His Name Was Christian: A Lesson in Communication With Children

Years ago, I directed a large afterschool childcare program on the campus of an elementary school. We had about 190 children attending each day. The first day of school was always stressful — new names, new faces, new classrooms, new schedules. This particular year added a twist.

The elementary school we were housed at needed to open a North Campus to handle a growing student body. Some of our enrolled children were assigned to attend the new location about half a mile away. We wanted to keep serving those families, so we arranged for one of our Youth Bus vans to pick them up. Now, on top of the usual first-day madness, we had transportation to a new school in the mix.

We'd spent weeks preparing — pick-up locations, school coordination, staff briefings — but I still knew the first day would need extra attention. That morning, I met with my staff to review logistics, including the pick-up list and a few new enrollees.

We had already met most of the new children at our Welcome Night. One parent, though, had enrolled their child the day before school started and pleaded for him to begin on day one. I reluctantly agreed. None of us had met him in person. All we knew was that he was in first grade, and his name was Christian.

The First Day at the North Campus

On that first day, I wanted to be at the North Campus myself to make sure everything went smoothly. I arrived early and waited outside with my staff for the bell to ring. The moment it did, my whole focus narrowed to one thing: finding Christian.

I scanned the kids coming out and spotted a boy who matched the description his mother had given. He looked lost. A little scared. Probably uncertain because he hadn't seen our program before.

Assuming he was our boy, I walked up and gently asked, "Are you Christian?"

He looked startled. Then he furrowed his brow and said, indignantly, "No! I'm Jewish!" Before I could explain, he stomped off.

I found Christian a few minutes later. He made it safely to our program.

A Communication Lesson

I learned several lessons that day — including never to enroll a child at the last minute again. But the real one was about communicating with kids.

Children need more than your words. They need to understand them. A simple question, without any context, can land completely differently than you intend. Communication isn't just about speaking. It's about making sure the message arrives the way you meant it.

Kids are still developing their vocabulary and frame of reference. They process language differently than adults. Misunderstandings cause confusion, frustration, sometimes fear. That's why word choice matters so much in childcare — more, honestly, than it does in most adult settings.

And here's the part that's worth saying as a leader: this isn't a skill any one staff member figures out on their own. It needs to be taught. Your teachers make hundreds of micro-communications with children every day, and the difference between a great day and a hard one often comes down to how skillfully those small moments get handled.

Three Things to Train Into Your Staff

Every child processes language differently. What lands as playful teasing with one child can wound another. Same words, completely different landings.

Train staff on this: lean toward clear, warm, direct language — and keep sarcasm out of the classroom entirely. Sarcasm depends on the child hearing the intent behind the words. Some kids can't. They only hear the sting. Speak the way the most sensitive child in your room would need to hear it. That protects every child, and it costs the confident ones nothing.

Kids rarely announce that something is wrong. They show it — in body language, in a shift in energy, in the third day in a row of staying at the edge of an activity. Miss that signal, and the small thing usually becomes the big thing.

Train staff on this: read the room, don't just manage it. Notice the child who's usually chatty and is now quiet. Notice the one who's stopped asking to sit next to a favorite friend. The teacher who catches the small shifts when they're still small is the one who prevents most of the hard days from happening at all.

A staff member can be tired, distracted, or bracing for a hard parent conversation at pickup. The child in front of them doesn't know any of that. They only know whether they feel seen.

Train staff on this: build recognition into the daily rhythm, not the calendar. A quick "I saw you help Marcus with his coat" lands harder than a birthday shoutout. Recognition isn't a policy — it's a habit. Coach staff to name the small moments out loud when a child does something worth noticing. The kid who feels seen daily is the kid who trusts the classroom deeply.

Why This Training Pays Off

When your staff are skilled at communicating with children, four things shift across the program:

How to Build This Into Your Staff

You can't lecture good communication into a team. It has to be modeled and practiced. A few ways to embed it:

Communication Is the Foundation of Trust

It shows up as trust with the child, trust with the family, and a program that feels different the moment a parent walks through the door.