Public Speaking

 

When is the best time to start learning to speak publicly?  The answer of waiting until your an adult is wrong.  Starting from a young age is the best time to start.  At a young age children’s brains are like a sponge.  They are ready to assimilate information faster than at any other age.

Of course this is not something that you want to force on children.  You want it to be an enjoyable exercise and actually something that they want to do.  And obviously if they are just learning how to speak or learning grammar your children will not need to be fully submerged in public speaking.

These are some of the benefits that your children can achieve if they are involved in learning how to speak publicly.  Being able to converse with peers.  They are able to express themselves in school they’ll be able to advance in their classes.  Later on in life they’ll be benefited on job interviews from their speaking skills.  You probably could spend all day reciting all the areas that children could benefit if they learn the skill of public speaking.

How much public speaking do you introduce to your children? That is a good question and really should be based on each child.  Is the young person actually attracted to speaking publicly?  If so they would actually benefit from a more advanced public speaking course.  However if they are shy and new to public speaking simpler measures would be taken.

It’s time to play public speaking.  Get a podium maybe even a stage and an audience, possibly just the family, and you are ready to get started.  You could start by having the young person just to read something from a book or report.  As they advance you could even have them prepare a five-minute reports on something they enjoy speaking about or feel strongly about. Have them present it to you in our public speaking setting.

If you’d really like to see them advance introduce them to things like gesturing, eye contact and very simple areas where they can improve their public speaking.

Take this word of caution, don’t make this this time of public speaking a chore.  We want to make public speaking something enjoyable and fun.  That probably is the most important thing to encourage your children.  If it becomes work and no longer enjoyable it’s time to pull back.

One suggestion is you could check the school your child is attending for classes on public speaking. They surely would be able to add some training for your young person.

Public speaking is a skill that most people do not embrace at a young age. However later in life can be a vital key to all other endeavors we wish to make. Preparing your children by teaching and learning public speaking can give them the doorway to other opportunities in life that they want to enter.