Looking for tricks to “make” your little one communicate?

There are little tools we have. We, who work with little people, have tricks of the trade. One of them is the ability to tempt your small child into communicating.

On this episode of Learn With Less, Ayelet tells you all about this early communication strategy, known as “sabotage.”

Below is the transcript of this week’s “Developmental Thought,” an excerpt from the full episode.

For additional information, music, play ideas and the complete interactive family experience, please listen to the entire episode.

Today I want to talk about one of the strategies I use to promote early communication, both as a mother and a therapist. This particular strategy has a bit of a funny name: we call it “sabotage.”

Essentially, the idea is that the adult creates a situation wherein the child has to communicate to solve a problem. You are obstructing their path in some way.

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Kindness is Key

Now, since you are purposefully creating a situation wherein your little one has to solve a problem, it’s very important that you do this kindly! It’s ok if your child becomes mildly frustrated, but we don’t want to make our little ones feel like they are failing.

This relates to our discussion in my episode, “Not Too Much Or Too Little: Channeling Goldilocks,” and the fact that infants and toddlers are constantly making assessments about whether something is so difficult that it’s not even worth attempting. We want to make expectations that are within their reach, but at a slightly higher level than where they’re comfortable.

The technical term for this is called “scaffolding,” and I think it’s a wonderful visual image – think of creating a little boost for them to get to the next step up. We don’t want the next step up to seem too far away, but we want to expect slightly more than what they’re currently doing.

Silly Set-Up

There are many ways to set up the opportunity to sabotage your older infant or toddler to encourage her to initiate communication. A nice way to think of your role as the “setter-upper” of a sabotage situation is that you are being silly – a routine with a step missing, or a toy with an essential part missing becomes over the top and ridiculous if your little one points out that something’s “wrong,” and you can react with humor.

Set Up Temptations

Movement and gesture, song and rhyme are all wonderful tools to use with infants and toddlers to help set up an environment conducive to learning, play and interaction. We spoke earlier about setting up “temptations” for communication and using the strategy of sabotage. Now, I think this strategy is a wonderful one when used kindly and as a tool for learning.

But that word, sabotage really brings up some negative connotations, as well, as it is defined as the deliberate obstruction or disruption of another. I think perhaps, a better way to think of this strategy is, in a way, a technique for scaffolding: we want our little ones to get to the “next level,” so we place small challenges in front of them to assist in their learning, and to create new opportunities for them.