How to have W.A.R.M Conversations with your Children and Teenagers

Tired of the "Yep", "Nah", "Sort of", "Maybe, "Don't know" responses from your child or teenager?

Maybe you need to be asking questions and framing conversations that encourage your child or teenager to contribute more.

Using Dr Chalfant's W.A.R.M conversation guide, you can learn how to have your child open up to you and in turn, you open up to them. 

Link to the TED talk on the British birth cohort studies. 
https://www.ted.com/talks/helen_pearson_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_human_development/reading-list

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Transcript

Justin Kyngdon: Welcome to the Annie's Center Podcast. My name is Justin Kyngdon. This episode's topic is How to Have Better Conversations with your Children and Teenagers.

Dr Anne Chalfant: I'm Dr Anne Chalfant. In this episode, I'm going to be sharing my conversation recipe with you so that you can warm up your conversations with your children and teenagers.

[music]

Voice-over: One mother, one mission, to create a world where families thrive. Doctor Anne Chalfant, internationally acclaimed clinical psychologist, family therapist, author and mother of four children brings you powerful and practical parenting techniques from her clinical and personal experience. Ladies and gentlemen, the doctor is in the house.

Justin: Before we begin though, I do want to let everyone know that we are now on YouTube and it's the same name as the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. All you need to do is search for Annie's Center Podcast and you will find us on YouTube. Make sure you subscribe and click the bell so that you receive notifications when we post videos to there and the videos of the podcasts plus also Anne's weekend tips and any other videos that she will be doing, and then you will get those notifications to you. Definitely connect with us on Facebook to see the videos first published there, YouTube and listen to us on your favorite podcast host. With that being said, I am super excited about this week's podcast because we're going to talk about this very important topic. We also have something extra and something unique and new for the Annie's Center Podcast.

Anne: Ye we do. Although it's very much in the spirit of trying to give explicit instructions and ideas to parents which is what the podcast is all about, really helping families thrive. This time round with this episode, we're actually going to do some live coaching, if you like, using our own children who we've done some little examples or templates of typical conversations versus what we're going to call WARM conversations. Then that way, I can coach people through what the difference is between using the WARM conversation approach and how that works much better versus a typical conversation.

Justin: Excellent. Before we get to the live demonstrations, and as you said that explicit coaching which is fantastic, what inspired this week's episode?

Anne: Conversations are obviously really important, but conversations with children and teenagers, I don't know if people really appreciate how critical they are, good conversations with children and teenagers, how critical they are to their long-term mental health outcomes, as well as their short-term outcomes in terms of their development. There's really good research that looks at short-term outcomes, and there's some phenomenal research that looks at longer-term outcomes of having good conversations, good, interactive conversations or WARM conversations with kids and teenagers and the benefits that that has.

I feel like we know in general that conversations are important but as parents, we don't necessarily know exactly what we should be doing in a conversation to make it work better for us. I felt like with this podcast, it's a great opportunity to try and give families some procedures to follow or some tips to incorporate so that they can get it right more often when they're trying to converse with their kids or their teenagers in the hope that that will have other farther reaching benefits for their children and for their families.

Justin: This is a foundational concept, just if you don't set massive goals, set this and get this done right, the WARM conversation, and that can be your first step and get that right and that will open up untold opportunities with your children.

Anne: Exactly. The two areas of research that support that, as I said, one looks at shorter-term benefits and the other is longer term. The shorter-term benefits are things like studies that have looked at the benefits of good conversations from parents with their younger children and the benefits that it has for their language development early on. Teaching them social skills because conversations or good conversations are all about turn-taking and also waiting for your conversational partner to have their turns or giving people space in conversation to get their ideas out and to formulate their ideas out loud. That's a social skill as well that children need to learn. When you have a good model of that from a parent, then that helps you develop that social skill better.

As I said, there's evidence to support the language development of children from having good conversations with parents because rich or good conversations are ones where there is more language used, obviously, but also more detailed descriptions and more use of emotion. When we're talking about experiences and reflecting on emotions and reflecting on thoughts, and children who are partaking in those types of conversations with their parents are ones who go on to have better outcomes in terms of their literacy skills, their language development at those early stages. It's setting them up really well in terms of their development.

Justin: This would be something fantastic too for parents to first learn and then also have grandparents, uncles, aunts, anyone involved with that child basically.

Anne: Yes. The thing is, it's not that parents are having bad conversations with their kids, just [unintelligible 00:06:25] we all have-- I think when we look at the model later of what I'm calling a typical conversation, it is exactly that. It's very normal to have these types of conversations where we ask lots of closed-ended questions and we want to get through the day quickly. We're often busy. We're really trying to find information out from our children in a more inquisition style. There's nothing wrong with that per se other than the fact that it's a missed opportunity really in terms of the ability to connect perhaps on a deeper level with children and teenagers as well as build indirectly some of these skills that I just mentioned, literacy, language, emotional intelligence for younger children, and for teenagers, the ability to feel like someone's really genuinely interested in what they're interested in.

Conversation, WARM conversations, what I'm going to call WARM conversations, are ones where parents can really show actively, through their language, that they want to know more about what is of interest to the teenager. In doing that, it builds relationship and that, as we know, has much better long-term outcome for reducing mental health and risk of anxiety and things like that because children who are more connected within their family, teenagers who have better relationships with their parents, are teenagers who are better supported, are teenagers who have less vulnerability to things like depression and anxiety.

Coming back to the early research or the early-stage research and the short-term outcomes, as I said, there's benefits for literacy, there's benefits for language development. All of those early skills that we want to set children up with to succeed in their longer development or longer-term development. Then the other really phenomenal research comes from studies called the British Birth Cohorts and the related studies of that. I don't know if you've heard about those but they're quite incredible pieces of research.

Justin: No, not at all, so I'm intrigued.

Anne: I'll give you the as short a version as I can of this although it's mammoth research. Ultimately, what happened was from 1946 onwards, in England, Scotland, and Wales, they surveyed groups of thousands of mothers for a period of a week at the time they were giving birth. From surveys to other sorts of sampling like sampling baby's teeth, preserving placentas, taking DNA samples, blood tests, all sorts of physical assessment as well as survey

nand questionnaires. They did that in 1946. They did that again in 1958 with another cohort hence it's called the British Birth Cohorts, another group of people, several thousand people each time. In fact, I think up to 14,000 people each time. Again, in 1970s, again in the 1990s and again at the turn of the millennium.

All in all, across these generations, there's been about 70-odd thousand people who have been studied and surveyed in this way, and every few years, they take more data through other measures looking at longer-term measures like how they're faring in terms of their health now, financial status, job, education, all sorts of different aspects of development and life and health and well-being outcomes as well as other physical measures through things like blood tests and they're collecting [unintelligible 00:10:03] biological data.

Justin: So it's not just a one-off study, [crosstalk]

Anne: No, ongoing.

Justin: They're going back to these samples?

Anne: Correct.

Justin: These cohorts rather.

Anne: Yes. This group [unintelligible 00:10:11] , the data bank of information from 70 or 1000 people, you can just imagine. It's almost unfathomable how huge that is in terms of the information that we have on these people and how widely studied they are, but how does this relate to conversations? The interesting findings from those studies, there are two main findings that I was really interested in as a clinical psychologist. One is the fact that no matter what your long-term outcomes are, the one thing that has the biggest factor in predicting [unintelligible 00:10:51] is your socioeconomic status at birth. Basically, if you're born into poverty or poor socioeconomic status, then your outcomes are much poorer, no matter what happens across your life, generally, that's the trajectory.

However, parenting and the type of parenting you receive is one of the biggest factors in re-directing that pathway. It is a pretty fixed pathway, but for those people who've been born into a low socioeconomic status environment, those have been able to move out of that as they've developed and have better access to better educational opportunities, job, health, et cetera have been those where-- One of the factors in that difference has been those where parents have been heavily engaged in the child's development in different ways. The main ways are conversation with kids, regular sleep routines, which makes sense. We know a lot about good sleep habits for health outcomes. Interestingly, families who took their children on more excursions. It's really about extending their learning and using natural learning opportunities to enrich a child's learning.

Justin: So that's a trip to a museum?

Anne: Could be.

Justin: Or it could be-- I guess anything that could be enriching to the child. It could be something not as even that complex.

Anne: Absolutely. It could be, for example, recently, well, last school holidays, we took our kids on the new Metro that had been opened. That was simply to look at it, to then use that as a basis for talking about maybe some of the engineering accomplishments in how that was built and constructed, all those sorts of things. It could be something as simple as that.

Justin: Just taking the train ride.

Anne: Yes, exactly. Excursions, families where parents have a very strong interest in their child's future outcomes, which again makes sense because the more engaged you are in planning for your child's future, presumably the better those outcomes will be because you've taken active role in that, in planning and preparing that. It was the conversational factor that really struck me, that was in the top list, if you like, of the differences that parents can make to their children in really practical ways to impact their kids' or their teenagers' long-term outcomes. Even if they are born into very limited circumstances or environments, they have a much better chance of fairing well when these factors come into play, these parental factors or parenting factors. Obviously, that's for kids who are from poor or lower socioeconomic backgrounds, but even for those who aren't, we know that parenting and those factors around parenting particular conversations with kids are really, really important in producing better long-term outcomes in terms of health and more general well-being.

The fact that this keeps coming up in the research around either, as I said, early development or longer-term trajectory interests me because I think as a clinician, as I said at the start, one thing we know, for parents, is the importance of their relationship with their kids and spending time talking to their children, but we don't necessarily, as clinicians, maybe do a good enough job of explaining to parents exactly how they should talk to their children. We can all have, 'Did you', 'Didn't you' type questions and conversations because we are quite busy, but if we found a formula or a way to try and help parents break that down, then I think that would help them understand the value of good WARM, what I'm going to call WARM conversations and that in turn will hopefully have those longer-term benefits.

Coming back to our thrust of our podcast in helping families thrive, that's really what I want to do tonight. Using an acronym that I came up with because I love acronyms. I think for parents, being a parent myself, that it's just a very easy way to remember important skills. This acronym, which I'm calling WARM, WARM conversations, is not an acronym where a parent needs to think about doing every single letter of this acronym every time they have a conversation with their child.

Justin: Or in that order.

Anne: Correct, exactly. It doesn't have to follow the W-A-R-M order at all. They can simply think of this as a guide or key pointers that they might want to try and remember, or that would be good to remember when they're speaking with their kids on a regular basis, and as long as they think of this as a checklist of items, "Am I at least trying to hit some of these key components when I have a conversation with my child?", then they're going to be putting themselves and their kids and ultimately their family in a much better position.

Justin: We will be putting a graphic on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram that people can copy and take and then print off for, or save it on their phones or however it works for them so that they will have this record. Then they can, as you said, can use it and chop and change around and make it fit theirs, but I think it is really important point that our purpose of the podcast is helping families thrive. We're not telling families how to thrive, we're [unintelligible 00:16:33] support you and give you these real experiences. Wonderful.

Anne: I'm excited.

Justin: Brilliant. Oh, no, absolutely, absolutely [unintelligible 00:16:43] Let's now step through W-A-R-M, and then we will be able to move on to the actual hearing it being applied with children.

Anne: W-A-R-M, WARM conversation, my little acronym. W is for Work questions, which are basically open-ended questions. When you ask someone work questions like who, what, when, why, how, they're all questions that allow more information or a broader response from a child or a teenager than the typical 'Did you do this?', 'Did you like that?'.

Justin: Closed questions.

Anne: Yes, exactly, which are closed questions. We want to always start conversations with children and teenagers with open-ended questions. That's critical and it's an obvious point, but we 9 times out of 10, forget when we are busy having conversations quickly in the car, as we're unpacking the bag at the end of the day, trying to get dinner on, et cetera. It's much faster to ask the closed questions and harder to start a longer conversation. It is important that we have time to do this, but open-ended questions are key.

Justin: Now, what, where, who, when, why, and how. Excellent.

Anne: Then, A in WARM stands for Adding more information. What I mean there is we want the child or the teenager to add more information or add more details to the topic that's being discussed, and a key phrase that I really love to use and I find it always effective, is the phrase, 'Tell me more about'. For example, if you were speaking with your child about, I don't know, their sports swimming carnival, for instance, we are experienced there, and they said that they really enjoyed two of their races, freestyle and breaststroke or something like that and we wanted more details or more information. It's simply using the topic and adding, "Tell me more about", so, "Tell me more about when you were swimming in the 50-meter freestyle race", or, "Tell me more about when you were standing on the blocks getting ready to dive in", or, "Tell me more about when you were at the swimming carnival and you could hear the crowd cheering" or something like that. We provide a little bit of the detail or the lead-in for the topic that's being discussed, but we add, 'Tell me more about' in order to extract, if you like, or get the child to add more details. A is for Adding more details in and we're trying to get the child or teenager to do that by using a catchphrase like, "Tell me more about".

Justin: Love it.

Anne: R is for Reflecting and Rephrasing. When we speak or have a conversation with a child or a teenager, it's quite important that we show that we're actively listening to them. Again, that's really important for showing that we care about what they're saying. It's a way of connecting more strongly with them. All of those are reasons to reflect in conversation. Rephrasing is simply putting their, rephrasing their words into our own, giving a little summary along the way. For example, again, if we use the swimming carnival example because it's just on my mind, if the child was to say something like, "Oh, and at the end, I felt so relieved. I was really tired but I looked up and I saw people cheering and I was so pleased that I won the-- that I swim in the race", then we might rephrase that in some way and say something along the lines of, "So, it sounds like you had a thrilling time", and et cetera "when you swam in your race", or "It sounds like you were feeling really relieved, but excited all at the same time" or something like that. Just something that helps rephrase or put into our own words what the child has said in some way. Again, we do that to show them that we're listening actively, we're interested in what they're saying. It helps us connect more closely with them through conversation.

The other R or the other part of R is Reflecting. Reflecting from our own perspective, on our own thoughts, feelings, or experiences. I did a little video post on this several weeks ago, now, probably more than a month ago now, and that can be accessed through the [crosstalk]

Justin: [unintelligible 00:21:10] a link to the persons.

Anne: We can link back to that. It's on YouTube. To go into more detail about all of that now, when we're reflecting, we're giving information to the child, the teenager about our thoughts, feelings, or experiences in relation to whatever the topic is that's being discussed. We do that because we want to model for them use of us talking about our emotions. It helps build emotional intelligence and emotional literacy for the child or the teenager which is again really important in terms of building longer-term skills like resilience and confidence in kids and teenagers.

If we use the swimming carnival example, again, it might be something like reflecting on our own personal experience of when we were ever in a swimming carnival or what we think about swimming or how we feel if we have to swim 50 meters or something like that. We might say things like, again, these are just examples, but we might say something like, "I never really was very interested in freestyle but I was always very good at backstroke. I remember once when I swam in a race and I came third and I felt really thrilled about that. I can imagine how you felt today".

We're talking about a personal experience. In discussing it, we're deliberately trying to plant language or insert language around our emotions and our thoughts, because getting our children to talk more about their emotions and their thoughts is going to help them build resilience, build confidence, develop emotional literacy and develop emotional intelligence. We need to model those skills for them.

It's also a really lovely way of contributing further to the conversation by sharing an experience. Kids and teenagers love to hear about your personal reflections and your personal experiences. They want to feel like you have something to add to the conversation and you show them that you're interested in what they're talking about by sharing your own personal examples. They feel closer to you, basically, when you do that.

That's the other aspect of R. R was Rephrasing using your own words to try and rephrase the child or the teenager's words, to show them you've really been actively listening and to connect more and Reflecting by talking about your own thoughts, feelings or experiences as they relate to the topic that's being discussed.

Justin: Excellent.

Anne: M is for Make space. What I mean by that is allow the child or the teenager the time that they need to speak to you. Making space doesn't mean make a time in your day to have a conversation. What it means is when you're actually in the process of having the conversation, make gaps in the conversation, allow time for them to get their ideas across and complete their train of thought.

This particularly applies to younger children where I'm thinking about children who might be four, five up to mid to maybe later primary school where some usually can think faster than what they can articulate or express themselves. If you're in a conversation with a child and you're cutting them off or you're completing their ideas for them, not because you don't want to hear from them, but you think it's just easier for you to do that, then that really limits their opportunity to fully complete their thoughts in language, in spoken language to you. That damages, in a way, the connection in the conversation.

Justin: An example, if we look at the swimming example and the child was saying, so I'll pretend on the child. I'll be like, "I finished the race and I was feeling--" and there's a space and then you jump in and say something like excited, happy.

Anne: Yes. We might do that in a typical conversation, in a WARM conversation using this acronym, we would wait and see if the child, with time and space, is then more comfortable or has enough time to actually think about and then produce whatever the word is that they might be struggling to access. The thing is the reason to do that is because most of the time if a child or a teenager is struggling to come up with an idea or a word or get their thoughts across and really want your help, they'll just ask you. They'll just say, "Oh, what's that word?", or "Mom or dad, can you tell me what, what am I trying to say here when you have this experience, what's the word for that?", or they might just [unintelligible 00:25:50] , "Look, I can't quite work it out", and then you'll know that that's an invite for you to add another comment or maybe ask another followup question or maybe say, "Tell me more about that", to help them get their ideas out again.

Justin: If you're someone that feels like, thinks about this now, here's this and goes [exclaims] on that person that jumps in, on that parent that jumps in.

Anne: Try not to.

Justin: Try not to count the beat, count in your head, say, "Wait, wait", or a word or something like that though. [unintelligible 00:26:19] makes space. Maybe you've just got to repeat, "Make space, make space, make space", and then just watch the child and pay attention, hold your gaze, and let it happen.

Anne: Holding your gaze is really important. Actually, it's a really good point that you've made when you're having a conversation with someone. Again, it's obvious or it makes perfect sense that we would say, "Look at that person", but the eye contact part is really important for the Make space of WARM conversations because that's the best way to judge whether the child or the teenager is struggling and needs your help, as in needs you to interact more by you interjecting or whether they are just simply thinking and need the space and the time to think. I would argue 9 times out of 10, both as a parent of four kids myself and as a clinician, who's seen thousands of kids, more often than not, as I said, 9 times out of 10, it's really that they just need space. They just need the time. Make space really means wait, that's really all that means.

Justin: You'll be amazed that that child will be able to articulate what they're feeling in their own way.

Anne: In their own way.

Justin: In their own way. Exactly.

Anne: That's the important part. It is about it being in their own way, as opposed to it being your choice of words for them, because again, that detracts from conversation. You break connection when that happens. We want to build connection in a way through conversation that shows the child we are listening to them and we are giving them the time that they need to express their own thoughts, feelings, or ideas.

Justin: Right, perfect. Look, we understand you, now, parents have heard the WARM acronym and heard the contents, and they're going to apply it and hear themselves make these mistakes that they've always made it. That's okay. It's about [unintelligible 00:28:14] going to be practicing and then listening to yourself. There is no expectation from us that all of a sudden, you go out tomorrow and every conversation you have with your child will be perfect. It's just not possible.

Anne: It is more than okay. In fact, it's normal. I'd be concerned if people weren't making mistakes. Any reasonable parent who's busy is obviously going to have what we're calling typical conversations where you're asking closed-ended questions and sometimes interjecting and sometimes giving a child ideas and speaking for them on a pretty regular basis. Warm conversations are the best way to build connection, to build emotional intelligence, to try and achieve all of those long-term outcomes that we've talked about tonight in terms of the actual scientific research. We just want to give pointers to help and support parents to think about more so that they can at least try and incorporate these into their conversations when they're spending time with their kids or their teenagers.

Justin: For parents that are interested to look at the cohort studies, we'll include some links for them as well.

Anne: There's a great TED Talk on that so we could put a link to that TED Talk.

Justin: Perfect.

Anne: It's a really nice summary that's easy to access for people and easy to digest.

Justin: Brilliant, we'll definitely include that as a link. Now, Dr Chalfant, is there anything else that you want to add before we go to the audio of the typical conversation with one of our children and then the WARM conversation with one of our children?

Anne: No, only to say, I think as we've already covered that it's normal to have less than perfect conversations with kids. Really, I came up with this acronym as a way of just trying to form a guide for parents of things to remember. I think finally, if I could suggest to families that they tried for a WARM conversation on a daily basis, then that would be a huge step forward within family functioning.

Justin: Dr Chalfant, how have you prepared for these conversations?

Anne: What I did was I prepared two sets of conversations. One set, when I say set, I mean a typical conversation and a WARM conversation. That's a pair or a set. I've prepared one set with a nine and a half year old, our oldest child, and a second set was prepared, typical conversation and WARM conversation using the acronym with our next two children, the six and a half year old and the four and a half year old. We'll listen to the first conversation with the nine and a half year old.

The first conversation is an example of a typical conversation or a non-WARM conversation. I have this conversation with my eldest son, Frederick, who is nine and a half years old. In the conversation, we're talking about the school holidays and a birthday party that he recently attended. You can notice three things in this conversation which I'll discuss further once you've heard the conversation. Listen out for one, the many closed questions that I ask him rather than open-ended questions. Two, the tendency that I seem to have to overlap my questions without giving him enough space or time to respond. Three, the general tone of the conversation which I think feels a little flat. Have a listen and see what you think.

The school holidays began yesterday?

Frederick: Yes.

Anne: Did you enjoy the last day of school?

Frederick: Yes.

Anne: Do you like being on holidays now?

Frederick: Yes.

Anne: Yes, it's nice to be able to have a break, right?

Frederick: Yes. True.

Anne: I like that too. Do you think you might see some of your friends in the holidays?

Frederick: Yes.

Anne: Do you want to?

Frederick: Yes.

Anne: What are they doing in the holidays? Do you know? I think some of them are going away, aren't they?

Frederick: Some boys are going overseas. A few boys in my class are going to England. A boy in the other class is going to Fiji.

Anne: It's amazing.

Frederick: Another boy is going off to Terrigal. That's all that I know of.

Anne: A few people staying and a few people going away. Pretty normal.

Frederick: Not just that, another boy, his mother is going to Vanuatu.

Anne: Oh wow, that sounds like a very interesting and exotic place to visit. Do you want to go to the beach these holidays?

Frederick: Yes.

Anne: What about other things? Do you want to go to the movies or do you want to go bowling? What do you want to do? Do you want to go to the park?

Frederick: I want to go gaming.

Anne: Gaming, that's after your Timezone experience on the weekend, I think.

Frederick: Yes.

Anne: Did you like that party?

Frederick: Yes, heaps of fun.

Anne: It did look like you were having a good time.

Frederick: It was a great way to finish the year.

Anne: Did a lot of boys go to that party?

Frederick: Not that many actually, they were--

Anne: How many boys went to the party? I think they were eight, right? Weren't there eight boys at the party?

Frederick: Including me, nine.

Anne: Nine including you, okay.

Frederick: [unintelligible 00:34:08], 11 boys altogether including [unintelligible 00:34:10].

Anne: Did they have good food there?

Frederick: Yes.

Anne: Did they have like, what, chips and cheezels or cakes or?

Frederick: They had cupcakes, cheezels.

Anne: Did they have soft drink?

Frederick: No.

Anne: What about coke, no coke?

Frederick: No, they just had juice, blackcurrant.

Anne: Did they have water?

Frederick: Yes, they had apple and blackcurrant juice, orange juice and apple juice and water.

Anne: Did they have cupcakes?

Frederick: Yes, Pokemon to style.

Anne: Oh. Did you have enough to eat?

Frederick: Yes, I did.

Anne: Did you eat first or play first?

Frederick: We played video games first then we did some laser tags and we went to the party room, we had chips and chicken nuggets from Oliver Brown. Then Oliver blew out the candles on his cupcakes and then we just ate.

Anne: Did his mom make the cake?

Frederick: Yes, there was also popcorn, maltesers, [unintelligible 00:35:11] as well.

Anne: Lots of snacks, did his mom make the cake?

Frederick: His mom made the cupcakes.

Anne: What about the birthday cake, did she make that?

Frederick: There was no birthday cake.

Anne: Oh, there was no birthday cake, just cupcakes. She probably had enough to do getting ready for the party. Then, do you know if there are any other parties coming up these holidays?

Frederick: No clue.

Anne: Okay.

Okay, now you've heard the conversation with Fred. What did you notice? Did you notice the many closed questions that I asked him? Questions like, "Do you want to?", "Did you?", all of those questions really ended up receiving single word answers like yes or no, or some brief elaborations that were mostly about facts. There was very little information that was provided about Fred's thoughts, feelings or experiences beyond stating the facts as a result of me asking him closed questions.

Second, I really overlapped many questions in this conversation with Fred. I think there were about five or six questions at one time that I asked him about different things he'd like to do on the school holidays without really giving him sufficient time to answer any one of those questions. For example, I said to him, "Do you want to go to the beach these holidays? What about other things? Do you want to go to the movies or do you want to go bowling? What do you want to do?". Now, with five or six questions in a row like that, there wasn't enough time for him to really think about what he would like to do, and tell me why he might like to do a preferred activity.

Finally, the tone of the conversation when I listened to it again does feel quite flat. Although I am trying to rephrase some of his answers at times, it really is sounding a little more like an inquisition rather than a conversation that both of us contribute to in a WARM manner, where we share our thoughts, feelings or experiences about a common topic together.

Now, let's listen to another conversation that I have with my eldest son, Fred. This time around, I am trying to apply the W-A-R-M or WARM principles to the conversation. What changes do you notice in my conversation style, and what changes do you notice in Fred's responses?

We were talking about Timezone.

Frederick: Yes.

Anne: Do you know when I was younger, I went to a Timezone party, probably a bit older than you and we played laser tag. There were about six of us there. I was a bit frightened because I got a bit nervous about people coming around the corner, shooting me with laser guns.

Frederick: Do you think they were real?

Anne: No, I knew that they weren't real, but still in the dark when you're running around and everybody's got a laser gun-- I don't know. I suppose at your age, I was a bit nervous about it.

Frederick: When I had my first laser tag party, I actually thought there were going to be real laser guns like, "Okay, is this another game of death or is this fake?", and then I realized, once I explained the rules, it was feeling like, "Oh, good. I [unintelligible 00:38:32] shoot everyone, yay".

Anne: But you had a good time?

Frederick: Yes.

Anne: I think one of the funnest parties I've ever been to as a child was a pool party at a friend's house. We had some inflatable toys and things in the pool.

Frederick: A boy in my class last year, he was in the other class last year basically, he had a pool party and he had the [unintelligible 00:39:01] right over the pool and so when someone's smashed it, we always [unintelligible 00:39:06] and sank in the pool and everyone was like, "Yes".

Anne: That sounds awesome.

Frederick: We were just glad we had lolly bags [unintelligible 00:39:15] dived under, picked them up. Basically, they had their names on it, and so we left them open and we picked up as many lollies as we could and we just put them in, under, in, under, in, under, in. It was so much fun.

Anne: Lollies in the swimming pool. Oh my gosh, what a cool place to have a party, in a swimming pool with lollies.

Frederick: Not just that, they had a cake, which was chocolate infested with lollies.

Anne: Oh my good, chocolate infested. I love that word. Chocolate infested. That sounds like my kind of cake.

Frederick: Next thing that happened was, it was a smash cake, and so it was a shape of [unintelligible 00:39:57] Cadbury and from school, I had filled up with lollies. We all had this giant baseball bat, altogether, we were holding on it, we were like, "One, two, three, bang". You could hear the crack of the chocolate and basically all the chocolate exploded.

Anne: Like a volcanic eruption.

Fredrick: Yes, and one actually hit me right in the nose [unintelligible 00:40:25] and I was like, "I don't want to drop the [unintelligible 00:40:29] ", and [unintelligible 00:40:31] me out of my tongue and it dropped on and it was actually quite a lot [unintelligible 00:40:35] Yummy.

Anne: I think if I had been at a party like that where there was chocolate, knowing how much I absolutely love chocolate, I don't think there would have been much left for other people. It sounds like an awesome party.

Fredrick: You guts, you would guts that [unintelligible 00:40:53] five seconds.

Anne: Probably.

Fredrick: I got [unintelligible 00:40:56] in about one second.

Anne: Tell me more about what you did at that pool party last year. It sounds like that was a lot of fun for you.

Fredrick: At that pool party last year, we also played a game of capture. Me and my friend [unintelligible 00:41:07] and so what happened was we had put it in the sacred hiding place and we had snacks and water balloons, and we filled them in our pockets, and when someone came past, we were like, "Bingo", splashed [unintelligible 00:41:25] .

Anne: Let's see how the principles of the WARM conversation style applied to that example with Fred. W, Work questions. Well, I'm sure you could hear that I didn't really ask Fred any work questions in that example. In a way, I didn't really need to. However, I did stop asking closed questions like 'Did you', 'Didn't you', and that seemed to be enough just taking that style of question away, to allow Fred room to speak and give more elaborate and detailed responses.

A, Adding further information. Well, I did that when I said to Fred, "Tell me more about what you did at the pool party last year". I was using that phrase to encourage further information. The response I got was another description of a different game that Fred had played at that party. R, Rephrasing and Reflecting. Well, that happened throughout the conversation. For example, I reflected on what I might have done if I were at a pool party like Fred had been at and how I might have eaten all the chocolate cake because I love chocolate. When I did that, you could see that Fred made a joke towards me telling me that I was a bit of a guts, and then he described how he ate the chocolate.

M, Making space. I tried to make space throughout the conversation for Fred to get all of his thoughts and feelings out about his experiences at the party. Overall, I think it would be fair to say that this was a much warmer conversation with Fred. Our connection was stronger. He was definitely a more enthusiastic conversation participant. The information that he gave was richer in terms of describing his thoughts and feelings and that also applied to me. Overall, it was a much better conversation.

The next conversation is with my second eldest son Xavier, who is six and a half years old. Have a listen and see whether you think this is a WARM conversation where I apply the WARM principles we've been discussing or a non-WARM conversation

Anne: Xavier, are you looking forward to the school holidays?

Xavier: Yes, I don't really want to go back to school.

Anne: You don't want to go back to school?

Xavier: I love school.

Anne: Oh, you do like school? You do like school. Do you like your teacher?

Xavier: Yes.

Anne: Do you like your friends at school?

Xavier: Yes.

Anne: Do you like doing learning at school?

Xavier: Yes.

Anne: What about playtime? Do you like playtime?

Xavier: I mostly like my teacher although [unintelligible 00:44:18] much more fun things.

Anne: Did you enjoy your first year at school in kindergarten?

Xavier: Yes.

Anne: And the end of year concert?

Xavier: Yes.

Anne: You looked like you had a good time, did you?

Xavier: Yes.

Anne: Singing all the carols and joining with the kids?

Xavier: Yes.

Anne: Then what about the holidays? You're looking forward to the holidays?

Xavier: Yes.

Anne: What are you going to do these holidays?

Xavier: If it was Christmas and I got my water balloons, I could shoot the family and you.

Anne: Water balloons, I don't know. What else?

Xavier: I'm looking forward for winter soon.

Anne: You're looking forward to winter?

Xavier: Because then I get to play more soccer games and I haven't even got beaten.

Anne: Oh, okay, because you're in your soccer team and you enjoy soccer. Do you like soccer?

Xavier: Yes, I have a new player.

Anne: Oh, really? Who's that?

Xavier: Sam.

Anne: Sam, a new soccer player on your team. You've got some new soccer players in your team that you like being in a team with?

Xavier: Yes.

Anne: What did you think was lacking in that conversation with Xavier? Three things that I noticed were first, the lack of work questions. My questions were mostly closed questions where I asked Xavier things like, "Did you like learning?", "Did you like kindergarten?", "Did you like soccer?". Because of that, he gave many one-word answers. Second, there was a lack of me trying to get more information out of Xavier or add more information to the conversation by failing to ask, "Tell me more about".

Third, there was a lack of my rephrasing and reflecting. I didn't really contribute further to the conversation or build conversation with Xavier by sharing anything about my own thoughts, feelings, or experiences in relation to sport, or learning, which were the topics that we were discussing.

The final conversation is a conversation I have with my four and a half-year-old daughter, Edith, and then my son Xavier joins in. [inaudible 00:46:57] to the conversation and see where you can hear me apply some of the principles of the W-A-R-M or WARM approach to conversation.

Now Edith, what about you? Are you looking forward to the holidays?

Edith: Yes.

Anne: What would you like to do these holidays?

Edith: I would like to-- I'm having fun at school. What, over the holidays, I want to do is dress up as Princess Belle.

Anne: Oh, dress up as Princess Belle.

Edith: And Elsa, and Anna and Mary, and then I want to make paper dog chain with mama and make teddy bear chain and make books with mama, so many books and statues-

Anne: Lot's of things on your list for the holiday.

Edith: -and bells. I want to make a story with my brothers and my mama and my grandma, and my daddy and my baby brother and me. I'm enjoying school and I want to make one of those angels up there.

Anne: One of the decorations on the Christmas tree.

Edith: And that, and I want to play Santa, Santa children.

Anne: I think decorating the Christmas tree is a fantastic idea. When I was little, I used to do some Christmas decorations for the Christmas tree when I was growing up and I loved it. It was so much fun.

Xavier: I'd like to decorate the Christmas tree.

Anne: You'd like to do that too?

Edith: Then I would like to play Santa. Whoever gets their food in first, they can be Santa, whoever gets their food in last, and second in all the people, they have to be the children and one person can be the elf. Whoever puts their hand up first can be one of the elves.

Anne: You've really thought this through this game, haven't you?

Xavier: How about reindeers? [unintelligible 00:49:52] [sings]

Edith: Whoever puts their hand up again, they can be Rudolph, the Reindeer.

Anne: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I remember the Christmas concert you two were singing a song about Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Not this year, other years, other years.

[sings]

Anne: That's right. That's what you were singing. I remember that. We went to the Christmas concert this year, didn't we?

Edith and Xavier: Yes.

Anne: Tell me a little bit more about what you liked about the Christmas concert.

Xavier: I sang really quietly Mary, did you know.

Edith: Me too. Mary, did you know.

Xavier: And Little donkey.

Edith and Xavier: [sings]

Anne: That's right. That's the song. Sorry, Xavier.

Xavier: [sings] We three kings and When shepherds watched their flock by night.

Anne: So many Christmas carols.

Xavier: [singing]

Anne: In the lead up to the Christmas concert, how much did you have to practice at school?

Edith: Every day.

Xavier: Not every day for us. We had to practice every music day. On Tuesday, I was sick, so I couldn't practice. I want to wish you a Merry Christmas and then I didn't know. I knew it because I was just joking.

Edith: Mama, mama, mommy?

Anne: Yes.

Edith: Ms Belle said, "Only the reception and not the navy". [sings]

?Justin: Are you guys good to go?

Anne: It's time for school. Okay, that was amazing singing and talking about your concerts and Christmas and holidays.

Edith: Mommy, can I sing one song?

Anne: We'll sing one song off the record, I think, Edith. I'll just turn this off for us.

Xavier: What are you doing, a podcast?

Anne: Yes.

Having listened to that rather cute conversation between my daughter Edith who is four and a half, my son Xavier, who is six and a half and myself, what did you notice about the W-A-R-M or WARM conversation principles? Let's go through them. First, W for Work questions or open-ended questions. Well, towards the start of the conversation, I used the open-ended question, "What would you like to do these holidays?", and because I started with that kind of open-ended question instead of a one-word response, what I got was a more detailed answer from Edith about dressing up as a princess from a fairy tale.

A for Add more information. In the conversation, I used that special phrase, "Tell me more about". I said to the children, "Tell me a little bit more about what you liked about the Christmas concert". By asking that way, what I got was a more detailed description from Xavier about the different Christmas songs that he enjoyed singing at the concert and why and how.

R for Rephrasing and Reflecting. During the conversation, I tried to do both of those things. I rephrased at times, for example, I said, "Oh, dressing up as Princess Belle", in response to Edith's description about what she wanted to do in the holidays. That seemed to serve as a form of encouragement for her to go on and tell me more about other princesses that she would like to dress up as and other things that she would like to do during the Christmas holidays like make teddy bear chains.

I reflected by talking about my own personal experience of decorating a Christmas tree when I was a child. When I did that, Xavier reentered the conversation at that point describing that he would like to decorate a Christmas tree too. It was a form of encouraging him to talk about his own interest or preference.

M, for Making space. Edith at times had some challenges getting her thoughts or ideas out clearly. That's pretty typical for a child her age. I needed to give her space in the conversation to take the time that she needed to speak. Because I did give her space, she was able to complete and get out all of the ideas and thoughts that she wanted to share in the conversation.

Overall, the conversation was much longer than my conversation with Xavier where I wasn't really using the W-A-R-M or WARM principles. I think, in general, it would again be fair to say that all participants of the conversation were more enthusiastic and interested in speaking to each other. It even broke out into song at times.

Justin: That was brilliant, well done.

Anne: I'm excited. I hope that people will find the WARM acronym easy to use and easy to remember and that that talk through using those examples was a good guide for families in what works well in those WARM conversations and what does not work so well when we have our typical conversations.

Justin: I think it will, definitely. As we always say, leave comments wherever we are: Instagram, Facebook or YouTube or wherever you heard us. Leave the comments and we can answer questions and all those things as well. No problem at all.

Anne: I want to finish on a joke, as always. This time you can help me with my joke. Here we go. Doctor, doctor, I've lost my memory.

Justin: When did that happen?

Anne: When did what happen?

[laughter]

Justin: Okay, well that's a wrap for this episode of the Annie's Center Podcast, I'm Justin Kyngdon.

Anne: I'm Dr Anne Chalfant. Our mission, as always, is helping families thrive. We really hope that in this episode we have done just that.

Justin: As always, please visit our Facebook page at Dr Anne Chalfant. Leave a comment, any ideas for future podcast episodes on topics you want to hear about. When you're not getting the information from all the usual sources and you want to get the facts and great advice, you can also find Dr Chalfant on Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter. Just search #anniescenter or #drannechalfant. Also, we are trying to promote our hashtag #helpingfamiliesthrive as well as out as a key hashtag for the podcast and for everywhere where we're putting out content.

Don't forget YouTube and subscribe and click the bell so you get notifications for each new video. As we always say, please leave a rating and feedback on the podcast app that you have used to listen to this podcast. We love the ratings, we love the feedback. We want more and more families to hear the show and get as much as they can from it and help improve the lives of themselves and their children. Thank you very much. Go and have WARM conversations.

[music]

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