During our early days of parenting, now 50 years ago, my wife and I agreed we would speak to our 2 children in an adult fashion as much as their developing skills allowed. This took the form of narrating what was happening to some degree- that is talking about what was going on. This runs the danger of being silly but when done purposefully I believe it was constructive in both of them succeeding later on.
One day my wife and I were discussing a family decision and used the phrase “weigh the pros and cons” perhaps 2-3 times. Our 2 ½ year old daughter was playing with toys nearby apparently not engaged in what we were discussing. Three days later she approached us “what are frozen pecans?” At first we were both confused what she was asking about until she said “the other day you were talking about them”. That led to some ‘splainin’ but pointed out how kids are information sponges trying to grasp the world.
My story is a little on/off topic but….while raising my daughter from infancy to teen age and adulthood ( I am a native English speaker who was/is functionally fluent with Thai language; my spouse is a native Thai speaker, fluent with English ); we just automatically, without deliberate intention, replaced baby talk with our second language. We constantly reversed languages, using our second language when talking playfully with her. She grew up being comfortably fluent in both languages; even without the accents her mother and father still retain. As an adult, she has a knack for picking up other languages with her innate capacity for imitation.
That’s fantastic! People are always worried that multiple languages will confuse kids, but they’re incredibly good at sorting it out (even if it sometimes takes a little bit). I’ve never heard a language situation quite like that either; that’s really neat. Your daughter is incredibly lucky to have such great parents to gift her multiple languages from infancy!
During our early days of parenting, now 50 years ago, my wife and I agreed we would speak to our 2 children in an adult fashion as much as their developing skills allowed. This took the form of narrating what was happening to some degree- that is talking about what was going on. This runs the danger of being silly but when done purposefully I believe it was constructive in both of them succeeding later on.
One day my wife and I were discussing a family decision and used the phrase “weigh the pros and cons” perhaps 2-3 times. Our 2 ½ year old daughter was playing with toys nearby apparently not engaged in what we were discussing. Three days later she approached us “what are frozen pecans?” At first we were both confused what she was asking about until she said “the other day you were talking about them”. That led to some ‘splainin’ but pointed out how kids are information sponges trying to grasp the world.
I love this!!
I recently wrote a short essay on Baby Talk: https://substack.com/@madeleinebeekman/note/p-187347751?r=4zriv2&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
I just finished reading it the other day! I’m going to include it in the recommended reading for one of the other posts in my series!
Thank you!
A great article thanks! Slightly off topic, and more for the growing vocab-
We have started playing Griddable.co.uk It’s great fun but also fantastic for broadening vocabulary! Our kids play it too which is amazing!
My story is a little on/off topic but….while raising my daughter from infancy to teen age and adulthood ( I am a native English speaker who was/is functionally fluent with Thai language; my spouse is a native Thai speaker, fluent with English ); we just automatically, without deliberate intention, replaced baby talk with our second language. We constantly reversed languages, using our second language when talking playfully with her. She grew up being comfortably fluent in both languages; even without the accents her mother and father still retain. As an adult, she has a knack for picking up other languages with her innate capacity for imitation.
That’s fantastic! People are always worried that multiple languages will confuse kids, but they’re incredibly good at sorting it out (even if it sometimes takes a little bit). I’ve never heard a language situation quite like that either; that’s really neat. Your daughter is incredibly lucky to have such great parents to gift her multiple languages from infancy!