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?
If you have access to Disney+ or piracy, watching a couple of (they’re eight minutes long) episodes of the show Bluey would probably charm your butt off and also give you a lot to go on for fun ways to engage with kids.
It’s all about being real and in the moment, and giving them ways to experience novelty. A parenting book my partner was reading reminded her that all you need to do to engage a (toddler, but the point stands) child’s interest is to turn the laundry basket upside down. Everything that’s dull to you is new to them (and everything that’s exciting to you, they’re often not ready for yet).
Likely most 5 y/os once they realize you’re friends with their parents will want to jabber at you themselves. Just talk to them about what they make it obvious they want to talk about at first. And don’t talk in a baby voice, IE raise your voice up high and stuff-- They’re little humans by that age.
Don’t overthink it.
Also, play dumb. Let them tell you things you already know. And when they tell you something wrong, guide them to the right answer instead of making them feel bad for being confidently wrong.
So just like with adults
Yeah, but your “within reason” window should be wayyyy bigger.
Like, you shouldn’t even let them drive sober.
There’s a lot of adults you shouldn’t let drive even sober
I’m one of them!
(I’m a really bad driver.)
They will inevitably ask you the age-old question of why…at that point you will go into the abyss of which there is no escape
I roll with it, give 'em short, punchy and factual answers. If you bumble and act uncertain, they get that and keep drilling.
Another tack is to get technical with 'em. Bores them right out.
“Why is the sky blue?”
“Because sunlight is actually ALL colors, but because blue light is more energetic, higher frequency, shorter wavelengths, right?, it bounces around more than other colors.” LOL, and keep going.
Baffle them with technicalities (but don’t make shit up, keep it real!) and they’ll wander off to think about it.
Why?
Because he fucking said so, that’s why!
This is the equivalent of a verbal
break;statement
Kids often don’t focus on the past or the future. Just the now. Don’t ask them what they did on the weekend, they won’t remember. Ask them dumb things like what fruit they like.
Just talk with them like normal humans and pretend that you are a giant 5 year old.
I used a lot of words to say much the same. If you treat them like smaller and dumber adults, you’re just another boring big person.
What if I am a giant 5 year old.
Be yourself, children will get past your facade and your inhibitions when you realise it.
I’ve sometimes behaved as if I don’t give a shit and they still trigger me in the right direction to make me goofy.
As someone with a 5yo.
Sit on the floor when interacting with them. Literally being on their level can help a lot, that and talk about stuff they are into.
As someone else mentioned, don’t baby talk to them, unless they have some specific learning disability, a 5yo will know a lot about what they are into (a dinosaur kid will know heaps about dinosaurs)
My boys all love Lego, build cool stuff, then let them have it, don’t use instructions.
Yes, floor time and getting into their world is real currency!
Show them tricks, teach them Rubik’s cubes or something. Kids love learning and novelty (not lectures: show, don’t tell!)
Even if it’s just grabbing a broom, holding it up and spinning around and getting dizzy - good, clean fun (until you throw up on them)
Kids have always loved me, had no idea why, not much love for them. Asked my ex-wife why they latch onto me when I often get annoyed with them.
“You talk to them like adults. You don’t condescend and treat them like they’re stupid, not afraid to use a strong vocabulary. No one else does that so they respond to the heightened respect.”
I still use “big” words with them, but my own kids taught me to occasionally stop and ask, “Know what $X means?”, then give a short answer and flow right back to where I was. In no case will I baby talk 'em, but you gotta realize, they’ll pretend to understand a thing to keep the conversation going. They’re having a blast being respected in such an unusual manner and don’t want to derail the conversation.
As an example, don’t say, “Oh! Do you like STAR WARS? It’s really neato isn’t it? When I was a little boy, I loved Star Wars! Isn’t Darth Vader cool and scary?!”
Say instead, “Star Wars fan, huh? Seen Rogue One yet? That one jacked me up, wow. What did you think?” And then carry on (mostly) like you’re shooting the shit with a friend.
(Hope that example comes across, it’s not a thing I think about, just comes naturally.)
Kinda like how I learned to talk to girls in high school. Holy shit that turned out easy! Instead of treating them as beautiful, strange and untouchable creatures, putting them on a pedestal, talk to them just like your guy friends. With the other guys bumble fucking around trying to figure out what to say to be attractive and not offend, you really stand out.
Turns out people react well to be treated as equals. Who would have thought!
That’s good advice. Shame I’m shit at small talk at a fundamental level, but she likes bluey, maybe I could ask if she saw the episode where they were doing pots and pans as helmets or something
Ask her what her favourite episode is. Once you get small kids talking, it’s actually great, they tell such great stories.
Share (age appropriate of course) opinions of your own along the way. Like, don’t just say “have you seen [episode with pots and pans]”, expand it by saying stuff like you’ve not seen much Bluey, but you have seen the one with the pots and pans — does she know the one you mean? I suggest this because kids are actually pretty socially adept and I’ve found myself in analogous situations where I caused confusion by mentioning something I barely knew and the kid reasonably interpreted this as “this person wants to talk about this thing”, and then when I didn’t seem to know anything about the topic I had suggested, the kid seemed pretty thrown off and uncertain how to respond.
Or completely open ended questions, like “I know you like Bluey, but I’ve never seen it before. What’s your favourite episode?”, which could lead into asking for more details on what happened in that particular episode and why she likes it.
The thing about small talk is that I’ve found there’s a distinction between being good at it, and enjoying it. I used to think I was awful at smalltalk, before I realised that actually, I just didn’t find it enjoyable. I think to some extent, the point isn’t to enjoy it, but to build a conversational back and forth rally which builds initial rapport to figure out what common ground exists between two people (which can lead to more enjoyable proper conversation). Some people do enjoy small talk though. The rally model was useful for me because it underscored how I need to serve the other person options to hit back with.
For example, most kids go to school, so that’s a decent enough topic for if you’re running out of ideas. With kids, you can get away with clunky conversation starters like “What’s your favourite subject at school?”. Better than that though is something like “My favourite subject at school is science, what’s yours?” because it gives your conversation partner the option of responding either to your statement (such as with “ugh, I hate science, [teacher] is so mean!”), or your question, and having multiple options to hit back with allows for flow to help. Once you hit on a topic the kid is excited to talk about, you’re golden: just keep being interested in their perspective and give bits of your own perspective so they don’t feel like they’re being interrogated.
Edit: This was a great question, btw OP — It’s led to a lot of interesting discussion, thanks for asking it
Ask them what they like, and then ask questions about that topic. Children are the easiest people to make friends with. They will be excited that you asked them anything about themselves, and if you continue to ask questions about what they like, they’re going to adore you immediately.
I agree w this! I also usually bring my friend’s kid a sweet treat or candy or chips, w parental permission, of course. Now their kid not only gets excited when I stop by, but they also love cannolis now 😇😃😋
Kids like attention. Ask them what they like to play, and what they like to watch. Talk to them like little adults and they generally will like that.
Pull up in a white van with no or blackened windows and offer them candy. Oh and make sure “Free candy” is scratched in on the sides of the van. Wouldn’t want people getting the wrong idea…
Now for the serious advice, don’t do dumb jokes like the one above. Kids need honesty. Screwing around for shits and giggles is always a bad idea around them.
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 enthusiast 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 (ane some adulto 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.
Me too, it was like the equivalent of the clown fear some people have. Like, why are you acting this way? It’s weird, you seem weird
I usually sit on the floor
Yeah, I try to get on their level without crouching.
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.
I’m autistic and bad with kids, but this has worked with every one that age I’ve tried it with: ask them what they had for lunch, then what they’re going to have for dinner and then you can branch out to favorite foods and colors and movies and then it should go easily from there
