How to encourage a 5-year-old son to interact and engage more.
This question came in from a parent, Amanda, who’s concerned about how to get more interaction and engagement with her child who’s over five years old.
I’m very much going to be keeping Amanda’s son in mind when I’m talking about the best ways to encourage more two-way communication. Start with encouraging the natural ways of getting more communication going. Find what’s really motivating for your child and then use that as a way to get more interaction and engagement going.
In Amanda’s son’s situation, I know he has a big sister. This is great as there are ways to bring her in to help out, to encourage more engagement. I would focus it around activities that he enjoys, or ideally that they both enjoy, and encourage more two-way communication. Some of the best ways, the natural ways, to encourage more two-way communication for someone like this little boy, who is able to talk, who is able to interact and engage, but just may not be doing as much as you would like yet, is to encourage games.
