I hear often ‘Why can’t my child hear me?’
Well, the likelihood is that they cannot understand you.
Yes, in the past most of society talked to little children in a manner that was ‘baby-ish’ and it was as though young children would understand very little.
Somewhere in the 90’s early millennium, we swung to the other side… and now we talk to little ones as though they were our peers.
And this made adults not interesting!!
‘What? You might ask… I am an adult how can I not be interesting to a child?’
Well, not interesting enough as a play partner or a communication partner.
Children have the capacity to utilise most aspects of the language ladder. They can use sound effects and complex sentences as their communication bandwidth is wide. We, adults, have a much narrower reserved and proper communication bandwidth, but a wider vocabulary.
Children like adults who are socially available and want to connect at the child level. Most adults use the available connection opportunities to lecture the child, load them with irrelevant questions which are more like tests, or simply talk over the child’s language level.
Physically you might be too tall for the child to be able to visually reference you! Bob down, when you talk to them. Little children have big heads, not fully functioning atlases – top vertebra- so they do not have a full range of movement, this is why they visually reference forward as opposed to up, down behind and side.
Interested to know more?! Check out my new course!
Helping the Mamas and the Babas – Speech is coming soon!