Tip #1: Face-to-Face Interactions and Eye Contact

  • Building a strong social relationship between you and your child is so important, and it can’t begin too soon.
  • Research indicates that your child’s early years of life are most important for helping to build a strong foundation for the development of social and learning skills.
  • Looking your child in the eye is one simple way to help him experience affection, and helps to cue him to participate in communicating with you.
  • It is important for your child to look directly at you when you communicate (and for you to look at him, too!). It helps the child to understand that you think it’s important for him to understand what you’re saying.
  • This is a beginning of an important social skill called “perspective taking”.
  • Perspective taking is when a person is able to understand that other people have points of view that might be different from their own. This helps them to learn to be sensitive and considerate of other people.
  • Children need very specific directions when you want them to look at you. Simply saying, “Please look at me” is not specific enough. Instead, try saying, “Look at my eyes”, then your child will know just where to look!

Tip #1: The Bottom Line:
Make sure you and your child share good eye contact and when you are talking with each other. You can cue your child by saying, “Look at my eyes” when you want to make sure he understands.