Tonight with your 5 to 8 year old

The prompt

“Is there something about your laugh or your smile that you think is totally, only yours?”

What to listen for

If they can name something specific and say it with pride, they have a healthy, growing sense of their own uniqueness, a lovely thing to affirm right back to them in detail.

If they seem shy or unsure how to answer, that's a great chance for you to describe what you love about their laugh or smile, sometimes kids need to hear it from you before they can claim it themselves.

If they compare themselves to someone else ("my laugh is weird, not like hers"), gently reframe: different isn't lesser, it's just theirs.

What this tells you

This shows how comfortable they are owning what makes them one-of-a-kind, rather than measuring themselves against others.