Nonverbal Communication in Children

When I was thinking about my blog post for this week- I began to wonder about how or if nonverbal communication to express emotions is different in children.

Something I found very interesting is that a child's most common form of nonverbal communication is to gesture. Although every child expresses their emotions different from another child, one nonverbal expression that children definitely use is when they are angry. Children commonly will stomp away, throw their hands in the air, or in conjunction with verbal communication, will throw their self to the group in a tantrum to express how upset they are.

Children also use facial expressions much more obviously than adults do. Children do not yet have the skills to know when to hide their emotions, so they will basically wear their full emotions on the face. Although this can make understanding a child easier when they appear to be happy, sad, mad, etc., it can also cause an issue when they are somewhere they don't want to be, or eat something they don't like, which could inherently accidentally offend someone.

A third and last nonverbal communication technique used by children to express emotion would be how children use their vocal tone. It is obvious when a child lies because their verbal and nonverbal communication tones do not match up, then they are usually being dishonest. For example, if a child claims to be happy, but has a sad look on their face and a monotone voice, then they are not actually happy in most instances.

It was very interesting to see how nonverbal communication used to express emotions is different for children than it is for adults who are more advanced in their lives. I could definitely see how these examples are true with man of the young children I babysit, and how they act.