Interrupting Politely

Over the past two weeks, our Kindergarten children have been learning how to interrupt politely.

The children have learned to recognize appropriate times for interrupting a conversation. We have also practiced laying our hands gently on a person’s arm or shoulder to let them know we are waiting to talk with them, waiting for the person to be able to talk with us and opening our sentence with “excuse me”.

Ask your child to show you the sign for waiting using sign language!

During our lesson, we have also talked about emergencies and the need to interrupt a grown-up quickly to ask for help. The children have learned to recognize situations that are emergencies, find a grown-up and say….”Excuse me, it’s an emergency”.

You can help your child to master the skill of Interrupting Politely in the following ways:

1. Reminding your child to wait until you are finished doing what you are doing before they begin to speak.

2. Encourage your child to lay their hand gently on your shoulder or arm, for a brief moment, to signal their need to speak to you. This will help you to know that they are waiting for your attention.

3. Ask if they are having an emergency when they interrupt. If the answer is “no”, remind them to wait.


By ages five to six, children should be developing an awareness of appropriate times to interrupt, although their behavior is often not consistent with this awareness. At this age, constant and inappropriate interrupting becomes one of the hallmarks of impulsive children.

Good luck with this one! Learning to Interrupt Politely takes lots of patience and practice, (even for grown-ups)!