Tue 23 Jan 2007
Encouraging Email Clipping
Posted by Liza under Personal
The hospital where we had Noah sends a weekly email on development and other items of interest. Here’s part of the “Week 50″ newsletter:
The importance of talking
Talk, talk, talk, and more talk. The effect of talking to your baby-chatting, describing, explaining, singing, asking, echoing, rhyming-is enormous and lifelong. A classic study of 42 varied families showed that the most important aspect of children’s language experience is its quantity. The amount of day-to-day talking that parents did with their babies and toddlers was closely tied with the children’s vocabularies and IQ test scores at age 3 and beyond. The researchers sum up the results of their data: “As the children learned to talk, the amount they talked increased steadily until it reached the amount of their parents’ talk, and then it leveled off. By age 3, the children were talking as much as-but only as much as-their parents talked. Furthermore, the children’s talk was as varied-but only as varied-as their parents’ talk.”
Heh.
So that’s why Noah seems like such a chatterbox!
January 24th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Then how do they explain why Sanna talks so much more than we do?
January 24th, 2007 at 10:41 am
heh - And that would explain why Malka’s such a bababa-da-da-ah-ha ha oh! ‘er, too!
I am a “chatty Cathy” for sure, and am ALWAYS talking to her.
PHEW. Now at least Narda can chill on being annoyed with me for talking so much!
January 24th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Now wonder Julia’s such a conversationalist!
January 24th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Hmmm. Joaquin has all of two words — “DaDa” and “Eh” (which is usually accompanied by the imperious Pointing Finger of Command). Presumably when he starts talking he won’t ever stop. That’s what happened with his siblings anyway (especially Max, who has been talking for about 6 hours STRAIGHT as of this minute).
But yes, talking to kids — good! Interacting with kids — good! And I hope every parent will realize this and give their children all the attention and interaction they deserve, not only because it helps them developmentally but because it is a delight to do so.
January 24th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Noah and Joaquin must be telepathically linked! Noah’s favorite word/gesture is also “Eh!” with the Pointing Finger of Command.
Sadly, I am not telepathically linked, and usually have no freaking idea where he’s pointing. Light? Ceiling fan? Book? Door? Kitchen?
Noah also loves to say DaDa, which we think is very funny and we have no idea what he means. But it’s a happy sound, so that’s good, right?
January 24th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
While I absolutely agree that talking and interacting with your child is the Most Important Thing you can do as a parent, this kind of thing makes me feel even more guilty for sitting and reading the paper and having coffee while watching Henry have some independent play time.
Sometimes I’m chatty, sometimes I’m quiet. I hope he gets the balance.
I have to say, as a parent, I think that this is my worst fear: that I don’t interact or talk to him enough.
January 24th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Lizzy, it wouldn’t actually be a bad thing for Henry to be a sometimes quiet person. Right?
I mean, for Noah and Malka and Max and Sanna to have someone to talk to, there have to be Henry’s and Joaquin’s (maybe) who do more of the listening.
Don’t be hard on yourself for needing breaks in the day. Henry probably needs them too. There’s a flow to life, with busy and interactive parts and quieter parts and even some well placed dull parts. And Henry will grow up thinking that one thing grownups think is fun is to sit and read the paper and drink coffee. He’s right!