- Communicating with preschool children presents a challenge of
creativity and flexibility for adults, according to a new book,
"Kids Talking: Learning Relationships and Culture With Children."
The book's author, John Meyer, a professor of speech communication
at The University of Southern Mississippi, incorporated years spent
at a child development center to draw conclusions about communicating
with children during their earliest verbal ages.
to examine actual interactions in a child care organization, to
find out what strategies children and teachers actually used when
communicating with one another," Meyer said. "As relationships
formed and developed, they all helped create the child care organization's
culture." Children, adults - and the researcher - learned to
communicate in an organization together, he said.
research on communication in organizations, I found I wanted to
go back to the beginning," Meyer said. "So much of adult
communication seemed to be determined by how we learned to communicate
with people around us when we were children."
Talking: Learning Relationships and Culture With Children"
is published by Rowman & Littlefield.
The first organization
many children enter, besides family and church, is a child care
center, Meyer said, so he volunteered at a child development center
to conduct his research. There he interacted with the children in
classrooms and out on playgrounds, observing their communication
with each other and with their teachers and staff.
that children's messages could often be clear and easy to interpret.
"I first found that there were not many nuances with children;
they managed their relationships with their hearts and their agendas
on their sleeves," he said. "Of course, as time went on,
I did realize that things were more complicated, but the fact remained
that children communicated openly and honestly, especially about
relationships, in ways that adults mask and disguise behind more
fresh perspectives is often the best approach an uncertain adult
can take when communicating with a child, Meyer said. "We must
be willing to put aside our standard communication expectations,
and see the world as exciting, new, and different - the way a child
does," he said.
some keys to enhancing and improving preschool children's communication,
especially at child development centers. These included providing
time for free play involving role-playing and communicating adult
support to children. "You expect to experience a higher intensity
of emotions when communicating with children, and so adults must
help children manage emotions, expect and respond to repeated patterns
in communication, and establish a strong child care culture that
balances adult power with children's creativity."
research, spending time with the children put him in contradictory
roles at times, Meyer said. "I was doing research, but I was
also trying to be of some assistance to the center's staff. My primary
role was to be a researcher, observing the communication patterns
there; but I was also a communicator, taking part in and becoming
part of the organization's culture.
was to try to understand the communication world of children in
a child development center and to communicate that world in as vivid
and readable a fashion as possible," Meyer said.
For more information
about the book, contact Meyer at (601) 266-4280.