Pay close attention to everything your toddler says -- even when her babbles are hard to understand. To help her out, ask her to show you what she wants or point to what she is talking about. Ask open-ended questions and wait for a response. When you act genuinely interested in your toddler's answers, you can keep the conversational ball rolling longer. (Open-ended questions also promote children's recall from memory, sharpen observation skills, and encourage planning and if-then syllogistic reasoning skills.)Yes, I am still excitedly reading articles like this, because I'm a masochist!
Seriously, this kind of thing has always been interesting to me. I do have a degree in linguistics, after all. Maybe someday I'll "get over the narcissistic injury" and stop adding snide comments every time I make a post relating to children.
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You know, what a lot of these "helpful" parenting articles tend to leave out is that the sooner you help them learn to truly communicate, the sooner they realize they can finally get what they want, and then they bitch and moan and whine and complain and beg sooner.
The crying's annoying, but me and Faye have taken up to communicating only through written notes, and grunting at the children. The longer we can hold out, the better I say.
It'll all be worth it when Connor is President of the United States.
Hahah. He'd best be making more money than THAT when I'm in my golden years.
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