Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

I find myself talking to DS mostly when I cook, clean and do laundry. I am hoping within the next fews he can do it all himself.

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

Posted by 5ofClubs

Posted by bicosi

I don't go around telling them play-by-play, but I do talk to my kids and involve them in what I'm doing on a daily basis. I think it helps them in terms of understanding and helps them when they speak and to correlate things, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

ITA> And I think it does help with his language development.

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

Bella is a sponge...
if I do not tell her what I am doing, she will ask...and ask...and ask.

When she was young, I enjoyed having a her with me so I didn't have to "talk to myself

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

I sometimes do..more so recently..But not to an extreme.

I dont walk around teh house poinint things out. My mom didnt and I learned well.

But I will describe basic things sure.

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

This does help with language development. I talk to my baby a lot, not every single little thing and not crazy things (ie. "Which tampons should Mommy buy?), but I would show him an apple and tell him what it's called, say let's go get some carrots, etc.

I think this is different from involving your child in every little thing.

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

Many, many books tell new moms to give a running, play-by-play account of what's going on to their babies so that they can begin to grasp how language is used. My theory is that they don't mean for you to LITERALLY do that, but they put it in there for people who have no clue that you're supposed to talk to your baby (and yes, some people do NOT know that they're supposed to talk to their babies!). I, for one, never did this, however, I did always talk to her when she was an infant.

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

I kind of do this! Not to the extent of the bananas turning into banana bread story above but I do talk the ENTIRE time we are in stores. I talk to DS like a friend (let's go get daddy soda... Yes, he likes regular coke but we are going to get him diet coke... OK, fine, we will get 1 of each)
No, he doesn't respond but I talk to him as if we are having a 2 way conversation!

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

I don't give Steven a play by play but I do tell him what we are going to do. When we leave, I tell him where we're going. I talk to him. while wer'e shopping, I have him hold the list and ask what's next. Then I peak at this list and say something like "oh, apples, they're right over here." But I talk to myself like that so it's basically just thinking out loud.

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

I STILL chatter to my kids every day. I think it is a little sad that The View made fun of people for making an effort to communicate with their babies.

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

I work in a setting where 99% of the population has some sort of speech and language delay. I always feel as if a child can get exposure to appropriate language, that its a good thing.

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

I do this all the time, I also have a child with a speech delay and anything I can do to improve his speech is a plus in my book...

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

Message edited 2/19/2008 9:51:08 PM.

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

I don't actually give play-by-play.....I don't think that what I do sounds Unnatural, whereas the description of "now Mommy is doing...." does sound unnatural to me.

It's more like....What do you think Em, should we get Bananas today? Mommy Feels like Grapes, lets get grapes...

stuff like that.

And while I do agree that it can sound silly at times, my daughter has great vocabulary and I think it has a lot to do with the ongoing conversations we always have. Plus I get a kick out of the things she says to me.

I was also studying Language Acquisition as part of my Master's Degree at St. John's, and they said that this is a big part in language acquisition.

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)

Half the time I don't even KNOW what I am doing....so I would totally confuse the poor kid!!


OK seriously - I do that "Hey look Ale, let's get some apples!" type of stuff - but in Spanish...

Message edited 2/19/2008 10:51:38 PM.

Re: Telling your child everything you are doing (from The View yesterday)