to think that babies grow up automatically..

[seeker]

...and many parents waste huge amounts of time, energy, tears and stress and make themselves very unhappy trying to teach them to do things that they will do naturally because that's what they are programmed to do?

OK.

AIBU to think that babies who are NT, have no particular physical challenges, are not in a Romanian orphanage, are not stuck in front to the TV all day, are not being brought up in extreme poverty and are not being brought up by neglectful or abusive parents grow up automatically.

WIll that do?

Lady my DS2 is one of 5 children, has a mother and father who both work in disability/child development and he still has SENs/ASD and LDs. Talk? The poor boy had the life talked out of him! But then when his specific disabilities became apparent turns out it was the wrong type of talking.

I am very talkative, lots of words, long sentences, chat chat chat. Poor boy couldnt understand a word of it.

He needs very short, simple words. Clear and concise.

Its never really simple is it?

@ seeker

YES & NO :)

All babies grow up automatically. We are born and we grow.

DEVELOPMENTAL wise babies need nurturing, talking, reading, cuddles, play to develope.

Further more a baby can be born NT and is assumed NT until and issue is spotted through interaction and stimulation or talking to :)

"OK.

AIBU to think that babies who are NT, have no particular physical challenges, are not in a Romanian orphanage, are not stuck in front to the TV all day, are not being brought up in extreme poverty and are not being brought up by neglectful or abusive parents grow up automatically.

WIll that do?"

Yes .

Many many parents with a child with SEN or ASD do not get a diagnosis easily and spend a great deal of time (usually years) trying to get a diagnosis. What drives them to get help or a diagnosis is an understanding that their child is not developing in the way an average child might.

So while they are in that awful limbo of having a child who may not have the immediate appearance of having any SN or any actual diagnosed condition, they spend years listening to other parents with NT children tell them that they are neurotic (or worse bad parents if the SEN involves behaviour problems) and that their children will be fine with time and better parenting.

Of course some parents spend too much time worrying about something that will probably be fine in the long run but sometimes that worry has a basis and should be listened to.

As with most things in parenting, a general statement like the OPs is worse than useless. It does nothing to help individual parents with worries about their children whether they have special needs or not.

Some parents do overworry but some (and I include myself in this) spend too much time in the early years saying this sort of thing so as to appear non neurotic.

I would say in many ways I am quite a laid back parent but I also think that in my circumstances this made me a worse parent than I could have been by being a bit more "neurotic" For other parents being more "laid back" would make them a better parent.

However the results of a parent tending towards "neurotic" or "laid-back" in any particular instance is almost never apparent immediately but becomes more so in retrospect. Because of this I am completely unable to say for sure whether a parent is being too neurotic or too laid back in any particular situation.

I can only listen to their concerns and try and help with the problem they have in front of them and possibly share what I would do (if asked) but also understand that I have no better idea than the person asking what the best thing to do is.

Absent developmental difficulties, YANBU.

The amount of fretting I did about baby DD not having enough "tummy time". Ridiculous.

To be fair to op I get the impression she was getting at the idea of marketing of products such as supposedly educational dvds as somehow being necessary for child development rather than saying parents should never worry full stop.

Lady - I see where you are coming from and equally, have had similar comments. It's also something I am acutely paranoid about - have I not spoken with DS enough? Have I somehow 'stunted' his growth? Why isn't he talking as much as his peers? Why, when he does talk, am I the only one to understand him?

He isn't on the autistic spectrum and simply 'language delayed'. I do think some people's viewpoints on this thread are oversimplistic. Interesting how I know a SALT whose own DS is language delayed. It isn't black and white 'talk to them and they will talk'. There are a whole host of reasons why children are speech delayed, which have been overlooked by the 'give them speech and they will talk' comments I've read on this thread. Some comments here have angered me too.

Bullet - The last statement you made is of course true but since often (though admitedly not always) parents have no idea that their children have any SN until their children are much older, it is still not a very useful statement for parents who have real worries about their child's development.

A better statement would be that most children develop and grow up normally as long as they have parents who love them and keep them safe. These children rarely need more input than that.

However since in the early years, we often can't tell the difference between these children and those who who need more than that to help them reach their full potential, we should treat ALL parents with worries about their child's development with consideration rather than dismissing them out of hand as overly neurotic.

With regards to marketing products. Yes you could spend a fortune on stacks of DVDs books etc when really and plainly "the natural way" of interactive play, eating together, touch would really be enough.

However they are a useful tool if the parent has a SN herself? (I am thinking more at toddler/school age)A friend of mine has dyslexia and so is hampered in helping her C learn further. She uses DVDs for her child in aiding his learning/counting/colours etc

So there is a valuable need for marketing products on developement I believe. But it is really up to the individual parent/child.

I dont agree to parents being told "how" to bring up their children as evey home and child develops at a different pace. But I do agree that the expected milestones are a good guide in assessing if your child needs just a little bit extra :)

I agree with OP.

I think it is fear. If we accept that we don't have as much control as we think we have that will be scary. The books, dvds and classes play on the comforting false sense that we can control the future. 'if i read this books to my baby she will love reading for the rest of her life, she will avoid drugs and she will go to university'. 'if i take her to music group when she is 5months she will play the piano by the age of 8. I can turn my children to whatever i want and i will not have any nasty surprises'.

Another point:
OP's theory places babies on a more equal start (ban extreme cases) which maybe is not apealing in a class obsessed society like britain thu the £8 per session baby activities.

The research shows that children bought up in a BSL using household tend to have a delay intially but catch up and tend to do better then their peers.

I remember getting calls from professionals horrified that children of deaf parents might 'speak with a deaf accent'

Thats ok TSC it just hit a raw nerve with those parents who have a child with SN or possible SN. I was one of those parents that thought if I read to dd as a baby, talked to her without using baby lang, and gave her different stimulation she would be very advanced, sadly no. We are in the process of getting a dx, she might have dyspraxia like me, and so therefore it physical causes not because i have not tried hard enough.

There was a study in the States in the mid-90's which tracked the language input occurring in 42 families for 2.5 years (the Hart and Risley study).

This is often referred to as the "early catastrophe" or "30 million word deficit" study as it demonstrated that children in welfare homes were hearing about 2/3rds less language input in any one hour of parent-child interaction.

The children were followed up at 3 and again at 9/10 and those with limited language input in the early years continued to having striking deficits in vocabulary and literacy development.

*This does not mean that all children who have speech delay would have been fine if their parents had spoken more to them^. There are many children with identified (and unidentified) SN who will have reduced vocabulary, issues with language development and subsequent difficulties with reading and writing. There will be some children who are socially disadvantaged whose parents do read and speak to them who go on to have highly developed language skills. And there will be those children who are affected both by organic difficulties with learning language and reduced exposure to good models of languagage and communication who are multiply disadvantaged.

There are many people who don't talk to their kids and it has a long lasting developmental impact which may be devastating in a culture that prizes verbal communication and literacy-based thinking skills above other areas of human endeavour. However, as a Speech and Language Therapist working with children with complex communication disorders, I can assure you that language development is not "as simple" as just talking to a child in all cases.

I see tsc has apologised, but that attitude drives me mad too. DD not quite 2 is, afaik, totally NT.

So many people assume she has no words and can't speak, because she had a forward facing pushchair, I don't really bother with rhymes, we watch TV. I talk to her a normal amount, not every two seconds.

She is an absolute blabber mouth. Talks loads! Pronounces lots of words totally properly, joins in conversations, says short sentences. But only at home.

She is just shy!

And yet it is all "oh she is a bit behind" er, no, actually. She isn't.

Thanks tsc, I think that it half physical and half environment, the old nature nurture debate

What I'm trying to say is, when you see people on the street, or visit their house you only get a tiny snap shot of both what their parents are like and how developed the kids are.

It's the same way you can't assume a baby eating in maccyd's has an unhealthy diet, you have no idea if they eat worse than that at home or much better.

Not wishing to snap at you or pick you out either.

YANBU

Working That's not the same thing at all. That children whose parents have a smaller vocabulary than average are likely to have a smaller vocabulary than average themselves is not the same thing as the child having a speech delay. Talking to them more isn't going to increase their vocabulary if you don't have a larger vocabulary yourself, and the pre-school years is not the only time for kids to learn vocabulary.

In the UK in the days of ubiquitous grammar school systems it was a studied phenomena that working class kids (in general) used a more restricted vocabulary set at home but an extended one when at grammar school.

And in another rant about people being pushed into doing things that are supposed to make their kids into perfect citizens:

I just took my kids to their two year assessment. The health visitors were pretty organized. A couple of specialists there as well as the health visitor - a dental person and a speech therapist. Well organized, toys for the kids to play together while parents sat at tables to fill in forms and talk. Not too many people.

But the assessment was more about assessing parenting than assessing the kids. The kids may as well not have been there. The HV and both of the specialists talked to me and DH, but did not so much as look at my DCs. The questions were mainly have you any worries, and are you doing X,Y and Z. Since I think my DCs are doing just fine it was basically about being lectured for not following their parenting norms (at least in the situations where I wasn't). But my DCs are doing just fine. And they weren't interested in checking whether my assessment of my DCs was accurate. So what exactly is wrong with my parenting and what exactly do they think the point is of trying to make me second guess myself? Is insecure parenting supposed to be marvelously good for kids?

Rant over.