Dear All,
I have a fascinating book about the body language of children. It is entitled Child Watching: Parent’s Guide to Children’s Body Langauge by Susan Quilliam (psychologist):
Enjoy.
Ayesha
Can you share some of the important examples?
Dear KL & All,
Becasue the book is about non-verbal language, of which body language is a part of, she explains the theories, along with many pictures and descriptions that may be easier to understand in the context of a picture. And non-pictorial examples are within the context of each section of the book, that are built one upon another. The book is for parents of newborns to small children to teenagers.
However, for the topics covered, the Table of Contents is as follows:
Introduction
Chapter 1 - Reading Your Child’s Mind
Chapter 2 - Learning to Learn
Chapter 3 - Emotions
Chapter 4 - Personality
Chapter 5 - One to One
Chapter 6 - Making Groups Work
Chapter 7 - Cries for Help
Chapter 8 - Right & Wrong
Chapter 9 - Growing to Love
Resources
Index
Acknowledgements
In Chapter 2 - Learning to Learn - it begins with “Every child wants to learn, even those with less-than-glowing school reports.” She goes onto describe the exploration stages of learning, blocks to exploring. There is one example (without a picture) of a table table entitled: Unmotivated or Just Unstimulated? with descriptions for the body direction, body position, head and spine position, limb position, movement, eyes, voice, physical functions, and internal experience. The caption reads: When a child is uninterested in learning, adults term this “lack of motivation”. It actually means that she finds nothing sufficiently stimulating to warrant attention or motivation. A willing child can improve the way she feels by changing her body language from unmotivated to motivated."
She continues to explain methods of learning found in modeling others, closeness, selective learning, matching and leading, formal learning, a table with the non-verbal signs of learning (four types of learning are: auditory, visual, kineasthetic, and writing), descriptions of a child’s perception of a good/bad teacher based on the teachers nonverbal communication and body language, and admiration (positive reinforcement).
It reminds me of Mrs. Janet Doman explaining that it is vital to keep the child’s interest and not bore them - signs of this would be looking away, fidgeting, not particpating, etc.
That is just in Chapter 2. The other chapters are just as informative and relevant to effective communication with children during the various stages of growth. And understanding this topic is vital because nonverbal communication is 97% of all interactions - so we have to be aware of our own and our children’s in order to help them learn what we intend to teach them about all spheres of life, and hopefully before they leave our nests.
- Ayesha
this definitely sounds interesting
thanks for the synopsis, Ayesha!