By Kathy Eugster
August 5, 2024
As parents, effective communication with our children is crucial for building strong, trusting relationships. One powerful, but often overlooked parenting tool is paraphrasing. By paraphrasing what your children tell you, you are enhancing mutual understanding, and you are also engaging in many other beneficial practices.
Paraphrasing is so important, I identify it in my book, Play Skills for Parents: Connecting With Your Child Through Play, as one of the four Empathic Skills that are foundational skills for playing and interacting with children. In this Blog, I would like to review and have a closer look at paraphrasing and show you how to incorporate it into your daily interactions with your children.
What is Paraphrasing?
When your child is telling you about something that is happening or has happened to them:
- pay attention and listen to what is being said without interrupting
- identify the content of what is being said, and then
- respond to your child by verbally repeating back what they have told you using different phrasing and words but keeping the same meaning.
Basically, with paraphrasing, you will state in your own words the essence of the content of what your child told you in a way that demonstrates understanding and acknowledgement using neutral, objective, and reflective statements. Here is an example of what paraphrasing looks like:
- Child tells you what is happening with the toys by saying, “It’s nighttime. The dinosaur is going to sleep.”
- Parent paraphrases by saying, “Sounds like it is bedtime for the dinosaur now.”
Paraphrasing is not parroting! Paraphrasing can be tricky because you don’t want to sound like a parrot by repeating back what your child has said word-for-word. That’s called parroting and basically stifles a conversation. Parroting is not useful and would look like the following,
- Child tells you what is happening with her toys by saying, “It’s nighttime. The dinosaur is going to sleep.”
- Parent parrots by saying, “Oh, it’s nighttime. The dinosaur is going to sleep.”
Paraphrasing should be formed as a statement, and not as a question. Questions tend to be directive and may lead your child away from what they want to express. With the above example, the parent would NOT be paraphrasing if they respond to what their child said with a question, for example,
- Child tells you what is happening with the toys by saying, “It’s nighttime. The dinosaur is going to sleep.”
- Parent asks question instead of paraphrasing, “Where is the dinosaur going to sleep?”
Paraphrasing is concise and succinct. Use simple language. If your paraphrase is too wordy, your child will lose interest in what you are saying. The following example is too wordy to be considered a good paraphrase,
- Child tells you what is happening with her toys by saying, “It’s nighttime. The dinosaur is going to sleep.”
- Paraphrase too wordy, “Now it’s nighttime and the dinosaur is going to go to bed, close her eyes, and have a nice long sleep in her soft, sandy bed while it is dark.”
With paraphrasing you do NOT make any judgements or offer any opinions. In the following example, the parent makes a judgement about what is happening in the play, so would not be considered a paraphrase,
- Child tells you what is happening with her toys by saying, “It’s nighttime. The dinosaur is going to sleep.”
- Parent offers an opinion instead of paraphrasing, “Oh what a good dinosaur that goes to bed at night without a fuss!”
Initially, when you first start to paraphrase, your child may resist and tell you to stop repeating what she says! The best way to reply to this is to tell your child you are just trying to understand her better. Also, make sure you are not just parroting what your child is saying.
Here is something important to remember:
Paraphrasing is not agreement with what your child said, it is acknowledgment of what your child said. Paraphrasing reflects the essentials of your child’s message. Your child’s key words and ideas are rephrased into other words in a concise or even clarified form. Acknowledgement is essential for the development of your child’s healthy sense of self-identity.
More Examples of Paraphrasing
- Child tells parent what happened at school by saying, “Guess what! Jenny hit Alex today and she got in trouble from the teacher!”
- Parent paraphrases by saying, “Oh, so what you’re telling me is the teacher got mad at Jenny today for hitting Alex.”
- Child tells parent about the game she has set up by saying, “I’m playing Memory with all the cards to make it extra hard.”
- Parent paraphrases by saying, “Let me see if I get this right, you want to make the game really challenging so you are going to use every card.”
- Child tells parent about what is happening in his play by saying, “Look dad, this monster is hiding here and is going to surprise the duck!”
- Parent paraphrases by saying, “Oh, that duck is going to get a big surprise from that hidden monster.”
- Child tells parent, “I’m going to build a house for my kittens with five bedrooms.”
- Parent paraphrases by saying, “Oh I see, you’re going to make five bedrooms in that house for your kittens.”
- Child tells parent, “That thunder was so scary!”
- Parent paraphrases by saying, “It sounds like that storm was really frightening for you.”
- Child says, “I had so much fun at the park I wish we could go every day!”
- Parent paraphrases, “You had such a great time at the park and you wish we could come more often.”
Don’t Add Anything
Make sure your paraphrasing statement does not have extra content added or become an interpretation, which becomes directive and begins to sound like you are putting words in your child’s mouth. For example,
- Child tells parent what she is doing by saying, “I’m drawing a garden with lots of flowers.”
- Parent paraphrases appropriately by saying, “Oh I get it, you’re coloring a picture with flowers in it.”
- Parent does NOT paraphrase appropriately and adds extra content to what child originally said, “Oh, I see, today you’re coloring the flowers we saw on our walk to the park yesterday.”
Identifying Feelings
Paraphrasing is similar to and can overlap with another one of the four foundational Empathic Skills that I have outlined in my book, Play Skills for Parents: Connecting With Your Child Through Play, which is identifying your child’s feelings. Here are a couple of examples of paraphrasing combined with identifying feelings:
- Child says, “I don’t want to go to school because no one plays with me.”
- Parent paraphrases and identifies a feeling by saying, “You’re telling me that you don’t like going to school and you’re feeling lonely because nobody wants to play with you.”
- Child says, “I hate Brad! He stole my pencil and broke it!”
- Parent paraphrases and identifies a feeling by saying, “You’re feeling really angry at Brad for taking your pencil without asking and breaking it.”
Please see the following Blogs that provide more information about identifying your child’s feelings.
Identifying Feelings: Giving Your Child a Feelings or Emotional Vocabulary
Mad, Sad, Glad, and More! Teaching Children About Feelings and Emotions
Encouraging Conversation
After paraphrasing, notice for clues that either confirm or deny the accuracy of your paraphrase. After you paraphrase, your child may tell you more, which is wonderful because this means your child is feeling comfortable expressing himself with you. You can keep on paraphrasing what your child is telling you to keep the conversation going. See how many times you can get your child to respond as you paraphrase whatever your child is telling you. Paraphrasing will increase the likelihood your child will continue talking to you and telling you more details without you having to probe for them with questions.
Your child may also disagree with your paraphrase statement and that is also wonderful. This means your child feels comfortable expressing their point of view to you. If your child disagrees with your paraphrase, just respond by saying something like, “Oh, I got it wrong, what you really mean is …”
Finally, if really necessary, after you paraphrase you can ask something like, “Did I get it right?” or “Is that what you’re saying?” But doing this can be intrusive to your child and is generally not necessary after paraphrasing. Children will often say nothing after you paraphrase even if you got the meaning exactly correct, and that is fine, you don’t need to do anything when this happens. Just feel content that you are making the effort to listen to and understand your child by paraphrasing what they tell you.
Why Paraphrase?
When you paraphrase what your child is telling you, you will be:
- letting your child know you are paying attention and listening to, interested in, and striving to understand what they are saying, making your child feel heard and understood
- providing acknowledgement and acceptance of your child’s perceptions and ideas, making them feel valued
- encouraging expression of feelings and interactive conversation with your child
- helping your child to clarify and understand their experiences better by restating in different words what they have said
- helping your child to process and manage their emotions
- ensuring you have accurately understood your child’s message
- giving your child an opportunity to correct or elaborate on what they meant
- supporting language development for your child
- modeling effective communication skills to your child
- better able to see the world from your child’s point of view
- strengthening communication and building trust with your child, making your child more likely to share their thoughts and feelings with you
In Conclusion
Paraphrasing is a simple yet powerful tool that can be incredibly effective in encouraging conversations with your child. Make paraphrasing a regular part of your day-to-day interactions with your child. The more you practice, the more natural it will become for both you and your child and the more your relationship with your child will flourish.
Here’s something for you to consider:
If you are interested in learning more about strengthening parent-child relationships, please see my book, Play Skills for Parents: Connecting With Your Child Through Play, for guidelines on how to make playtime between you and your child easier and more enjoyable. My book is unique in that it will provide you with a framework for engaging in parent-child play that can be applied to any play activity.
Also, you may want to subscribe to my email list (see below) to be the first to know when I post new Blogs, usually every month.
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Copyright Kathy Eugster, MA, 2024.
Please feel free to pass on this article to anyone you think might find it useful.
Contact me at: keugster@telus.net