O is for Observations: Building Skills How-Tos

The power of observation is a critical skill that should be practiced by all people.  Here are a few activities to work on this skill in general.

• Play I SPY
• Try to accurately recall what a person who left the room was wearing
• Prepare a tray of items, look at them for 20 seconds then cover the tray over. How many items do you remember seeing?
• Put in order a series of events you just saw happen. Did he take out the bread first or the milk?  Did she put out her left foot first or her right?
• Draw what you saw.  Did the flower have four petals or five? What colour was the centre?
• Observe the results of a science experiment.
• Learn to do something new by watching another person do it. 

However, the key lesson for today is to focus on truly observing your child.  Who are they? What can you learn about them just through the skill of observation?  

While babies may not talk, they definitely communicate long before they have words.  Did you notice them turn their head to your voice? Did you see them wiggle as they wet their diaper?  Did you distinguish between their hungry cry and their tired cry?  Did you notice your toddler turn to you when you stopped reading the story or that they run away every time you tell them it is time for bed? What did you make of your preschooler going quiet when you said their shoes were on the wrong feet or your school-ager begin to stutter after you corrected their speech?  If you observe these small things, you can respond to their unspoken communication effectively.  That is important on its own but also helps in building the verbal expressions.  You can give them the words to say what their body is displaying.

Observing their communication methods can help you both avoid a lot of frustration.  If they throw their dinner plate, they are probably done eating.  Teach them to say or sign "all done" or to just leave the plate and look at you when they are done instead of throwing it.  They want to be sure you understand but there are better ways. Teach them how to communicate appropriately When another child tries to take their toy, they may make noise but if that doesn't work they may hit or bite to make their point.  Observe the antecedent to the behaviour and the consequence or outcome and work on discovering the patterns that exist.  

Learning the WHYS of behaviours by observing them will help you plan out an alternative response that is more likely to result in behaviours which are positive and socially appropriate. Help them understand themselves.  

Also, learning the warning signs of breakdowns in communication helps so that you can both learn to stop when they occur and take a moment to regroup before continuing.  For example, did the voice get faster or louder? Did fists tighten, feet start tapping or faces turn red? Observation is a powerful teacher and key part of understanding how to communicate effectively with a person.  Remember what percentage of communication is said to be nonverbal? 70-93% are the statistics.  Please don't miss out on that vast amount of self-expression because you fail to make observations of their tone and body language and only wait for words.

Observations in nonverbal communication matter but we must observe their spoken and written words too. When we listen to or read a text we are drawing out the picture of the information in our minds so observing the details makes a big difference to the comprehension of the text.  Did you notice the word in front of monster?  Was it scary or silly?  It matters.  

 👀 Observation skills have a huge impact so building skills in this area is worth your time and effort! 👀