We support the World Health Organisation’s recommendation for exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life and continued breastfeeding along with the introduction of nutritionally adequate and safe complementary (solid) foods at 6 months together with continued breastfeeding up to two years of age and beyond.

Communication Skills for Your Child’s Development

Language is a communication tool used by everyone. Children can usually pick up a new language faster than an adult. This is because, the child’s brain develops as they grow which makes learning new things easier for them. 1 Hence, helping them to develop their communication skills since young

Developing a child’s communication skills may help them to express themselves clearly and confidently to those around them. Children are also encouraged to learn new languages which would help them overcome language barrier issues and communicate with more people. This may also greatly help their career opportunities later on in life.

Here are some fun activities that you can do with your children to help them develop their communication skill:

Recommended activities for children 1 year and above. The Details 
Teach language through the children’s daily activities  Explain to your children about the daily activities that they go through every day such as, waking up, bathing, washing their face, brushing their teeth, etc. This is to help the children learn new words and vocabulary to improve their communication in order to better express themselves. 
Talk and communicate often with the child  Parents should speak to their children as often as possible. Ask the children simple questions for them to answer by using events that has occurred or things the children have seen such as, “What is the color of the flower you saw?”, “What sound did the cow make?”, “What game did you play at the party?”. If the children are unable to answer them, help them by letting them know the answer so that can learn and use them in the future. 
Reading storybooks for children  Reading a storybook to the children may help them to differentiate between normal conversation and storytelling. Encourage the children to look at pictures in the book together with its wording. This will facilitate the children to learn easier by connecting the words with the pictures. This will also make learning more fun. Hence, parents should try to read storybooks for their children as often as possible. 
Pretend conversation using the phone  Let children play with a toy phone and encourage them to create their own dialogues such as, “Hello, this is Aiden speaking…Who is speaking over there? Do you want to come over to my house so that we can play together today?” Parents can then respond to the child and practice communication with their children. 
Teach children to express their needs  Children may face difficulties in expressing their needs while growing up. Hence, parents should train their children to effectively communicate their needs. Parents may give words of encouragement for the children to say simple sentences like: “I want to pee” “I’m sleepy” “I like this” When the children can communicate their needs, parents should listen attentively to their children. To put their communication skills to a test, try to get the children to voice out the things that they like or do not like. For example, when another kid snatches the toy away from your child, teach them to politely communicate to the kid, “Don’t snatch away my toy like that, it’s not nice. You can ask me nicely for it if you’d like to play with it.” and so on. By doing this, you will help your child to develop their communication skills, so they can speak out and express what they think and feel. 
Practice by showing them family photos  Invite your children to view the family photos with you and ask the children simple questions like: ‘Who is in this photo? Where is this place? What were you doing there?’ This will not only help to stimulate the children’s memory, but also train them on their communication. 
References :
1 https://tessais.org/children-learn-languages-faster-adults/
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