Have a Go

The first principle outlined in HAPPY Parenting is called Have a Go. Basically, it means that we have to give our children the right mixture of support and challenges when introducing them to new activities. I also wrote another post about the idea of helping your child to try new things explaining the concept of Zone of Proximal Development.

Our daughter is not a risk taker, so we have to work pretty hard to convince her try things outside of her comfort zone. It took quite some time to get her to swing on her own. Her father did a good job breaking this task into components and explaining her how to pump her legs and to “listen” to the swing direction. He also praised her lavishly every time when she as much as tried to swing a little without his pushing. Finally, all these pieces “clicked”, and now she is able to swing without help. Our next challenge is a tricycle

Who is the boss?

A friend of mine post a link to the CNN story on Facebook. The title of the story is Becoming a Take-Charge Mom. I found it very useful, especially considering that I have a toddler in the house. Terrible twos seem to arrive and settle here. I am convinced now that this trying time has nothing to do with inability to express oneself. Anna can express herself quite well, and her whining is very articulate. It’s all about desire to control and first attempts to negotiate for what she wants. I think of myself overall as a take-charge mom, but sometimes I am at a loss in situations when Anna tries to negotiate ”nicely” for something that is not of an utmost importance to me. For example, shall we read another book on the potty? Shall we first water the flowers, then play with fallen flower petals. It seems that everyone I give in, we still end up with a confrontation about yet another book or more time in the park. Giving her more freedom comes at a cost of her thinking that she is a boss in the situations when she really doesn’t have any choice but comply. This leads to more confrontation. It seems that all I’ve been doing lately is showing her who the boss is – threatening, disciplining and bribing. Of course, there are moments of pure sweetness through this all, but if anyone has good advice, I am very ready to listen to it.

When to worry about speech delay?

Why do I write about speech delays, when my 30 month old speaks in full paragraphs and appears to be significantly ahead of her peers in her language development? Watching her climbing over the play structure at our friends’  house during the weekend reminded me how much I was worried about her when she was not even pulling up to standing at 12 months. I watched my friends’ babies walking around back then, and I was wondering if something is seriously wrong with my daughter. In a retrospect, I wish I would fret less and enjoy her baby days more. Despite the apparent delay my daughter mostly caught up with her peers in her physical skills. I believe it’s also true for late talkers. According to my family lore, I was talking only in single words until 30 months, and then switched directly to paragraph speech and started reading fluently by 3 years. For most kids it’s impossible to say by kindergarten who was a late talker and who was an early talker. However, speech delays are a lot more prevalent than motor skills delays, and I believe that parents should be aware of warning signs and know what  resources are available to their toddlers on the road to language acquisitions. Here is a short rundown from Kidshealth on the warning signs of speech delay:

An infant who isn’t responding to sound or who isn’t vocalizing is of particular concern. Between 12 and 24 months, reasons for concern include a child who:

• isn’t using gestures, such as pointing or waving bye-bye by 12 months
• prefers gestures over vocalizations to communicate by 18 months
• has trouble imitating sounds by 18 months
• has difficulty understanding simple verbal requests

Seek an evaluation if a child over 2 years old:

• can only imitate speech or actions and doesn’t produce words or phrases spontaneously
• says only certain sounds or words repeatedly and can’t use oral language to communicate more than his or her immediate needs
• can’t follow simple directions
• has an unusual tone of voice (such as raspy or nasal sounding)
• is more difficult to understand than expected for his or her age. Parents and regular caregivers should understand about half of a child’s speech at 2 years and about three quarters at 3 years. By 4 years old, a child should be mostly understood, even by people who don’t know the child.

My baby can read!

I thought this will make a good headline for an April Fools’ post. No, my baby cannot read, even though she can fool you sometimes. She memorized so many books that she can often supply the next word or the next sentence. She can also find the word in the sentence based on the first letter of the word. For example, if we read the sentence, Look at these pretty flowers, I can ask her to point out the word pretty. She will say, ppp… and then look for the word that starts with p. Too bad if the sentence happens to contain two words that start with p – then all bets are off. And she cannot read any word except a few sight words, such as go and stop, when they are taken out of the context, for example, when I draw them on the board. So… no real reading on the horizon, but not too shabby for someone who is not even 2.5 years yet.

Ages and Stages

I am reading an interesting book now – see on the left. It is divided into four developmental stages – birth to 18 months, 18 months to 36 months, 36 months to 6 years, and 6 years to 9 years. What I like about this book is that it focuses on mental and emotional growth, not on physical achievements. Each stage has subsections on emotional health, cognitive development, family and peer relationships, personal growth and character formation. The book also gives some practical advice on encouraging autonomy, self-esteem, problem solving, etc. I will cover some of the advice that I found especially relevant in my future posts.

Language Milestones – 25-30 months

Anna is 28 months today, so I decided to look for language milestones and see what she is “supposed” to be doing at this age. Here is an interesting article from BabyCenter:

25 to 30 months
Now that he has a bigger vocabulary, your toddler will begin to experiment with modulation. For a while he may yell when he means to speak normally and whisper softly when answering a question, but he’ll find the appropriate volume soon enough. He’s also starting to get the hang of pronouns, such as “I,” “me,” and “you.” Between ages 2 and 3, his working vocabulary will grow to up to 300 words — and he’ll understand up to 900 words. He’ll string nouns and verbs together to form complete but simple sentences, such as “I go now.”

He’ll even get the hang of speaking about events that happened in the past. He may not quite understand the concept of irregular forms, though, so you’ll hear expressions like “I runned” or “I swimmed” and plurals like “mouses.” Sure, it’s cute, but it also shows that he’s picking up on the basic rules of grammar (that you add a “d” sound to a word if it happened yesterday, for example, and an “s” sound to make things plural).

At this age, your child will start answering simple questions, such as “Do you want a snack?” and “Where are your shoes?” If you notice that he consistently echoes your questions rather than trying to answer them, bring it up with your child’s doctor. Such behavior can be an early sign of a developmental problem such as autism.

Anna is definitely very much on track with her language development or better. Her vocabulary is way more than 300 words, she is understood by strangers most of the time, she follows directions, tells short stories, asks why? questions and what does it mean? questions. What did we do right? I think the most important thing was that we read to her from a very early age. Even when she was just born, my husband and I used to sit in her room holding her and reading aloud to each other from What to Expect in the First Year book. The article on language development from WebMD names reading the most important learning activity for young children. And – turn off that TV already!