Importance of improving communication skills
– Tips for Parents by Mrs. Meenal Arora
The ability to communicate well is one of the most essential life skills which must be instilled in growing children as it can help them in developing healthy bonding and sustain lasting relationships with their loved ones. Children’s ability to converse well can also enhance their overall performance in school as with good conversation skills, they can participate actively in classroom learning activities & develop better understanding of different subjects. Moreover, if children know how to put across their thoughts effectively, they can excel in extra-curricular activities such as debates & discussions etc. So, it is important for parents to take initiative and build the art of conversation in children so that they can emerge as champions in school and also develop strong bond in personal relationships.
Parental Role
As a parent, you can help your child to strengthen her communication skills at home in a number of ways, like by improving her clarity of speech, enhancing her vocabulary, inculcating voice modulation etc. However, you should remember that the ability of your child to communicate well may depend upon her grasping power, her ability to follow your words & actions and also on her age & level of development. For example, children tend to pick up language and communication skills faster at an early age. Therefore, observe her words and actions right at her tender age and adopt the following suggestions to develop her communication skills.
What can be done?
Create an environment for communication at home – Maintain strong bonding and healthy relationships with everyone at home. Never indulge in fights and arguments with each other in front of your child and also avoid shouting or talking in a high pitch at home. Further, avoid using bad language, abusive words and slang in your child’s presence, because she may tend to grasp such bad words and use them without even knowing what they really mean. Instead, create a language rich environment at home and encourage all the family members to use good language and gestures while talking to each other.
Help your child to express herself freely – Provide your child with enough opportunities at home wherein she can express herself freely, without hesitation. So, indulge in personal talks with your child and encourage her to talk about her favourite things, such as her favourite game, toy, ice-cream flavour etc. In addition,let your child talk without being interrupted and do not cut her short in the middle of a sentence and also do not finish the sentences for her. Further, whenever she is stuck in the middle of telling you something, allow her to take enough time to find suitable words to express her thoughts
Bring in clarity of speech in your child – To bring in the clarity of speech in your child, ask her to speak clearly in a way that is properly audible to others and does not require her to repeat what she says. Also, encourage your child to use simple yet complete sentences, through which she can put across her thoughts well. In addition, demonstrate how to speak clearly during different situations, such as during one-on-one conversation; while talking in a group; while addressing a large number of people etc. You can choose the topic of your child’s interest and encourage her to give her views on it.
Control the speed of your child’s speech – Make your child practice talking at an appropriate speed. For this, first observe how your child talks. Make sure that the speed of her speech is slow enough to hold other person’s interest, but not too fast that may lead to poor clarity of words. Thereafter, demonstrate the optimum speed with which your child should talk to others and encourage her to observe you and follow the same.
Watch out for speech problems in your child – If you find symptoms of stammering in your child, such as difficulty in starting with a word, phrase or a sentence; problem in pronouncing words; or repetition of certain sounds or words, then make sure that you rectify this problem as soon as possible. Help your child to overcome this problem by assisting her to pronounce words correctly. Also, if your child substitutes the sound‘s’ with ‘th’, help her to overcome the problem by giving her continuous practise. For this, you may provide her with a list of words that end with the sound‘s’ & ask her to spell them correctly. Further, encourage her to practice them regularly until she learns how to pronounce the words correctly without sound substitution.
Teach her about voice modulation – Apart from the clarity in speech, your child should also know about voice modulations. So, get her acquainted with pitch & volume control. Teach her that it is very important to control the pitch and the volume to focus on certain words and sentences. Show your child how to control pitch of her voice to suit different expressions. For instance, be firm when you want to discipline your child; speak in low voice when you are talking to her one-on-one; raise your pitch when she is at a distance. You may also indulge her in reading activities for voice modulation and encourage her to practice reading by giving pause in between the sentences & stress on certain words to express various kinds of emotions.
Enrich your child’s vocabulary – Enrich your child’s vocabulary by introducing her to various synonyms of a word. Also, teach her how to add adjectives to simple sentences. In addition, instruct your child to consult a dictionary to find out the meaning of words that are new to her. Further, you may play a variety of word games at home, like Scrabble; word puzzles etc. to improve your child’s vocabulary.
Use technology to build communication skills – Buy CDs and DVDs consisting of audio or video recordings of conversations between two people, among a group or speech addressing a large number of people. Instruct your child to follow the recordings thoroughly. Such recordings will assist your child in learning how to initiate conversation, modulate pitch of voice during different situations; maintain politeness while talking to others and also how to take the conversation forward, effectively.
In the end
Remember that by using polite words, good language and proper gestures, your child will grow up as respectable and well-mannered adult. So, show your patience, love and affection and extend your moral support so that she grows up to be a confident and expressive individual with exceptional communication skills.
