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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Nice to Meet You!

My daughter, who tends to be on the shy side, was having trouble speaking to people when introduced or when prompted. I don't mean talking to strangers. I mean the people you'll encounter more regularly (at church, neighbors, family that comes to visit every few months, etc). At 2 I don't expect her to carry on a full conversation, but we are teaching her to say hello and answer brief questions (How are you _____? I like your dress! Aren't your sparkly shoes pretty!!) when asked.
So we tried playing what I call the Nice to Meet You game.
Materials: dress up clothes (any will do!)

Activity: I dressed up and tell her that we are at church/store/etc and she's will her mommy. I then say hello and compliment her. The conversation goes something like this:
Elderly lady at church: Hello! How are you this morning?
Daughter: Good! How are you?
Lady: Fine, thank you. I like your pretty dress!
Daughter: Thank you!

Then I change clothes, and we try it again! It's that simple! Sometimes I close her door to her room and knock, or we use her grocery cart and pretend we're at church. We've talked about how when someone says "I like your ____" it's a compliment and she's to say thank you.

For older children, this is a good way to role play encounters with strangers/semi-strangers. It's a good time to talk about a code word for your family and things to do and never to do.
At 2 we haven't gone there yet because of lack of understanding. At her age, however, she is not out of my sight except when I specifically drop her off at her Sunday school class with her teacher. For your particular situation, be aware of the situations your child will be in and use your discernment.

1 comment:

  1. We practiced this before coming to West Virginia for DH's interview at the church. We practiced on the plane and in the hotel room and Tobias thought it was great fun to shake our hands while we said "nice to meet you". Because he only says one word at a time we didn't go any further with the role play than that.

    When we got to the church and people began arriving I instructed him to go say nice to meet you. He walked up and shyly offered his hand and shook each person's hand, getting more comfortable as time went on. Everyone loved it and it was a great way to enforce boundaries so his personal space was respected but he was still being friendly.

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