The best environment to foster youth speakers is one that is safe and encouraging.

This may seem obvious but it’s a valuable reminder.

Public speaking is a skill that most of us want our children to develop. Opportunities for our students can range from the basics of learning how to introduce themselves to others to presenting a prepared speech in front of a large audience. When your child has the opportunity to work on these and other public speaking skills, you can provide valuable support.

I think all of us well-meaning parents would agree that a safe and encouraging environment is important for public speaking. But we also have an annoying tendency to get distracted by the details – all those finer points of public speaking that we think are super important. Things like talking loud enough, looking at the audience, and not forgetting your speech.

Those skills and others are important. But focusing too much on them can create an anxious atmosphere – one where a child often feels lacking. Be assured that those skills will all come with time. First (and always), focus on fostering that safe and encouraging environment if you want to help your child grow confidence as a speaker. Confidence is key. With it, they might even learn to enjoy public speaking – a rarity.

Chances are that you yourself aren’t excited about public speaking. According to Forbes, about ten percent of the population is terrified by public speaking, eighty percent are uncomfortable with it, and only ten percent actually love it. But no matter which of these group you belong to, you probably recognize what a valuable life skill it is.

How To Do It

We’ve got a pretty magical youth public speaking group going, Green Mountain Youth Speakers, an offshoot of our homeschool group. We started it in 2016 and we’re proud to say that the students have learned almost as much as we have over the years 🙂 We’ve tweaked and fine-tuned things with each of the semester-long learning modules we’ve created.

Here are a few key pointers:

  • Try to give only positive feedback. This really works! Focus on what they’re doing well and they’ll do more of it. The bad habits often fade away when you don’t give them much (if any) attention.
  • If you feel you absolutely MUST provide ‘constructive’ criticism, follow our 1:6 rule. For every negative, give your child at least six positives about their skills.
  • If they feel like they did poorly in a speaking situation, acknowledge their feelings. Give them time to process it and then talk about what they did well (there’s always at least one thing). Finally, encourage them to try again and help them find the best way to do it.
  • A good audience is invaluable. While you can’t always control this, remember that a kind and interested audience is super helpful for the novice speaker.

Each year, we watch our students grow their abilities in our youth speakers group. Sure, we’ve used specific techniques to help them. But along the way we’ve realized a very basic truth – environment is paramount. And, although environment can be considered anywhere your student practices public speaking, it can also refer to the smaller, at-home sense of safety and encouragement you provide.

It’s important to strive for both of these elements as your child first ventures into public speaking, no matter how timid or confident they may seem. And it’s important to maintain that environment of safety and encouragement as they grow and change. They’ll hit stages where they suddenly feel awkward again in front of an audience. Perhaps they’ll even regress a little. But as they keep moving forward in the safe and encouraging environment you’ve created, they’ll develop confidence and skill.