Although, parents know that talking to their infants is vital to their infant’s speech development, many find the process difficult or awkward, as they don’t know what to talk to their infant about or say.
Recent research shows that children’s speech and social development can be held back if parents do not communicate enough with their children, during their first few years.
While some parents naturally talk to their children when they are babies, asking them how they are and telling them how cute they are – seeing them as mini adults; other parents find having a one sided conversation with an infant, very difficult and sometimes even embarrassingly awkward.
So what can you do, if you want to talk to your infant but find it awkward?
One good way is to talk about what is happening in your daily life. Talk about the weather – “What a horrible rainy day. I hope we don’t get wet when we go outside.”
Or talk about what you are going to do that day – “We are going to go shopping because we need to buy some food. Can you remind me to get some carrots?”
Ask them how they feel – “Are you excited? Do you want to ride in the trolley or walk to get things?”
If all this seems like hard work (and for some parents it is), as they hush from one chore to another, a great way to spend quality time with your child and talk to them easily is to read to them or teach them to read.
By reading to infants and teaching them to read, you can sit close to your child and talk to them about different books that you read, what is happening in the story and also about the characters. Reading stories not only helps your infant gain an academic skill, but also teaches them how to interact with others, develops their social skills, not to mention aid their speech development, as they learn to pronounce words and also learn new words from you.
Picture books with no words in them are also a great way of having discussions and conversations with your infant as you talk to your child about what you can see in the pictures and make up your own stories.
Therefore, if you are struggling to talk to your infant, start by setting aside some time daily, even if it’s at bedtime, to read a book and talk to them about it. Parents can give their children so much in terms of language, speech and social development like this.
So talk, share and discuss books to start with and the rest will come naturally.
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