“What every parent should know...”

We all know that being or becoming a parent is hard. Whether it is your 1^st or your 4^th child.

 You get up in the early hours of the morning; you feed, bathe and pamper your little one. Then it comes to the stage of teaching your little mite how to speak. You ask yourself all these questions. Will they be able to speak clearly, or will they pronounce words really badly, like what was said in the Ogden Nash poem, it must be milk? Here are a few tips into helping your baby into speaking clearly- what every parent should know:

       Repeat words regularly.  (Your child will eventually be able to identify these repeated words)

      Their language will develop by what you say (They copy you- mind your language!)

         Be consistent. ( Tell the same story every night, they start to understand and copy you)

        Use simple instructions, will help them know who is in charge. ( E.G. ‘push the bus’ )

         Point to a body parts.  (This will help them to understand the body function).

       Be firm (when your child isn’t communicating properly, keep repeating the correct term- EG: ‘Please’ ‘Please’ – this should help your child to identify what is the correct language to use.

 

A question frequently used by parent; ‘When do I know if my child is finally speaking’

When parents say they notice their baby’s first words they claim they are beginning to talk. They are incorrect according to child language expert Andrew Wilkinson as he says that words by themselves do not make up language. He illustrates that a baby may cry ‘momma’ but adds that this can be used for a number of reasons; for example: The child may be in distress or may want attention and that is why they call out single words to demonstrate a number of things that they may have wanted.

 

Children copy what you do, so mind your language…

 

Media Text ...

For a Women’s magazine:

‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’

Women are said to come from another planet. But is there a complete difference of language between men and women? Or has the male over powerful participation in a conversation changed the concept of women’s language as well as their place within society. It is said that men will try and come across higher and women just want support from society? Is that true or is it just a stereotypical view? As women we go through a lot of changes, with our bodies, emotions etc. So is it really fair to be judgementally viewed on our speech?

 

For a Men’s magazine:

‘Women are definitely from another planet- it’s all in the language.’

Women. Sometimes you love them, sometimes you hate them. The most difficult species to understand, women. They say that were all the same in the society, but is that really true after all this is a man’s world. Women’s language is very awkward. Us men we will tell a story and tell the information side of it, after all who cares about how I feel? But women, they will beat around the bush and talk about how they felt, as if that is going to make the story entertaining, Then they complain that were interrupting them because when they’re explaining a story all we hear is ‘umm’ and ‘ahh’  I’m sorry but us men, our attention span isn’t very long, we just can keep up.

 

Guardian readers:

‘Is there a difference between Male and Female language, or are we still stuck in the stereotypical history?’

Language and Gender theories aren’t new. It is something that has been researched over many years. There are a lot of concepts saying that women are emotional and men are a lot more hard faced. Now does that mean that men don’t cry? Those men do not show emotion? It is very controversial as there are many opinions to this situation.  Women would argue that men too are emotional or that women are not any more emotional than men to higher their status in society. But a lot of men in society will argue that they do not cry to try and remain high in society.