My little boy doesn’t speak while his sister at the same age was chatting away. My child has a problem with words that begin with ‘r’. We have a Chinese babysitter who only speaks Chinese to the kids. Why hasn’t my child yet said ‘mama’? I’m afraid my little girl’s pacifier prevents her from saying the letter ‘s’ properly. Parents never tell me about whether their children are interested in having a conversation. It’s not easy to have a conversation because even issues such as the climate, that were once used to ‘break ice’ are now the cause of fierce arguments on climate change. The same goes for vaccines and many other topics that used to be ‘harmless’. Smart phones certainly don’t teach users the art of a conversation even if kids exchange on average fifty messages a day. On Italian TV you usually don’t see examples of people who are having a conversation, which means are speaking, listening and reaching an agreement. But you need not worry. As happens for anyone who wants to learn to drive a car, ski, cook, play golf or dance, courses are being advertised, clearly rather expensive, that teach you to have a chat. In the hope of saving parents from spending their money unnecessarily, I’ll try to summarize the essence of what they teach and as you will see these courses are based on gems of priceless value. Rule 1: Concentrate on what is being said and stop thinking about where you left your smart phone. Rule 2: Don’t pontificate, particularly if what you have to say is more than obvious. Rule 3: Don’t ask questions that have Yes/No as a reply; for example, not “Are you well?” but rather “How are you?”. Rule 4: Don’t bluff you know things that you know nothing about. Rule 5: Don’t take a cue from what you just heard to reply. “I too had my wallet stolen, car damaged, dog killed etc.”, but instead show interest in listening. Rule 6: Don’t repeat yourself. Rule 7: Don’t get into useless details of names, numbers, dates etc. Rule 8: Listen to understand and not to reply. Rule 9: Be brief. Rule 10: Don’t speak over your partner. I think these ten gems can be summarized into a single rule: Respect those around you.