There are many social skills that we need in order to successfully navigate our place in society.  We need to be able to ask and answer questions, request help, understand and use manners , and comply with the social norms of our culture.  For young children, that means learning to wait turns, share, and use basic manners such as saying “please” and “thank you.”  There is, however, an important social skill that often goes unnoticed, and that is being able to respond to the questions that young children are often asked by members of the community.  The commonest questions are “what’s your name?” and “how old are you?” 

When strangers encounter your child, they invariably will ask these questions.   If your child does not respond, they may stop talking to your child assuming that he does not understand or talk.  It is therefore vital that your child can answer these common questions. 

Here’s how I like to teach children to respond to these questions:
To train a response, you should sit opposite your child and ask “what’s your name?” as a stranger would ask (i.e. use the tone a stranger would use.)  Immediately after asking the question, move your child’s hand to his chest to gesture to himself and simultaneously say your child’s name.  Do this over and over, about ten times in a session.  If he gets fed up, stop and do it later.  After a few days of training, pause between asking the question and giving the answer to see if he will at least gesture to himself unprompted.  Fade out using prompts as soon as possible. 

Follow the same procedure for teaching the response to your child’s age.  Later help your child understand similar questions by asking “what are you called?  What’s your name?  What’s your age? Etc.

© Ann Wheeler, DSC 2010

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