Do you correct your DC's accent?

[Tawdrylocalbrouhaha]

We live in East London, and DS (4) goes to nursery for 10 hours a day, 3 days a week. He hasn't picked up a massive accent, but he is dropping his Ts pretty consistently (or pre'ey consis'en'ly as he would say).

He has just asked to watch the Go Je''ers, and shown me wha' a lo' of grapes he's go'. Am I wrong to keep correcting him? No' tha' it's working anyway .

I came from Dublin, so it's not that I speak like the queen anyway, but...what is wrong with the letter T?!

I wouldn't dream of correcting an adult, I would just ask that they corrected my child. In the same way that they would correct other common mispronunciations (eg a bikit/biscuit tup/cup lowwee/lorry) But I do think that the nursery staff are in an educational role not just a caregivers role, especially when the child is 4. And not pronouncing T sounds would surely fall under a speech and language concern if left unchecked?

It's not 'properly' it's 'differently'. Regional dialects are all 'speaking properly'.

They are not though. Example given of saying 'teef' instead of 'teeth' - that's not speaking properly by any stretch of the imagination. The word is teeTH, with a TH sound, not an F. To say teef is incorrect.

Where I live they call a dog a 'dug' - it's not a dUg though, it's a dOg, so they are incorrect.

I was born and grew up in in East London so have that accent. My grandchildren correct me now!

Another Londoner here, and I make it clear to dcs that if they want something like peanut butter, it had better have some letter T's in it. The rest of the time, now I know they are capable of pronouncing Ts, I let it slide - so now they code-switch between Nice Middle-class London when speaking to adults, and Pure well 'ard sarf lah' on to their mates.

Accent is linked to class in this godforsaken country. Sounds like some of you need to fork out for private school, isn't that how you get RP?

Dontfuckingsaycheese I agree with you, but the reality is that people do judge, and it can be a hindrance in later life to be perceived as speaking with an uneducated accent.

I don't like London accents, they make me cringe but that's because I'm from London. I don't or try not to drop my T's as I find it ugly, but I used to do it growing up.
Little children do mimic accents really well, when we lived in East Anglia my son came home from nursery singing "loike a diomond in the skoiy" and up north as a toddler my daughter would great everyone with a friendly "hi-ya". I used to drop my T's a lot as a teenager and my mother would constantly say it's waTer or your friends name is KaTie.
Don't be like my mother, I felt like she wasn't ever really listening to what I was saying.

My children have gone through phases:

Infant school: hint of estuary, dropped Ts. Not too fussed about this. They grew out of it when they left that school.

Secondary school: DS1 picked up some MLE. From a white, suburban middle-class child it sounded ridiculous. I found the most effective way to get him to stop was for me to start using it.

DS3 (14) has picked up a few Americanisms from Netflix and YouTube. For example, the way he says "new" is different from everyone else in the family. I find it mildly irritating.

I'd correct him at home.

We've tried to "correct" the bAth to barth etc how we talk but to no avail! I did one of those accent checkers and it managed to pin point the exact city we are living when I tested DS so I think we're fighting a losing battle!

Nothing wrong with accents. It's perfectly possible to have a regional accent yet pronounce words properly.

We've tried to "correct" the bAth to barth

Eh? The word is bath

To clarify: I understand that my teenage children might need to use some MLE when they are hanging around with their friends. They go to schools on the edge of London with an ethnically diverse intake (many different languages spoken at home) and this seems to be the lingua franca among their peers. But at home I expect them to use standard English.

Accent is linked to class in this godforsaken country. Sounds like some of you need to fork out for private school, isn't that how you get RP?

Depending on the environment you grew up in, you might already have it. When I was at school, any boy with a regional accent was mercilessly teased. That probably wouldn't happen now.

My dd speaks in americanisms I always correct her. She also speaks with an almost English accent in spite of the fact that we are from Northern Ireland but she is autistic and that is quite common so I don't really worry about that too much.

We've tried to "correct" the bAth to barth etc how we talk but to no avail!

Are you having a larf?

You can't raise a child in East London and not expect them to have the local accent.

You can't raise a child in East London and not expect them to have the local accent.

Exactly this. If you want your kids to have a proper accent move some place like Surrey.

I dont correct his little geordie accent as that is adorable but i do repeat words to him so they are pronounced correctly.

He will not get away with saying "nat" instead of "no" or "aye" instead of "yes".

@TheFuckfaceWhisperer it's a disarrrrrrster!

I don't want RP - I just want him to use all the available letters!

I would always correct speech. The bottom line isn't necessarily about how you sound, but if you don't say the words correctly it does impact on reading, spelling and grammar.

Oh I'm worried about this! I'm from Newcastle, my partner has a very London-y accent and we live in a posh area. Poor little lad! He is going to be so confused when he starts talking!

I never did with my two, however they grew up in Surrey. I'm from Croydon.

No, because I don't have a strange prejudice against regional accents.