relevant questions.
2) Expressing Feelings
Another important skill your child needs to communicate with others is the ability to express their emotions. This includes identifying and naming what they’re feeling, managing their feelings, and navigating social spaces where they must take into consideration other people’s feelings.
3) Asking Questions
Your child’s communication skills are also demonstrated by the questions they ask. A good question can show that your child is paying attention, understanding information, and thinking critically about what’s been said or read.
Asking questions also helps them build emotional connections with the people around them.
4) Communicating Nonverbally
Like adults, children express their feelings through their gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language. As their skills grow, your child will become aware how much these things impact how their message comes across.
5) Speaking with Respect
Children need to learn that the way they express themselves affects others. Waiting for their turn to speak, using a kind tone of voice, and using words like please and thank you signal their respect for others.
6) Practicing Empathy
When a child is able to imagine and understand others’ feelings, they learn that people may have feelings different than their own. They care about how their words impact others and are more apt to communicate in a way that has a chance of a successful outcome for everyone.
7) Resolving Conflict
Children are bound to get into conflicts with parents, siblings, and playmates. The ability to work through and resolve those conflicts comes with learning to express themselves clearly, listen to others as they give their point of view, and tap into empathy and kindness.
Tips for Teaching Kids Communication Skills
Children learn communication skills through what you teach them and the behavior the grown-ups around them model.
Let’s take a look at some of the things you can do to help improve your child’s communication skills.
Explain the Difference Between Listening and Hearing
Tell your child that when they’re hearing, their ears are just picking up sounds as words, but when they’re listening, those words have meaning.
Teach them to be active listeners by giving whoever is speaking their full attention and thinking about what is being said. Encourage them to speak up when they don’t understand something so the person speaking can repeat the information or express it in another way.
Lead by Example
Instead of just saying it, show it. Children learn through observation.
When your child is speaking to you, give them your full attention. And as you go about your daily interactions with others, show your child you’re really listening to what others are saying through your body language and questions.
Practice Role Playing
Sometimes it’s easier to explore feelings and situations through role-playing instead of when you’re in the moment and strong emotions can derail the process.
For example, you can help teach your child how to resolve conflicts by giving them a scenario and urging them to find a solution that is fair to everyone.
Play Communication Games
A great way to teach communication skills to kids is by making a game out of it. The classic game charades is perfect because it shows them how much can be conveyed to others nonverbally. Give your child a word or feeling to act out and see if you can guess what it is. Then take a turn giving silent clues and let your child guess what you’re trying to say.
Celebrate Effort!
Be sure to acknowledge and celebrate your child’s efforts to communicate effectively in the moment, even if their skills could use a little improvement. For example, “Thank you for telling me how you feel. I appreciate that you spoke up.”
Have Fun!
There are so many ways you can help hone your child’s communication skills and set them up for a lifetime of healthy relationships and self-confidence. Remember to mix it up, keep it engaging, and above all, have fun!
Let’s Build Communication Skills Together!
Our Learn with Sesame Street app helps two- to five-year-olds build the social-emotional skills that are part of effective communication.
The app encourages children to identify feelings in themselves and others, connect emotions to expressions, body language, and physical cues, and understand how people can have different emotions about the same situation.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I help my child when they have trouble communicating?
If your child is having difficulty communicating, following the above tips can help. It’s also important to remember that every child is different, and that’s OK! Continue to support and encourage them and model good communication skills yourself.
What’s the best age for a child to socialize?
Kids start to socialize outside their family between two and four years old. Playing together with other children helps them develop their social skills, including communication skills, which will improve with age and practice.
