Getting Toddlers to Greet Others

Hey, this is Ming here, a speech therapist from agentsofspeech.com today we want to talk about how to get children to greet other people. Okay? So first of all, you have to understand greeting is a language function. It's a way we use language to achieve something, which is to socialize, Basically to tell someone, hey, I see you. I want to say hi to you and acknowledge that you are here, right? And maybe go on to have some small talk. But if you're talking about a toddler, they wouldn't know that. All they know that is that they're supposed to say hello and socialize, and it becomes a routine and they get reinforced. Because when cute little kids say hi to adults, they would go, oh, so cute. Yes, thank you. Hello. Yeah, whatever, right? So the problem here is that if a child has limited language functions, meaning they only use it for, like, I want whatever or commenting. Oh, that's a big car. They don't have the function of greeting. So how do you teach a child that? So if a child is already speaking and using words, they are imitation machines, right? They're looking at what you're doing and trying to, like, copy you. So the problem I see, especially from where I am from, I'm from Hong Kong, is that, like, parents will tell the children to say, say hi to auntie, but they never do so themselves, right? That's a real problem. Because if I tell you to do something and I don't do it myself, well, you know, what was the point of that? You're not telling the child that dysfunction is to socialize because you don't even do it yourself. So what you need to do instead is to greet people whenever you see them. And it's actually strange to greet strangers, right? I mean, sometimes when I go in the lift and back in my hometown, I don't know about where you're from, is that I go into the lift and then the kid looks at me, and then the mom says, say hi to uncle. Or like, I don't know. Yeah, say hi to uncle, right? And then I'm like, hi, I don't know you. What's going on? And the kids, like, kind of awkward as well. So if you're not going to say hi to a stranger, then don't teach your child to say hi to a stranger. It's strange, okay? If you want them to do it, it must be socially acceptable for you to do him yourself. All right? That's the first point. And you need to lead by example and keep on going. Right? Okay. Second Point is that what you can do now is you can say hi and by and greet everything, okay? Whenever, Even if it's like an object, an inanimate thing, okay? If you see a cat on the road and say hi cat, bye cat, you know, you see a plant, high plant, high airplane, high car, hi, whatever, bye bye bottle, bye bye, whatever. It becomes a routine, it becomes a habit, it becomes something you can repeat over and over again. And it becomes a type, like a way of living. Is that to greet different things as they come and go and it's easier then to help your child to generalize towards saying hi and bye to real people, right? That's something you have to realize, is that if you don't have enough practice, they won't learn the reason why you actually greet, which is to say hi when something, like when something introduces here, you acknowledge that thing being there and then you say bye bye. As in, oh, I know it's leaving now. I'm gonna acknowledge that it's it, him, her, they, whatever are leaving, right? So the last point I want to talk about is don't force it, okay? Don't force it. The last thing you want this, all this to go is like, it becomes a bad experience for a child, okay? If every time they see a stranger and you grab their hand and say hi to uncle, come on, go. You didn't say yet, whatever, say hello, Uncle. And then like it happens, keeps on happening. Anyone would feel frustrated about this, right? Even if you're not, not a kid. So if you think about it, if someone was like a little bit taller than you and kept on saying like, say hi to whatever, say bye to whatever, like, you would get pretty upset very soon because like, why, first of all, second of all is that you keep on saying it. You keep on bugging me, what's the point? So therefore you should try to use rewards, okay? Say hi yourself, right? And then as a child maybe by chance that they do start saying hi or whatever, then you know, like give them a reward, like tell them a good job, nice doing it, or whatever. Because what I see a lot, especially in my community and a lot of Chinese people is that actually sometimes the Americans and British also do this right after the kid says hi to someone. And then they just go like that, as if that the child take it for granted that the child actually said hi, right? When it's something that is actually difficult for them. And what I find like kind of strange is that you would push for it so hard when they finally do it. Your reaction is so low. It's like, okay, good. Like that. That's it, right? It should be that you're praising him and giving him some sort of reward. Okay. Whether it's some time on the phone, right? Whether. Or either it's like some, you know, a sticker or whatever. As it can be very small, it could be just a praise, right? It could be like a small snack, whatever. It might seem unnatural to do that, but at the same time, it's already unnatural that they're not doing it by themselves, right? So why would you think a natural way would get them there? Right? It was. It's going to take a longer time. So if you want fast results, use rewards. That's what I'm saying. All right. Okay. So the last thing I want to tell you about the whole greeting thing is that you need to understand if someone comes up to your child and keeps on trying to greet the kid and the kid doesn't feel comfortable and he or she, your child is already shy and is trying to, like, hide behind you, don't sell your child out and try to push them in front and say hi to the person, right? You can tell the stranger or whoever is like, oh, I think he's not very comfortable right now doing this. Right? And I do this for my, my, my students all the time. Like, hey, I. I don't think this is the right time to say hi to him. Like, just say. Just, just, just walk past. It's okay, right? It's not the end of the world, right? If your child cannot feel that you're protecting him or her, then, you know, like, the trust level would be very low. You know what I'm saying? Like, for instance, if you have a pet, like, I have other cat here right now, and whenever she's scared, she hides behind me and I throw her out towards the dog that she's scared of, then what's going to happen? She's going to hate me, right? So you got to think about, in that way, put yourself in your child's shoe and think about why greeting is so important. If it's not important, just whatever. Don't do it. Do it yourself. If he or she doesn't follow, then whatever, okay? But if you do it and then they find it fun to follow you and greet someone, then reward and praise them. That's it. Okay? So this is the end of the video. If you haven't, you should go to agents of Speech.com checklist to grab a list of tools and toys that we recommend you to get when you start home therapy yourself. Okay. So I'll see you the next video next week. Bye. Bye.