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Children need a guide to become good conversationalists

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette conversation illustration.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette conversation illustration.

From the time their children are born, parents are told how important it is to talk to and with them. But no one told us how hard that would be.

On the one hand, we love their enthusiasm for the things that capture their interest, but on the other hand, for the love of Pete, we can't take another endless recitation about dinosaurs or Frozen.

The cold truth is that, sometimes, talking with children can be an exercise in forbearance, what with the mundane topics and endless repetitions. But all is not self-sacrifice. There is hope for intelligent, thoughtful and (dare I say it?) interesting conversations.

The key is teaching them what makes a good conversationalist.

"We need to teach kids of all ages that conversation is give-and-take, with responsibilities for both participants," says Betsy Dill, a creative writing teacher in Centreville, Va.

The basics, such as resisting the urge to interrupt and saying "please" and "thank you," lay the foundation upon which we add softer skills that help children turn into people with whom conversing is a pleasure. "How to have a meaningful conversation is so necessary for any social setting," says Rebecca Czarniecki, who teaches manners to children through Tea With Mrs. B in Falls Church, Va.

Those skills can be taught. Here are 10 ways parents can guide their children to becoming better conversationalists.

1. Talk to the children.

If you don't interact with your children, you can't teach them how to interact.

"Talk to your child at every opportunity about everything and anything," says Judith Hervay of Reston, Va., a mother of two girls, now 17 and 21. "Adults should always have time to sit down and talk with their child, to show them by doing how to hold a conversation."

2. Practice active listening.

Sometimes, a child will act bored when another child is talking about a topic that doesn't interest him, and yet will

expect rapt concentration when he has the floor. This is not a good conversational practice.

"Active listening is paying attention to what the other person is saying without planning what you're going to say or thinking about something else," Dill says.

Body language plays a huge part of active listening, so role-play with your child what being interested looks like, such as facial expressions and verbal sounds (sighing, etc.).

3. Cut to the chase.

Children, especially young ones, have a hard time figuring out what the main point of a story is, so they tend to flood their recitations with all the facts.

"You don't have to give a blow-by-blow description of the story because that puts people to sleep," Dill says. "Instead, you need to get to the main point pretty fast or you'll lose the other person's interest."

Ask questions that can help a child figure out the nugget worth sharing, including what they liked most about an event, what their favorite part was, what struck them as funny or weird.

4. Take a breath.

Learning when to pause in a conversation is just as important as learning when to speak.

"People today use so many filler words to monopolize air space," Czarniecki says. "We should instead use 'real' words and not be afraid of silence."

She recommends repeating the question or saying "Let me think about it," instead of immediately launching into a response. It is OK to give yourself time to craft a good answer. It shows you respect the person you're talking to.

5. Learn, learn, learn.

"You can't have a conversation if you don't know anything about anything," Hervay says. "To have a rich, intellectually rewarding and empathetic conversation, you really should know things about the world."

Children have a natural disadvantage in this area. But reading age-appropriate books, visiting museums and taking up hobbies are just some ways for kids to enrich their minds -- and give them something to talk about.

6. Develop questions.

"The basic foundation to any conversation is having a subject," Czarniecki says. "And one great way for kids to find that subject is to ask a question of their conversation partner."

She suggests writing down questions and putting them in a bowl to be used at the dinner table for conversation starters.

7. Develop empathy.

"What makes someone good at conversation? Putting one's self in the other person's place," Hervay says. Empathy allows us to put ourselves in the other person's shoes.

"A person, no matter how incredibly brilliant they are, will be bored if they don't have empathy because they won't be interested in the other person," she says.

Empathy's not easy to teach, but parents can encourage its development by challenging children to try to imagine how the other person feels. On her website parentingscience.com, Gwen Dewar offers advice backed up by citations from research literature. Among her suggestions for the teaching of empathy are looking for everyday opportunities to model sympathy for other people and several ways of helping children notice what they have in common with others. A large part of empathy, she suggests, is self-awareness.

"Have you ever noticed how hard it is to appreciate the power of a food craving when you aren't hungry?" she writes. "This is what researchers call the 'hot-cold empathy gap,' and it appears to be a universal problem. When people are feeling cool and collected, they underestimate how compelling emotionally or physiologically 'hot' states -- like hunger -- can be. ...

"The hot-cold empathy gap leads to mistakes in judgment and failures of empathy. But once we understand how the hot-cold empathy gap works, we can use it to teach empathy.

"For example, we can use moments of discomfort as opportunities to induce empathy for others: Did your child get the brush-off from the school snob? You might start a conversation about the experiences of other victims ... and note how these episodes can help us avoid acting like snobs ourselves."

8. Value silence.

Staying quiet can be very hard for many children, but parents should encourage their kids to not talk sometimes. We should help our children realize that just because they have something to say, doesn't mean they always have to say it.

"Silence is a lost art, but it's a necessary part of any conversation," Czarniecki says.

9. Be polite.

Sometimes we know more about a subject than the other person, and the temptation to point that out can be great. Other times, we don't find the topic exciting or of interest to us.

"I always told my girls to not make the other person feel dumb or ignorant or inadequate in those situations," Hervay says. "This is really hard for young kids, who want to rub it in that they know something the other person doesn't, but it's a great life lesson to learn."

10. Practice.

Conversing is a back-and-forth exchange -- not a monologue or a lecture. One fun way to practice the give-and-take of conversation with kids is by tossing a small ball or water balloon. Toss it to the other person and ask a question, then the other person answers the question and tosses it back.

"That helps children visually see the art of giving and receiving in conversation," Czarniecki says.

Talking with our children should be enjoyable for us and for them. By providing guidance for our kids on how this works in real life, we can help them develop into good conversationalists.

"People can be so interesting, and children need to learn that any person from 90 to 9 has something interesting to contribute," Hervay says. "As parents, one of our jobs is to foster this curiosity and tell them that every human being matters."

Sarah Hamaker is a certified leadership parenting coach and the author of Ending Sibling Rivalry: Moving Your Kids From War to Peace.

Celia Storey added information to this story.

Family on 05/13/2015

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