Parenting Technique 47 – Teach your child to speak well by speaking well to your child.

It is that simple!

• Read, sing, and talk to your child and watch your child read, sing, and talk back to you.
• Use conversation with your child, and your child will use conversation with you.
• Include names and labels in your language with your child, and your child will include names and labels in his or her language.

Constructive Parenting…

* Important to speech development is two-way communication. If you are not listening to your child, or even fake it with “uh huh” or “really?” your child will realize it, become frustrated, and eventually stop talking. Monologues from adults are not useful either. If there are no pauses for your child’s contribution and no reactions to that contribution, adult talk will be to your child no more than a pleasant background like a radio left on when nobody is listening. Affirmative two-way talk, which supplies names, labels, and descriptions at exactly the right time, is what is needed. In addition, articulating what is going on as much as possible is also a valuable strategy to stimulate speech development.

* Excerpted from Constructive Parenting by Sally Goldberg, Ph.D., p 35

Holiday Gift Idea for a Teacher! “Tidbits for Teachers” is now available by Email. Send a subscription to a favorite teacher you know. Just drop us a note at mainoffice@mommyperks.com and let us know to whom you would like to have it sent and any special note or holiday greeting you would like to add. Be sure to include the e-mail address of the person to whom you are sending it.