Pronouns - is this a normal phase?

[SlightlyDoolally]

Just wondering if this is a quirk of my DS or a normal stage of language development: my DS (who has just turned 2) has a habit of asking the question he wants to be asked, so for example "Do you want some water?" when he means "I want some water".

He will come up to us and ask things like "Do you want to play in the garden?" or "Where have you put your shoes?" by which he means that he wants to play in the garden, or that he has hidden his shoes somewhere and wants me to play along and find them.

It's very cute, but he has been stuck at this phase for quite a while now. I guess it will sort itself out? I am trying to deal with it by reformulating his sentences for him, so saying things like "You mean, Can I have some water", but then he just gets confused whether it's him or me that's having the water.

Anyone else's 2 year old do this?

[ShowOfHands]

Utterly normal. Think about it. You say to him 'give me the ball', well in that case that means you are 'me'. But then you expect him to also refer to himself as 'me' but then later that day you say to him 'do you want the ball'. So he thinks am I me or you or what?

They all go through it and you just have to let them figure it out.

[ShowOfHands]

And don't correct him, just formulate correct sentences and model them.

If he says 'do you want some water', say 'you would like some water would you ds? I would like some water too. You like water , I like water '.

He'll get it.

[throckenholt]

I think it is fairly common.

If you think about it - he is copying what you say to him when you are asking him a question. He knows that gets the desired result when you do it - so he doesn it to.

He will figure it out as he gets older.

[Indith]

What Showy said. Pronouns are really confusing!

[SlightlyDoolally]

Thanks everyone - that's what I thought :)