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!!!!!

Hubby jaan

Nothing astonishes people so much as common sense and plain dealing.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) U.S. poet, essayist and lecturer.

How true these words are!!!..In an era empowered by information overloading and jargon busters, sheer common sense seems to be very rare..however I should not complain of this as I have a personification of common sense with me all the time..yes you guessed it right ..it is my hubby jaan(perhaps jaanvar).

While I go through loads and loads of books and websites to familiarise myself with anything new , starting from learning parenting techniques to solving a scripting problem at office , my husband always arrives at the goal post with a much simpler solution and much earlier than me. All he says he needed for this was "an iota of common sense".

A classic example was when I tried to follow the "positive parenting technique" recommended by most books these days and kept on uttering "good job good job" to my 19 months old toddler girl for what ever silly she did. My husband who had been observing this for a while kept warning me that it did not seem to be a pragmatic approach for a "sensible upbringing" of a kid. As usual I never paid heed to his words as I thought this was not his "domain" .To me..this was further reinforced by the fact that he had never ever browsed through any paper or electronic materials about parenting (let alone positive parenting).

However it did not take too long for the truth to dawn upon me. My positive parenting had gone to such heights that I had to scream "good job good job" on the top of my voice for 15 continuous minutes for my daughter to even attend to nature's call on her potty.

It was then that I realised that , as kids we never had this "falsely positive " environment. In fact we were brought up with the strength to face all realities of life and deal with issues and not assume as though they never existed. It was this strength that helped us in adapting to a country which is so different and complex in terms of culture,language,ethnicity and what not. I understood I had to impart to my daughter the resilience needed to bounce back from any adversity rather than trying to project life as a "bed of roses" to her.Appreciation and recognition in excess could lead to bloating up of her false ego and could cause her more harm than good. I now want her to identify the "real her" in her ..feel happy about her positive points and be courageous enough to accept her weaknesses, address them and convert them into areas of improvement.

Once again I knew my husband had arrived at the goal post much earlier than me only to find me staggering behind with a "foolish and apologetic" look on my face .Well better late than never :-)

Peer Pressure - Oops not so soon!!!!

I was talking to a friend of mine about her schedule next week and she goes.."Mad academy on Monday, tumble tots on Tuesday, Jo Jingles on Friday"

"wow" I replied asking her "you are so busy ...are these some classes that you are attending??"..

She goes" no no..these are the classes that my 1 year old little one attends ".

I just did not know what to reply...anyway she did not seem to be waiting for a reply from me and she goes" you see all these are very important for the "personality development", "inter-personal communication" , "musical skills development" blah blah blah.....of the baby"

I was happy that she did not forget that her little one was still a "baby" . All this she said are meant to prepare the baby for her pre-school.

It seems madness to me that this goes on in cycles. Few years back we never had the concept of pre-school..then pre-schools emerged from no-where as preparatory sessions for schools. Now I understand that there are hundred and one classes that prepare the babies for pre-school. Not to mention the charge of at least £5 per session per baby.

I also never fail to notice the levels of expectations that we have on our kids and we always demand the best out of our kids no matter what..but realistically are our kids able to cope up with all this??...are parents ever willing to accept that each kid is different and develops at a different pace and there are no strict benchmarks at least until they reach a certain age????.....

well I don't know and anyway I have no time to ponder on this as I am leaving to book my 19 months old daughter into "jo jingles" class :-)..that is peer pressure you see :-)