Hi my readers, after the success of my three-part series on how to write children. It was suggested that I write a piece on how to write dialogue for children. So here I am, peeling the first piece of sticky tape from the role and showing you how to approach writing dialogue for children.
If you’ve spent any time around kids, you’ll know they talk differently to adults. They’re less guarded, more honest, simplistic in their phrasing, and convinced they can do just about anything. Of course, the environment shapes personality, but these traits show up across most children—even the mischievous, demonic little hell-raisers. To write them convincingly, it’s crucial to capture these shared qualities without slipping into cliché.
Avoid Baby Talk (Unless It’s the Point)
If your child character is a main protagonist or appears across multiple scenes, don’t overload them with cutesy baby talk. Readers tire quickly of “sugar-on-sugar” dialogue. Most kids I know don’t speak in baby babble—they speak openly, bluntly, and often with disarming honesty. They’ll say what’s on their minds without considering whether it’s polite, rude, or socially appropriate. Shame hasn’t yet taken root.
Take Millie from Lost and Found, a story about abandonment and loss. We have the character Millie navigating the frustrating curiosity that’s death. Her conversations with her parents about their dead dog, Rambo, shows her unfiltered interest:
“He’s gone to a better place,” her mother shouted at her while vacuuming the lounge room.
“A better place?”
“What? Yes, Heaven, love, haven’t you heard of it? Don’t they teach you anything in that bloody school? Lift your legs! It’s Doggy Heaven, where there are eternal dog biscuits and they can poop wherever they please. Okay, legs down. I said, legs down! And they poop, I don’t know, dog biscuits, so all they do is poop and eat dog biscuits, and run around and eat the other dog’s poop. Which are actually dog biscuits.
Millie took a moment. “Why would they waste time here, then?”
“What? Well, they, um, have to earn it. They have to stay here until they get voted over to a better place. Like Doggy Survivor.”
“So is Rambo on another planet?”
“Well, yes. Sort of. I mean-you really haven’t heard of heaven? How God sits up in the clouds and Satan’s all underground and everything?”
“Can I get to Rambo’s new planet?”
“Her mother switched off the vacuum cleaner and looked squarely at Millie. “Only if you have a spaceship. Do you have a spaceship?”
Millie looked at her feet. “No.”
“Well, you can’t get to Rambo’s new planet then.”
Her dialogue is simple but insistent—childlike without being cloying. She wants answers, but can’t get any because people don’t know how to talk about death to a child.
Balancing Simplicity with Depth
Children don’t yet have a thesaurus tucked under their tongues, so their speech tends toward the simple. But pure simplicity can get dull for readers—like a kid kicking your airplane seat for hours. One way to balance this is by letting children “think” more richly in narration while keeping their spoken words straightforward.
That said, use this carefully. Children are usually more articulate in their heads than out loud, but writing an entire novel in a child’s first-person voice requires serious skill. Often, third-person narration—filtered through a child’s perspective—strikes the best balance.
For example, Lost and Found by Brooke Davis introduction of Millie Bird in third-person:
“Millie’s dog, Rambo, was her Very First Dead Thing. She found him by the side of the road on a morning when the sky seemed to be falling, fog circling his broken shape like a ghost. His jaw and eyes were wide open, as if mid-bark. His left hind leg pointed in a direction it normally didn’t. The fog lifted around them, the clouds gathered in the sky, and she wondered if he was turning into rain.”
The language is simple but dreamlike. We see the world as a child would: raw, sensory, and only half-understood.
Older Children: 12–13 Years Old
By the pre-teen years, the rules bend but don’t break. A 12-year-old has lost much of their naïveté but still holds onto curiosity and impulsiveness. They know a bit about social norms—they understand shame and boundaries—but excitement can override restraint in a heartbeat.
Think of Anne from Anne with an E. The series is a coming-of-age story about Anne, a young orphaned girl in the late 1890’s, and is mistakenly sent to live with an elderly spinster and her ageing brother. Season 2 Episode 9, when she meets her new teacher, Miss Stacy, and learns she is a widow, Anne blurts out, “Oh, how tragical!”—smiling, full of joy. It’s wildly inappropriate, yet completely true to Anne’s impulsive nature. Her enthusiasm hijacks her manners.
Or take Riko from Made in Abyss. A story about pair of children delving into the deep and exploring the mysterious abyss. Riko isn’t ignorant of the dangers of the Abyss—she knows she might never come back—but her excitement overpowers her fear. Her dialogue bubbles with passion and wonder, often leading her into risky or downright reckless decisions.
This is the hallmark of older children in dialogue: they know better, but they can’t help themselves.
Core Traits to Remember
When writing dialogue for children, keep these universal tendencies in mind:
- Curiosity without filters – They ask questions others wouldn’t.
- Simplicity of language – Short, clear phrasing.
- Naïve honesty – No shame yet in saying the “wrong” thing.
- Impulsiveness – Excitement often overrides restraint.
- Dreamlike worldview – They’re still piecing together reality.
Their environment—culture, upbringing, trauma—will shape specifics, but these common threads give you the foundation for believable child dialogue.
Final Thought
Children in fiction live partly in the real world and partly in their own dream worlds. To capture them authentically, your dialogue should reflect their curiosity, honesty, and impulsiveness while avoiding saccharine stereotypes. Give them clarity without overloading them with baby talk, and remember—half the magic comes from what they say, and half from how the world filters through their still-forming minds.
I hope this first part of the Dialogue series helps you craft young voices that are readable, realistic, and resonant. May your writing journey be as marvellous as the children you bring to life on the page.