A guide on how to talk to your children...have things come to this?

[INeedSomeSun]

DS got given a guide for parents today, on how to talk to your children. Apparantly 'children who talk at home achieve more at school'.
Some of the ideas are:

• Have a chat while you are in the car
  

-Walk & talk

• Turn off the telly at mealtimes
  
• Talk about school & things they are interested in
  

There's even a list of subjects you could 'start a conversation about'.

Really? Are things so bad that parents need a guide?

[Wonderstuff]

Speech and language delay is different to speech and language difficulty, the later is linked to poverty in some way, there are children with innate language difficulty, but there are also problems when parents don't converse with their children and this is very much linked to socio-economic factors. It isn't that if your poor your children will have less language exposure, rather if your poor your children are likely to have less language exposure and this is in turn linked to poor educational attainment. More schools are starting to put more focus on developing language skills.

[Wonderstuff]

more likely sorry

[Wonderstuff]

There is debate over social register, and the mc register being what is needed to access higher education and higher level job opportunities. Kids what don't speak right ain't getting on in life an that.

[MrsMook]

A lot of parent-child speech is very instructional rather than genuine conversation, so not very enriching to the child.

I've taught countless teenagers who swear because they lack alternative vocabulary to express themselves. Most tend to apprecate alternative suggestions if only for comedy value.

A lot of middle class families don't have much time for conversation either as parents work long hours, children are activties and the family is in and out of the house on different shifts, but the children will be exposed and involved in conversation at child care and activities which is some mitigaion, but not the same as family contact.

Having DCs is great. I now appear to have an audience to justify talking to myself in the supermarket and look slightly less batty than I did pre-DCs. I struggle when not accompanied by DS1 to resist pointing and shouting "BUS!" etc with great enthusiasm. Children are a great cover for a bad combination of scattiness and verbal diahorea

[DoubleLifeIsALifeHalved]

I do love chatting with my ds (3yrs), I am genuinely interested in what he has to say, as it's still all very new to get hints into the way he sees the world! I'm a linguistic as well so I think deep down I view it as a lovely treat to see it happening up close and personal!

What I do notice is that whenever ds stays with my parents, his language just leaps forwards, it's quite amazing! He just blossoms under the attention of two very adoring grandparents, and his vocab, sentence length, grammar, all just bloom. I can see such a strong role for extended family for that reason, it's just me & ds otherwise, and I really appreciate that I don't have to feel guilty about it in the way mothers trying to do too many things at once...

[Kiwiinkits]

Pretty much any teacher or SLT will tell you that it's easy to pick out the kids whose parents engage in conversation with them and the ones whose parents don't.
I'm more judgey about parents attached to mobile phones than I am about so-called 'performance parents' TBH.

[maddening]

I think that it obviously happens - parents not speaking much to their dc - but I doubt it's a new phenomenon - I would hazard a guess that these types of parents have always existed.

[Ruffello]

My teenage DCs could do with a guide on how to talk to parents! Most of our efforts to engage them in conversation are met with grunts and eye rolling except when they want something.

[Bumply]

Reminds me of the HEBS advert

"Listen to them now and they'll talk to you later"

[TimeofChange]

I know Oxbridge educated parents who don't talk to their babies and toddlers.

It is not just a deprived area problem.

[cory]

zzzzz Thu 20-Jun-13 10:51:35
"I'm not sure what you mean by "actual language delay"? Do you mean speech and language deficits that are not caused by neglect?"

I meant: I am not sure the government are talking about clinical speech delay in small children, the kind of thing that might need a speech therapist. For that kind of delay to be caused by neglect, you would indeed need a serious level of neglect and very few parents are that neglectful (and if they are, a leaflet isn't going to do much good).

And conversely, if your child has SN, then a communicative parent won't take the SN away, though s/he may still make a massive difference to his chances of doing as well as possible. But this is not what the discussion is about imo.

I think they are talking about social disadvantage in older children: what Biscuitsareme mentioned, missing out on the good communicator skills that are essential for higher education and well paid jobs.

In other words, we are talking about children who can speak perfectly well for their ordinary everyday needs, but who haven't got used to the kind of reasoning and thinking out an argument that you need to do well even at A-level.

When you do your university interview, a heavy working class accent isn't going to do you any harm, nor is the occasional swearword (unless you swear aggressively at the admissions officer). But the inability to develop an argument, the lack of habit of reasoning your way through a problem will tell against you.

Nobody thinks this is a new problem, only that our modern society places far higher demands on communications skills - and that we are no longer happy with the concept of the rich man in his castle, the poor man at the gate, which seemed a perfectly satisfactory arrangement to the Victorians.

[MumnGran]

....and not just babies and toddlers. I remember being stunned by the times my girls would come back from play-days in the holidays, and say they hadn't seen the parents all day apart from being told that their lunch was on the table ....and eating it sans adult.
( And yes, middle class/middle england and Oxbrdge )

Equally surprising were the number of return playdays when children clogged up my kitchen table for ages, chatting and helping.
Children want to converse, if invited.

[Eyesunderarock]

'I know Oxbridge educated parents who don't talk to their babies and toddlers.

It is not just a deprived area problem.'

Absolutely, I've worked in some of the wealthiest areas in the country, and some of the poorest and it is a problem that crosses boundaries.
Some of the most emotionally mature, logical and philosophical thinkers I have known have come from the poorest non-English speaking families.
EAL language acquisition is much faster for children who are accustomed to discussing and thinking and asking questions that get answers in their own language.

[mrsjay]

I know Oxbridge educated parents who don't talk to their babies and toddlers.

It is not just a deprived area problem.

more than likely these parents dont feel the need for small talk iyswim, this is a parenting problem where ever you come from or went to uni