Talking to your toddler is often second nature, from chatting about your plans for the day to explaining an exciting new thing they’ve spotted and answering those endless questions about the world. From a developmental perspective, talking to your little one is a wonderful way to help them learn, and a long-running study shows how valuable a particular type of talk is for children as they grow up.
New research released from the University of Otago in New Zealand shows how valuable talking about our experiences with our toddlers is in the long run. This study began 14 years ago, led by clinical psychologist Dr Claire Mitchell. It shows that toddlers whose mothers had special coaching to help them to talk about experiences in a style called elaborative reminiscing had advanced social and emotional skills as they grew up. Now these children are adolescents, a new study has shown that they reported fewer symptoms of depression and were able to talk about big events in their lives more coherently than children in the control group, whose mothers did not receive training in elaborative reminiscing.
The great news is that elaborative reminiscing is a simple, and fun, way to talk to your child from any age. Elaborative reminiscing allows you to talk about everyday events in detail, validating emotions and experiences by encouraging the other person to consider the event in detail. It is an easy adjustment to make to your own discussions with your toddler or child, no matter their age or stage of speech development!
When the children taking part in the study were interviewed aged 15, those whose mothers received elaborative reminiscing training were able to talk about their lives with greater insight into how the events had shaped them as people. This is a skill that can help build resilience and emotional awareness. These children also reported lower levels of depressive and anxious symptoms than children in the control group.
To begin to bring the benefits of elaborative reminiscing into your family routine, the key thing to hold in mind is that your role as a parent is to encourage your little one to remember and share their memories of a recent event. As they do, use simple conversational prompts to support them to think a bit deeper about their experience.
Although by supporting your little one to develop this skill you will be setting them up to use it when faced with big or emotional events in the future, at this stage it does not have to be about remembering a big or serious event! Any event that captures your little one’s interest that they have experienced recently is perfect. This might be something your toddler brings up – remembering a trip to the park or visit from a special friend – or something you prompt them to remember as you plan your day.
Remind your little one about the event, and listen to their reply. This could be as simple as you prompting “Oh, look a digger. When did we see a digger?” and your little one replying “Brum brum!”
Add detail to the story by expanding on what they say and asking your little one open-ended questions, ones they don’t answer with a yes or no. Thinking of questions about what, where, who or when will help. “Yes! We were driving in the car. What was that digger doing?”
Give lots of encouragement when your toddler responds, no matter how they reply. Allow them lots of time to reply to your question before asking another, or adding detail. You might ask how your child felt, or what they think the other person or animal was thinking. These are abstract questions for a little one, but will lay a foundation for this discussion as they get older.
Make sure you keep the conversations fun and move on when your little one is no longer interested in talking about the event. Keep using this technique to discuss your day and your memories as your child grows. It can be especially useful when processing difficult or traumatic events, letting them know that you understand what they have experienced and giving them some tools to process the big feelings that come with scary events.
Find the most recent part of the study here: Mitchell, C & Reese, E. (2022) ‘Growing Memories Coaching mothers in elaborative reminiscing with toddlers benefits adolescents' turning‐point narratives and wellbeing’. Journal of Personality, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12703
Read more about about the benefits of family storytelling in Elaine Reese’s book Tell Me a Story: Sharing Stories to Enrich Your Child’s World. (Published by Oxford University Press, 2013)