Well ... there may be no Wimbledon this year ... but hopefully you can get outside and enjoy a bat and ball game together!
Tennis, like most ball games, involves taking turns with a partner.
Turn-taking is an important skill for a young child to develop as communication is a give and take process. Turn-taking for communication refers to the back and forth interaction whether it is with gestures, sounds, or words.
Turn-taking in communication begins right from birth even when you’re sharing and mirroring those early facial expressions and noises that your new baby makes.
At Talking Tots classes we help children to develop turn-taking skills in a fun and exciting group atmosphere. If you can’t get to a class … here are some great ways to help your child develop good turn-taking skills.
- Try to work on turn-taking when you are alone with your child and without distractions such as TV and siblings.
- Only have one game/activity out at a time.
- At the beginning you may have to support turn-taking by saying … ‘My turn/Your turn’.
- At first you may have to physically take the turn away from your child by taking the toy in to your own hands … again support this with a voiceover … “Now it’s my turn … you get your turn again next”
- If your child is really struggling to wait for their turn, they may need a visual prompt to know when to wait and when to take their turn. A “wait” card can be useful. Let your child hold the card whilst they are waiting and swap it for the toy when it is their turn. Reinforce their waiting and turn-taking with positive feedback, such as “Good listening and waiting”.
- If your child unwilling to take turns, stop the game and come back to it later.
Here are some ideas for turn-taking games to play at home:
- Balls
Sit opposite your child and roll a ball to each other. Try to get good eye contact.
- Cars
Take turns to roll a car toward each other
- Building brick towers
Take turns to add another brick to a tower and then take turns to knock it down
- Posting boxes
Take turns to post a shape in the box
- Books
Take turns to turn the pages/lift the flaps
- Skittles and ball
Take turns to roll the ball and knock down the skittles
- Pop-up Toys
e.g. Jack in the box, Pop up rocket. Take turns to make the toy pop up
There are also lots of good early board games such as ‘Snap’ and ‘Lotto’ available. Orchard Toys have a superb range of early bright and colourful games that help develop turn-taking skills.
It’s also important to encourage turn-taking in everyday situations as turn-taking is also an important social skill to learn.
Try to encourage sharing during everyday routines such as:
- Taking turns in games and sharing toys
- Taking turns to put the shopping away
- Taking turns to stir thing in a bowl
- Taking turns to take a treat such as a raisin
- Taking turns to put money in a purse
- Taking turns with siblings
If you’d like to experience our great turn-taking games … look for your local Talking Tots class here. We hope to see you back in September - with all government COVID guidelines in place.
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