Did you know that Researchers have found that children who have daily conversations with their families have larger vocabularies, are better readers and get better grades; they’re more resilient and have better mental and emotional health plus more?

Many families have asked “Is Dinner the only place to have these conversations and get all these great benefits?” The answer is: “NO”!!

We have changed our Family Dinner Table Talk to Family-Focused Conversations because the benefits come from talking together!

Although for many families, dinnertime is the one time, each day, they gather together and talk, there are many opportunities we can find every day to talk together.Walking or driving home from school is a great opportunity for conversations.  How do you get the conversation going?  Ask questions about their day; or start the conversation by telling them about your day…something funny or interesting that you did; or you can keep track of something you know was happening at school and ask about it, for example perhaps today was the 1-mile run or a spelling test or a special field trip.  You can say “Hey, how did your field trip go? or “What was your time on the 1-mile run?”

Or we can get kids talking by playing a fun game “A Penny for your Thoughts” and give them one penny for each thing they tell you about their day.

Join us each month to learn about the huge payday our children get by talking as families and ways to make connections with our children through conversation.

1st Friday each month at 1:45pm on FB Live

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Sarah Payton, MCD, Speech-Language Pathologist