I’m starting to reconnect with some of my old friends from high school but they have a 5-year-old now and I want to make a good impression but I don’t really know how to interact with children. Do I just like ask them what their favorite Disney movie is or something?
Aways come down to their height level when you talk to them so you can show them and read their facial non verbal language, you want to be on their same eye level but not on their face. Don’t stare or make too intense eye contact.
Pick a topic and see how much enthusiasm the kid shows, that can be a useful clue to see if you re going the right way with your interaction. Take into account that some kids (and some adults too!) don’t like interacting at all and that is also fine.
Some popular ones are: Dinosaurs, pets, tv shows/videogames, favorite color, favorite ice cream flavor, favorite song, favorite book.
Hope this helps.
I hated it when adults would crouch to talk to me, but I don’t know how common that is.
I usually sit on the floor
If some giant towering over me would sudddenly get right in my face not respecting my personal space talking in a cutesy voice I would hate it too. Maybe the giant has bad breath and/or is asking me inappropiate questions like if I have a girlfriend yet or to come and hug him. I would be terrified.
Getting down to eye level to talk to small children is the norm in early childhood education. While getting my Montessori training, we had a special portion of the program learning how to appropiately adress children in a respectful way to invite them and engage in x or y activity. Even where we had to sit to teach a lesson depending if the child is left or right handed. Small details are very very important.
My mom was a Montessori teacher, maybe that’s why it happened so much 😂
It always felt like we were going to have a very serious conversation and it felt condescending somehow (I now recognize that, at the time I just felt annoyed). I had unmanaged ADHD and liked to wander off, so perhaps I was having those conversations way more often, but I never liked it.
Lol yes to the “very serious conversation” bit, my kid would geta stern look at times and I always thought it was because for them, I was on “teacher” mode, very serious.