Activity: Building Positive Communication Skills

Build friendships through positive communication skills.

Use the following activity to help children practice positive communication skills, such as how to ask questions, how to wait for a response, and how to show interest in another person.

Begin by demonstrating or role-playing examples of these skills. Next, invite children to sit in two rows facing each other. Tell them they are going to practice positive conversation skills with the person sitting across from them. Give them a discussion topic, and invite them to talk about the topic with the person sitting across from them. Change topics every few minutes, and with each topic change, have one row of children shift over a seat so that everyone has a new discussion partner.

Possible discussion topics or questions could include:

• What do you like to do for fun?
• What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?
• What do you want to do when you grow up?
• If you could have a superpower, what would it be? Why?
• Where have you always wanted to visit? Why?
• What is something you’ve done that you’re proud of?
• Name five of your favorite things.

Please adapt activities as necessary to ensure all individuals are able to participate, belong, and contribute.

• Discuss with the children how our face and body send messages to others.
  • Read a book or show pictures of people displaying different emotions. Ask the children to describe the face, hands, and body position for each person.
  • Invite a child to pull a card out of a hat with the name of an emotion on it. Help the child demonstrate the emotion without using words. Invite the other children to guess what emotion the person is modeling. Allow each child to have a turn.
• Practice taking turns talking and listening. Give a marker or stick to one child. When you ask a question to the group, only the child holding the marker can answer. After the child with the marker answers, have him or her pass the marker to another child who can then take a turn talking. Continue asking questions until all the children have had a chance to participate.
• Discuss proper ways to greet and address others in your culture. How might you greet an adult differently from a friend at school?
• Service idea: Visit an elderly person you know. Ask questions about his or her life, and listen closely as the person shares his or her feelings and experiences. You might ask questions like: “What was your home like when you were my age? What makes you happy? Where is one of your favorite places to be, and why?”

Encourage children to talk about how what they are learning can help them and others grow closer to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Discussions can take place before, during, or after the activity and should last just a few minutes. You could ask questions like the following:

• How can we follow Jesus’s example in how we talk to other people?
• How can learning to communicate help us serve others better?