Many children find it difficult to learn to learn to wait, share and take turns. A child with a communication need may find it particularly hard to accept the rules of turn-taking and sharing. These skills should be encouraged early on to help develop an understanding of the rules of conversational turn-taking, as well as promoting good standards of behaviour.
Early turn-taking
You will need: 2 different toys (e.g., a rattle and a squeaky toy).
-
Give your child one toy and let them play with it for a while. Then, offer your child the other toy, only letting them have it when the first toy is returned.
It may seem like a very simple activity, but this activity helps your child learn give and take!
Everyday sharing
Turn-taking is an important social skill to learn. There are many opportunities to encourage turn-taking and sharing in everyday routines, particularly if there are brothers and sisters at home.
You may be doing some of these activities already and not realising you’re doing a great job boosting your child’s skills!
Here’s some of our ideas:
-
Taking turns to stir cake mixture
-
Taking turns on a swing
-
Taking turns to clap hands
-
Taking turns to water the garden
-
Taking turns on a tablet or computer
-
Taking turns to get the knives and forks out ready for meal times
-
Taking turns to choose a book for a bedtime story
-
Taking turns to choose a film to watch as a family
Rules of turn-taking
Many children find it difficult to learn to learn to wait, share and take turns. Here’s some top tips to develop this skill with your child!
-
To start with, work on turn-taking when you are alone with your child. It is much harder to learn to share with 2 or 3 brothers or sisters/ peers!
-
To ensure that your child does take turns, be in control of the situation by keeping hold of the equipment being used.
-
Demonstrate the activity first so that your child understands what is required.
-
Use the appropriate signed or spoken language for turn-taking – e.g., my turn/your turn, or Mummy’s turn/Adam’s turn, etc.
-
If your child is reluctant to take turns, let them have two turns for every one that you have.
-
If they are still unwilling to take turns, remove the toy altogether and come back to it later when they are more willing to co-operate.