Mind your words

I take my boys with me just about everywhere. Restaurants, stores, miscellaneous errands, doctors appointments, etc. There is rarely a time that I don't have someone stop me on an outing and people say, "Your children are so mature, or they speak like a grown up!" I've also had people say, "Wow! You use big words with them!"

The number one rule my husband and I had for parenting our kids was that we would NEVER do baby talk. We even asked that of the grandparents and other relatives to not speak to our children in any manner other than normal adult speech. In the womb, babies hear their parent's voice and dialect. They have already become accustomed to their voice and speech patterns before they are born. There is no benefit, only harm in changing your speech patterns to speak to your child. They start learning from the womb about speech and it only develops further after birth.

Think about this for a minute: say you are learning a new language and instead of teaching you the actual words first, they teach you a different or reduced version of the actual word BEFORE teaching you the real word. Like slang before the actual word. Children are taught choo-choo before train, beddie bye before bedtime, baa baa instead of bottle. I could go on for a while about the craziest alternative words I've heard kids say instead of the actual word. Even hearing ones that lengthen the actual word seems crazy. How is tweety bird easier than bird or puppy doggie easier than puppy or dog?

Starting correct speech early is extremely beneficial. When your child reaches school, poor speech can even result in speech therapy. We don't need to "dumb down" our speech for our kids. Teaching them the right words from the beginning is not only easier for you, it's easier for them. Not only do we need to speak to them the right way, we need to correct them as they learn to speak so they don't continue saying words the wrong way. Back to learning a new language. Not only do you learn the words, you learn how to say them properly. You practice so you can say it correctly so that you can be understood. Have you spoken to someone or heard someone speak that didn't have English as their first language? For a lot of people, it can be difficult to understand them or not as clear, because they don't speak it as clearly due to difficulty with pronunciation.

A huge trend that has went on for a long time has been the change of a grandparent's name. It has been quite trendy to find a unique name for grandma and they get crazier as they go. From goo goos to lalas, this is a prime example, but this is one I don't see as much as an issue with. Here's why. This is a name you are teaching your kids. If you choose to make that their name, I don't see an issue. I do recommend though, that you still use the word grandma, or grandpa as commonplace so they still understand what they are to them.

My parents' names from my kids are "Amaw and PawPaw." We didn't give them that name, that is part of their early speech on saying GrandMA and GrandPAW. Every time my oldest would say Grandma at around 6 months, the end sound was the only part pronounced, same for grandpa. We still called them grandpa and grandma, and worked on their speech. By the time they could correctly say grandma and grandpa, the nicknames were a badge of pride for them, so they kept the nickname. Their great grandparents are called GG, short for grand grandparent, and then they say their first name to keep them straight. They understand what it means if you ask them, but it is way easier to say and shorter than great grandma ______. They know and will say great grandma and great grandpa, just like you would shorten your kids' name for an shorter nickname.

So strike up a conversation with your kid or baby. Talk like you would with any adult. Encourage them to speak like you too. Drop the baby talk for you and your child. Trust me, you are befitting them greatly by doing so.