Picture this. You're sitting with your family at the dinner table. You want to have a pleasant dinner chat with your children and if feels like everyone is speaking over each other. It's hard to concentrate and leaves most children feeling frustrated and unheard...except for the one who seems unaware of everyone else's comments and plows through with no break in chatter.
Maybe one child asks question after question while another gives a minute-by-minute play by play of their dream they had the night before.
What happened to all the bonding that is supposedly supposed to happen over family dinner together? Instead, it feels chaotic with unmet emotional needs.
Do you have one child who constantly hogs the group communication?
Or another who asks tons and tons of questions but doesn't seem to register or process questions asked to them?
Maybe you have multiple children trying to tell you or ask you something simultaneously and your auditory system is quickly becoming overloaded.
If you can relate to any of this, I have a simple visual for you to try during table conversations. This could just as easily be done over an after school snack.
The goal of this activity is take something fairly abstract, (like recognizing how to take turns in a conversation) and make it visual! This activity helps children recognize what they are currently doing already, and gives an easy way to try and build on those conversational skills.
So, what is this activity? It's really actually just a visual to use with conversations. Turn-Taking Cards (Yes, I'm making up that name right now) Feel free to send in your suggestions for a new name. A fellow colleague first shared this idea with me years ago, and I have used it in therapy groups numerous times with great success!
Everyone who participates needs their own color paper (or post it notes). I use little foam squares so they are reusable. Have a different color paper for each child is key here so they can see how they are contributing. Cut out roughly 20 squares that are 2x2 (ish)and on half of the squares right a "C". This stands for "comment". And on the other half of the squares draw a "?". This stands for "question" (obviously!)
Tell your kids that while you eat dinner/afternoon snack, every time they make a comment, they put one of their "C" cards in front of them, and every time they ask a question they put down one of their "?" cards.
Proceed to chat about whatever everyone wants to or kick things off with some conversational topics if you need one!
After snack/dinner is done (or even midway through) pause and have everyone look to see what they have contributed to the conversation.
Are they asking all the questions but never commenting?
Or are they only commenting and never asking questions?
Are they struggling to get any comments or questions in at all?
Make it fun!
Turn Taking Cards are such an easy visual to show that one of our goals of conversation is to not only talk about ourselves but also have thoughts and questions about others. It's not going to be perfectly balanced (e.g. if one person is telling a story etc) but it can help children see how the conversation is flowing.
Let me know if you try it!
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