While today’s world is at our finger tips, the new generation is stepping towards digital rather than verbal communication! Parents are caught in the web of competition and they do not find enough time to spend gratuitously with their dear children. It’s time to reflect on how we communicate with our little ones. This would definitely contribute to our child’s successful communication development and positive behaviour.
Parent-Child interaction can be of 3 types:
1. Directive – Parents’ interaction with the child is mostly limited to commands or instructions. Some parents keep repeating the command until child responds appropriately while others are strict leading to immediate compliance.
2. Informative – Parents begin to teach various concepts and provide information to increase the toddler’s knowledge. Children below five years of age learn quickly as compared to older children. Hence, the parents shoulder a major responsibility to lay early learning foundation.
3. Casual talk – It is more commonly evident in ‘Granny’s talk’ as parents are either busy or more focused on child’s academic growth and performance. If parents spend more time sharing, laughing, playing and talking to their children, it significantly influences child’s language and communication development. Spontaneous interaction is important for child to progress from single or short utterances to multi-word sentences, conversation and subsequent narratives.
How wisely we use these interactive styles paves the way for the betterment of our child’s language & behaviour.
Appropriate use of directive language would mould your child’s behaviour. A combination of informative use of language and causal talk would enrich your child to have a joyful and successful language learning experience.
Yes…. it’s time to reflect on how we communicate with our little ones. Let’s become more responsible. Let’s step away from the digitally disastrous competition! Let’s lead our children to step towards a world of joyful human communication!
Written by
Maria Grace Treasa
Senior Speech Therapist
Prayatna, Centre for Child Development, Palarivattom, Kochi