blah blah kiddie corner

“OOOOOOOO”,”IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII”,”EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”....are you someone passing by my home ??..then you are sure to hear these monosyllables repeated over and over again relentlessly. Oh no..please do not jump to a wrong conclusion that this could be due to domestic violence....”S” is too much of a good person for all that .Of course I would not dare to raise my hands against him..so the only other option is also ruled out. Breaking the suspense(???) , it is because of the coaching of a mum to her daughter ..Itz Me!!!!

My daughter, who has stepped into her toddler years recently, has been needing a bit of pepping up and help in improving her verbal communication skills. It is quite surprising that she is taking her own sweet time in this area because both the people whom she has known for her entire life and who have introduced her into this world ,need to be reminded often to shut their mouths and their nonstop yackety-yak(ing).

With a bit of help and inputs from the professionals in that area, I am able to see some steady progress in her. I wanted to share whatever little I have learnt from my experience with the rest of the mums who might need some techniques and tools to deal with similar (not so serious)problems. First of all, I am being told that this is a common problem with kids exposed to multilingual household. I am still having to question the veracity of this popular statement. Anyway our family also falls into the category of being conversant with and speaking in more than one language at home.

So the first step forward is to confine our day to day talks to one single language preferably our own mother tongues. This way our child is being given an opportunity to have a strong foundation laid in one language. Once this has been established well then getting acquainted with the secondary or more languages becomes relatively easier for them.

Often communication between the parents and children are encouraged to happen face to face. This way kids get to observe our lip movements and they eventually try to mimic the same. So we have to get down to their eye level whenever we talk to them and utter the words at a slow pace so that it could be easily followed.

The sentences that we use for the expression of our thoughts have to be as short and simple as possible. Preferably not more than 3 words in a sentence.

For ex: instead of saying “why don’t you remove your shoes” we could say “shoes off”
Instead of staying “ you should wear your shirt”, it could be put forth as “ shirt on”

Lots and lots of encouragement and appreciation need to be given to the little ones. Whenever they speak to adults they have to be made to feel very important and listened to. This not only offers them confidence to pursue their newly acquired skill, but also infuses a sense of pride in them simply because:

Their WORDS mean a lot to their parents who in turn mean a WORLD to the kids themselves!!!!

Stick on to routines that are very regular and try and use the same words as a part of the routine over and over again. For instance, every day after lunch, we could read out the same book to our kids and try and point out the same set of objects in the book day after day. Familiarity and repetition with a definite set of words goes a long way in stimulating the speech process.

Online games like the ones below come to our aid as well:
http://www.fisher-price.com/us/fun/games/phonics/default.asp

Real world objects and their association with names for identification accelerate the pace of learning. Instead of monotonously uttering the names of vegetables, fruits and other objects, a trip to a nearby local supermarket where the kids can see and touch every such vegetable and fruit and thus learning to identify and relate those using their names prove to be a fruitful technique.

I am no expert in this field nor do I do R&D in this area.. These are a few ideas from experts which have proven to be of some help to me. These could or could not work for others. Please do not hold me responsible for any kind of outcomes...Common Sense as well as trial and error methodology overrules everything!!!!!

Baby's Day Out

To begin with, for my own convenience I shall refer to my husband as "S" henceforth. The first Sunday of last month dawned with an air of surprise for me. "S" bounced up from his bed and cried "Lets all go to Wembley today ". I doubted the intention of his declaration as I have known him to be an ardent lover of his laptop during the weekends .He, on a ideal weekend would prefer to be glued to his laptop as it is one poor thing that could serve him ceaselessly the whole day and match with his seemingly endless reserves of energy levels.

Trying to figure out the credibility of his plan , I muttered "Is Wembley not within London?? .Why this sudden interest for you to visit the place???"... One word that he uttered made me speechless and it was "Chennai Dosa". We live outside London and South Indian cuisines are not in our vicinity.Within the next 40 mins time we were in Wembley car park near Chennai Dosa. I was peeping out of the car window like a "child in a candy shop" from the moment our car set its wheels into Wembley .I was genuinely baffled as to whether I had boarded a flight and disembarked in India already.I had a "peep show" of all kinds of shops starting from jewellery shops to designer wear saree shops.

We spent a solid 1 hour in Chennai Dosa and I bet we had tried every other item listed in the menu .The look on the waiter's face made it evident that he thought that we were starved refugees from areas hit by famine. To add fuel to the burning fire , "S" said "After tasting the food you cook anything else tastes like "ambrosia". If only I had a magic wand like "Harry Potter", I would have converted "S" into a "plate of pulao" that was three days old. Our bellies were "house full" and unable to stuff in any more food we made our exit out of "Chennai Dosa" and started walking towards the chain of Indian shops.

"S" naively (not aware of the implications) offered to take charge of the pram with our little one in it ,while my Mother In Law and I went shopping. We set our foot into every "chota mota" shop that had a name board . I was in cloud nine when I managed to get a "gaagra choli" for my 20 months old baby girl. It was meant to be her attire for the impending Diwali(remember this is an one month old flash back) . I imagined her to be like "Aishwarya Rai" in that choli and all her boy friends queuing up before our home to get a glimpse of her. My "daydreaming" was interrupted by my daughter's father who screamed " I cant imagine it took one hour for you to select that one metre piece of cloth". Now you know why men are deemed so different from women.

Then came the handbag shop, saree shop ,jewellery shop and what not , with a touch of Indian designs and tastes. We ventured into each one of them and "S's" purse was put to best and maximum use that it looked a little worn out by the end of the day.Before I realised , it was time for the sun to set. "S"was drained of his patience levels (thanks to our extremely co-operative off spring) and one look on his face , I understood it was time to leave. Half hearted, I boarded into our car. This trip had stirred up a feeling of nostalgia in me and I kept thinking about the days when I used to go for shopping with my family in India.

It suddenly struck to me that how lucky we are!!!..We are in this foreign land fully reaping the benefits of the opulence, advancement and the development of this country and at the same time enjoying the richness of our Indian way of life which can never be complete without the unparalleled Indian food and Indian costumes.As "S" often puts it "We have the best of both worlds".

Of course , it would not be fair to end this blog without mentioning this. Since that trip "S" has never ever offered to drive us again to Wembley . He is still in the clutches of "post traumatic stress" of going for a shopping with " TWO WOMEN" and "an adorable elf".