The Secret to Helping ANY Child Talk to You

Parents, there's an art form to getting children to talk to you. This has nothing to do with your race, your gender, ethnicity, how you look, how handsome you are, how beautiful you are. Anyone can do this. In fact, in this video, I'll teach you some of the tricks and skills, even if you think you can't. It's a matter of doing less, actually more than adding skills to it. All right, so number one is to build rapport. Very important. We don't want to rush into a relationship, right? And when we're teaching children, somehow we forget about all of this. And a lot of parents will ask me, how do I get my child to want to play with me? Because every time I go next to my child, they start turning their back on me. They stay walking away. They get angry when I touch their toys. So what do I do? The thing is, maybe you shouldn't touch their toys. Maybe you shouldn't be so close to your child when they're playing, right? Everyone who is doing their own thing at their own time would not be. They wouldn't like someone disturbing them. Okay, so what do we do in this situation is to understand what is the maximum or minimal distance, right, that we can be with the child. So we need to find a threshold where the sweet spot is. So if we can find, like, maybe it's five meters, six meters, that your child will start actually wanting you to leave. We stay there. We don't go into that barrier until, like, maybe five or ten minutes. We inch slowly into the world, into their barrier, and they feel a lot more. They feel safe, basically, Right? A lot of times, rapport comes from the feeling of safety. Okay? If they know when you come over, you're gonna touch the toys, you're gonna disrupt that line that we're. They're forming with the. With the cars that you're going to take those bubbles and blow a bigger one. When they wanted smaller ones, they're not going to like it. So then find the distance, right? Slowly inch towards it. And when you are next to your child, don't touch anything. Don't talk. Just sit there, okay? Until you see that your child's relaxed. You can do some small movements. Touch toy a little bit, right? Say one word or one sound. See how it goes. And slowly go from there. We had a parent, a mom from Indonesia, who was rejected by her daughter back then, I think around three years ago, she was 11 or 12. Forgot. But she used to tell her mom, go upstairs whenever her mom tried to play with her or try to watch A TV show. Sit next to her, do homework, whatever. All she got was, go away, mom, go upstairs. Right? That's as much language as she could say. And she couldn't tell the reason why either, right? So then I told her to do the same thing, okay? Respect the boundaries, go slowly sit over there. Because I, as a new person back then, I could sit next to her, no problem. Because I was a teacher, I was a different role, I was a new person. So I've reset the boundaries and slowly I had to give that to the mother. I was like, sit here, sit closer, sit next to me. Change spots with me. All right? So then slowly they became playmates. And they really loved playing with each other. They would make YouTube videos of toy unboxing, review videos and whatnot. And then they went on to have conversations. Okay? So number two point is be chill and I'm talking about your voice, okay? When teaching children, parents like to say, oh, I'm not bubbling. I have to be more child friendly. I need to turn on the Disney Channel. I need to go. Let me go up, I need to go down. I need to go, whatever. That's not the case here, okay? Having those kind of voices are actually what we call therapy or teacher voice. So when you play that, it's obvious you're telepathically telling your child that I'm about to teach you something because you're being abnormal, right? You're going overboard. Your energy level is through the roof. They know you want something out of them. All right? Even if all you wanted to do is to spend time with your child, they're not going to talk to you because the instant you talk, they talk. You're going to talk more and you're going to be even more annoying. So then because of past experience, they understand that. And you might ask me, oh, how come they can do that and they can accept a teacher voice or a therapy voice at the clinic or in the classroom? Well, because they know at that place it's not their home. They don't have a home court advantage. Number two is that they know it's going to end right? There's only an hour or two at that kind of place and then they can go home. Can you imagine if, like nowadays, work from home is a thing, right? Can you imagine having that high stress of, of, of work and being polite and being tippy toe with the, with the office politics and you bring it all back home. It's the same. So when someone talks to you at home in your boss's voice or Your colleague's voice, you would feel strange. It's just like my dad typing a message and say best regards at the bottom. It it's what are you doing? I don't understand what's going on. Right, so anyways, whilst being chill, what it means is to have a very like, very calm voice, a very normal, just like how you would speak to your spouse, your brothers, your sisters, whoever. All right? Whenever you are, your energy level is above and not chill. Children know, they can smell it. They know you're trying to teach something or get into the world and being overly, like needy, overly excited never translates into a good relationship. Just think about if you go into Sephora, I'm guessing you're a woman and then instantly the sales come in and they go high energy on you, you will be turned off, right? Similarly, if you're a guy or a girl, as long as you're being pursued by the opposite sex or, or same sex, I don't know what happens is like the person who tries the most, they lose, right? And that's why you have to be quote unquote calm, be chill, don't overextend. Because when you do that, children know that you're trying something with them and they try to go away. Okay? The third thing is to say things only one time. So many times parents repeat, repeat, repeat, ask questions here, there, whatever, and they say it multiple times without any response. What happens is that these things that you keep on saying, they get ignored. And I know what kind of advice there, there is on the Internet and it's all about, oh, repeating and narrating whatever you do and everything you do, right? Whilst that's true, that's correct and everything, that doesn't mean your commands, your questions and what you try to get your child's attention. If you try. I know there are a lot of speech therapy or therapy for children advice out there which is make sound play. Like if you take a remote control like this and go like that, you can get your child's attention and therefore teach them to copy you. The problem is if your child doesn't find it fun or find it amusing, it becomes annoying. So if you keep on repeating something that is not funny, that's not fun and in fact it's pushing your child away, you repeat it many times, it's not going to make it funny. It's like trying to tell a joke over and over again until it becomes funny, which is, I'm laughing because a lot of us do that. No matter with children or with adults. So say things only one time and see how it goes. If it does yield a positive experience, you can repeat it. If it, if there's nothing that happens, just repeating it won't do anything. Okay. The fourth thing is to make micro commitments. Okay. So when I say things one time, especially for commands, what you want to do here is to say give a, give a command so easy that it's a no brainer for the child to do it. And it would be within the same, the context that makes sense. For instance, we're going out, you say put on your shoes, put on your, put on your hat, whatever. And then when they're not doing it, you physically prompt them to do it. So I'm not sure if you've heard of. And I probably won't. You probably haven't. But to get someone to like you, one of the psychological tricks is to ask for favors, very small ones, over and over again. It means that person trusts you to do something, right? So we call those micro commitments. So if I ask someone to do something for me and you see this, I'll use this metaphor. That example again. So in Sephora they give you samples, right? First they. The micro commitment is that, oh, try on your hand, check it out, it's free, right? Oh, it looks so good. It's so smoother in your hand. Why don't you try on your face a little bit on your neck. Oh, the neck, so smooth, right? Oh, that's. It looks really good on you. Like you can feel it. There's a difference between this hand, this side of the neck, this side of that. Oh, why don't you sit down and do a makeup for you, right? And then you wanted to walk in just to check out one thing for five minutes and it turned into a 30 minute makeup session. I know because I've been in Sephora with my wife. Okay, so what happens then is that it's just one micro commitment after another. Micro commitment, another after another. Did you find the sales annoying? No, because they kept on giving value, they kept on asking for small commitments and then they asked for the sale. Is the same with human psychology. Is the same throughout the whole our lifespan. That's just how we're built. When you're teaching children, right, for me, at the very least, I always ask for micro commitments. I ask them to pick this up, do this, throw this in the bin for me, give me a high five, sit back down, put this back, wipe the floor, all these things. And children start to like it because, oh my God, this guy, he trusts Me enough to tell me to do these things that only adults do. Usually what happens with mothers, right? Oh, someone's bill. Oh, let me help you. Let me help you with that. They're overly helpful. Oh, put on your shoes. Oh, let me help you. You're too slow, right? Instead, just be chill, wait for it, tell them to do it. If they don't physically prompt them a little bit to do it, but don't help 100%. And then after that, you want to praise, which goes to my next point. Praise all the time, even for the very small things. What I see, especially in Asia now, a lot of you guys are in Western countries. I'm speaking in English, and therefore this might not be applicable to you. But what I see a lot of the times is that the things that are supposed to be praised are ignored. So for instance, if a child says a word, puts on their shoes, right? Puts the thing in the bin, right? Comes over to you, gives you a hug, you would just take it for granted. So for instance, the other day I saw a. A parent telling your child to say hi to uncle, which is me, and then say, hi, hi, Uncle. And child goes, hi, Uncle. And the mom goes, what is she told you the child did what you asked him or her to do, right? So if you go, it creates love in the condition it makes it feel like. Because then what do I need to do next? What do I need to keep on doing to get your approval and praises? And this is, this is a mental shift that you have. If you want your child to like you and talk to you a lot more, you have to praise. However, the small effort it is. Oh, thank you for putting that in the bin. Oh, thank you for looking at me. Thank you for high five. Good job picking that up. Good job doing this. And the praise needs to be specific. It cannot be just good job. And that's all it needs to be, a good job for something. So praise is also what we call feedback. Needs to be positive and specific. When a child, like, says, good job, and then here's the logic and reason behind they're being praised, then they think that, oh, this guy really takes a lot of time to look at what I'm doing. Isn't it the same if the boss tells you to do something and then whatever you do, they're like, good job, whatever. But then if they say, oh, good job for typing up that report, I was like, especially on page two when you said this and that it was really good. How would you feel the difference? Okay, so think about that again, it's all about treating your child just like another adult, not another human being, right? Treating them with respect, okay? And then the other side of it is ignore the bad things. A lot of times when the children get the most attention is when they do something bad. So another day I was on a call with a parent about coaching, coaching them, the child to start talking, and then she was like, oh, my child, he likes to pinch me, right? He loves pinching me. Every time when my back turned, washing the dishes, he comes to pinch me to get the cookies. And I'm like, okay, so what was your reaction? And she's oh, yeah, I did watch your videos before. I know that I'm not supposed to give too much of attention, but it's very hard for me not to turn. So I'm like, okay, so when you ignore the pinching, what happens? What will happen, right? They're going to pinch harder, right? Because if you think about it, I've talked about this analogy before, but if you go to a vending machine and you know that every time you put a coin in, if the bottle or the drink doesn't come down, you give it a good kick, it comes out. But what happens when the next time you try to buy a drink and you give it a good kick, it doesn't come out? You give it two, two more good kicks and three more and four months, five more, until, like, that behavior, okay? And it's the same as what's going to happen if a child pinches to get attention. Or like some other children will throw everything on the floor and laugh. So how do we ignore that? We can ignore. Doesn't mean we totally don't give a reaction. We have to give the most neutral reaction we can give. Because if we give a very heightened reaction, what happens is children cannot differentiate between what is positive or negative attention. So if I say ouch like that, it would be funny for a lot of children, right? It would be. Let's look at all the cartoons. It's like bugs funny, hitting his toe on something and it goes like glowing red. And he goes, ah. Like, it's funny, right? To two children, not to us. So you want to give the most neutral tone when you give a reaction, okay? So if they pinch it, that's not good. So you teach them something new, like tapping, saying a word using a sign language. And then you praise with a. With a heightened response. Oh, well, that's really good job for tapping me. Thank you. And then the discrepancy of the attention given will Teach your child that there's. Which is the better way, which is the worst way, without having to verbally like reason, okay? And then number seven is to treat children with respect. Okay? And I've already talked about this, but it's not about gentle parenting. It's not about, oh, I treat you whatever. It's not like that. So children, at that point in time, if they're not talking or not talking enough, we know better than them, right? You have to understand that we really do. And it's not about if they don't want to talk, then they don't talk. We need to treat them respect. If I want you to do something, I want you to do it properly. I respect that you don't want to do it. But after you do it, I'll give you a praise and a reward. And if you do something bad, I'll ignore it. I won't give consequences because I won't scold. I won't do anything. I'll just say, okay, I respect you for being such. Like, for pinching me or headbutting me, in some cases, inviting me. But I'm not going to give you the heightened response you wanted me to give. Right? Respect that. If you want to take that route, so be it. Okay? There's a better way. I can show it to you, and you can make your choice yourself. And it's the same. If I respect the child, it means that I look at all the good things they do, I praise all the good things they do, and then when I ask them to do something, I expect them to do it because I think that they're capable and more than capable to do. And that's why it brings me to the next point, which is to reward accordingly. So a lot of parents, what they do is when a child asks for a cookie and they go through all this ordeal of, like, at the cookie jar, and every time I say it, the parents will say, oh, my God. It's as if you know what's happening at home. And trust me when I say, I've heard this a million times now, they want a cookie. You say cookie first. They don't say it, they get a tantrum, and somehow they give in, right? So this standoff at the kitchen counter is not really the best idea. What you want to do is to give things little by little, okay? Give things little by little. And then when they do so that you don't only have one time to reward them, okay? So you make the whole thing that I think you're asking for into Little bits. And you keep on giving, right? When you get a better response, give a bit better, bigger piece. When they get a not so good response, you give a smaller piece. So then you let the reward do the talking. And you don't have to say, I like it because yada, yada, yada, because they're already eating. They can't hear you. All right? So you provide your feedback through the amount of reward that you're giving. Instead of telling them you're not doing, you say it first. Say it next time. It's okay. It's totally fine. Do it one time. You still have the next time because you've broken up that cookie into ten pieces. Okay? So that's how you would do it. And I would say this is the same for anything. If they, if they ask for something and they said it nicely in a full sentence, they get to do the thing longer. If they, like, they ask for something and all they do is pull your hand or whatever. It's not like I'm going to stop them and not allow them to have it. That's the one way street to having a bad relationship. And it also doesn't mean I'm going to give them, no matter what, I'm going to give them a small piece, get them hooked, and then I'll use the remainder of the pieces to get the response better and better. Right? It might be through the first, as we always teach, open palm, right? Getting them to wait instead of snatching and then do some action imitation. And then afterwards, can we get some sounds out of them? All right. And number eight is stop quizzing. I've talked about this. The problem that all adults, all parents have is that they start quizzing. It's not communication. When you interrogate a child and you're. When you're interviewing them and to bring it all back together, what I see a lot happening is that parents will say, oh, what is it? And then what did this say? Whatever. And the heightened pitch as if they're on Sesame street. Right? Ask the same question over and over, over and over. When they get a response, they don't praise and get or just no response at all. Right? So all these added together, if you keep on quizzing and stuff, that's not communication. You want your child to communicate with you the way that you communicate with them. So you need to show them instead of quizzing, or else they think that, oh, talking is all just about getting a question, answering it, and then ask for attention when there's a reason. Don't ask for Attention. Because there's nothing going on. Right? When they want something, then call their name. Right? When you're holding something that they want, call their name, okay? When you have something fun, call their name, okay? When you want to share something, call their name, okay? When you want to teach them something, don't call their name. Because if you want to teach them something, they're already off. So start with and lead with the activity, the reward, the snack, the whatever, okay? Call for the attention. When there is incentive, when there is a reason. Because a lot of times, and I've said it, if you say things more than one time, you keep on repeating it. You train your child to ignore you. So, so if you call for attention over and over for something that has no consequence of the consequence is actually a punishment. And they also don't get appraised after they, they give you the attention. What happens is that children will stop caring. And that's when parents will say, I don't know what happened. My child regressed. They didn't regress. They learned smarter not to respond because it might be to get rid of their past bad experiences with, with you. All right, I'm not saying this, saying that you're causing childhood trauma. I'm just saying that children have other choices. They can run around, they can jump on the trampoline, they can, they can body slam onto a sofa. There are so many things that they can do around the house other than listening to you and responding to their names. Okay. And also ask. Answering your questions. Okay? The last thing I want to talk about is to model the language you want to hear. So many times I see parents say hello to uncle, but they don't do it themselves. That's actually very strange because if an adult wouldn't say hi to another adult, why would a child say hi to an adult? And it's very strange like that. We want to model the, the type of language you want to hear, okay? And it's just how we learn. If every day I listen to a specific person talking, for instance, Donald Trump, right? If, if I listen to Donald Trump every day, I'll speak like Donald Trump. If, if I listen to this person, I'll speak like that person. And this happens a lot, especially in the Asian, like, I'm from Hong Kong. The children who come my way, I think some of them, I think around 10%, they actually know a bunch of foul language before they could speak in a complete sentence. And that's because it's the modeling of the language, right? And this is where the Speech therapy advice actually works because if you say, oh, narrate everything, say things over and over again, it's the modeling of the language you want to hear. All right? So if you're asking questions, you're giving commands, you're asking for their attention with the name. These aren't good models because children who are not speaking yet, they don't have a reason to ask a question. They won't have a reason to call for a name. They won't have a reason to give commands to you. Right. All they want is to push your hand towards something they want. Right. Remember, model the language you want to hear, which is most probably single words, two word phrases, simple phrases that describe what's going on. Okay? Model that. Okay? Get their attention on something they want and model the language you want to hear. Okay? Keep on doing that until you get the results you want. When you hit that, you can push up that model. Increase that language level into a different level. Okay, now this might be contradictory to what I just said. Don't just say things only one time. Don't say things that are. That don't work. All right? Get their attention first with something that has incentive, and then model the language you want your child to do. Right? And if you keep on repeating that, you will see better results rather than just saying the things without getting the attention because actually annoying them. Right. Trying to get them to answer questions or quiz them or whatever. All right, So I hope this is something that made sense to you. And if you want to learn more, we have full courses that go into detail about how you should be doing things at home that yielded results. Okay? We've taught many parents over the Internet. The link is just in the description below. All right, Just check it out. Agents of speech.com course. And if you enjoy this video, I'm sure you will enjoy this one upcoming. All right, see you next week.