Disconnect to Connect

One of the biggest predictors of academic success is how many words a child hears through conversations with their family. And as childhood goes, the younger the better. Let’s commit to putting down our phones and having more conversations with our kids. Some kids hear as many as 21k words per day. Others, as little as 6k. Research also shows that watching television has no positive or negative impact on vocabulary. What can we do? Well it’s advised that we start responding and enquiring with more than just one word answers. We’re deliberate about how we craft emails or approach a conversation with our boss, our clients and our colleagues. What about doing the same with our kids? With a lot of us working from home we’re constantly on our phones and laptops. Even our kids are glued to their tablets for school assignments and entertainment. So it’s harder nowadays to get a word in! And it’s not that we don’t want to. When we do have free time, we’re often tired. And a device connected to the Internet is a convenient babysitter. But I’ve found that setting goals, making the targets achievable and setting aside time to achieve them works! How about scheduling time daily to talk or read or discuss or check-in as a family? No time 🤷🏾‍♀️? Set aside 20mins at first. Nothing grand. Take baby steps. Or maybe for you and your family committing to eating as a family with no devices and no tv once a week might be more realistic. Make the target achievable. Sometimes we have to disconnect to connect with the ones we love. So what strategies do you use to have deeper conversations with your kids? Leave a comment below!