Every parent dreams of teaching their child new skills, but with so little time in our lives how can we achieve this most effectively?
The key to maximising your child’s ability to learn new things is simple; joint engagement. In other words, attending to the same activity as your child during an interaction.
According to Hanen, this involves:
- Observing what your child is doing. Your child will soon notice that you’re interested in the activity just like him/her.
- Joining in with your child’s play. Get involved but don’t take over or correct what he/she is doing. You’ll need to get down to their level and maybe even make a tower of your own.
- Imitating your child’s actions and words. This will help to grab their attention. Just be sure to continue the conversation with back and forth turn taking.
- Pausing to prompt your child to take his/her conversational turn and wait patiently for them to respond.
- Have fun. They will start looking for opportunities to continue interacting with you if you’re both enjoying the activity together.
For more information from Hanen about facilitating joint engagement, follow the link below to read their full article.