To be slightly annoyed at HV or DD.

[TwittyMcTwitterson]

Had my DDs 2.5 yr check up today. I'm certain (as is childminder) that her speech and understanding is good. Better than my friends kids and I mean that in a totally unbiased way, I promise and better than 'the books' say she should be. 2 childminders have assessed her at better than her age.

As soon as she walks in to HV room, she gets hugely excited about the toys and exciting items and says 'mummy, lots of either babbles or slurred words' and instantly HV says 'her speech is very delayed isn't it' so I use the animal books to tease words out of her and she basically speaks like a twat the whole time we are in there. The HV is a little concerned and will be in touch in three months to see how she is doing.

Before we went in I said.'youve got chocolate milk all over your face' to which she said, clear as day 'no mummy, I not got choc-late milk all over my face, I got choc-lote milk all over my mouff' I was pleased as punch. HV looked like she didn't believe me. I tried everything to get her to speak properly but as soon as we walked out and I put her coat on she said 'here mummy, hold my milk'

AIBU to think kids do it on purpose?

AIBU to think HV should believe me and not say DD is behind and delayed?

I think I am BU regarding HV as that's her job but it hurt

Twat is a regional thing! Twat is totally okay in Scotland and in common usage (the part I come from anyway). Similar to twit.

And, you're not being unreasonable. At her three month check my baby chose only to look blankly at the maternal health nurse causing her to be quite scathing in her comments. In the waiting room before and after she was smiling, interested in everything etc, in the check she looked like a bit of a pudding.

They must know and do it deliberately!

Yes Lucy, she has only been with current CM for seven weeks so I had two which basically said the same thing and were approx 5-6 weeks apart. She only read the latest and that was approx third time I finally thrust it under her nose pointed them out to her.

She also put her own top on tonight which I said no to earlier today

meowing with intonation! Love it

I think it's much better that a few children with no issues get referred than children with actual issues getting missed tbh. The HV can only really go on what she sees as well.

My youngest had a fairly severe speech delay so perhaps you'll understand that I would find "speaking like a twat" really quite offensive?

Our questionaire (from what I remember, I was too distracted by DS1 running riot after having to wait nearly an hour in the waiting area with no toys or books around the time he gets tired basically asked how they get on with other kids, do you feel they are liked by other children, are they hyper etc. They didn't actually do any checks, apart from giving me a leaflet with 50 words and asking me to tick them if I knew he could say them. After the 9 score on hyperactivity, I thought it best to prove he could actually say them all.

I lie, they also checked height and weight.

At my son's first year check, he jammed one of the blocks they had set out right into his mouth, then stood up in a kind of 'ta-daaaa!' pose. The health visitor was horrified (although he wasn't choking or anything, just think that they weren't expecting it) and when my friends took her children over the next couple of weeks, the blocks were no longer included in the toys they were given to play with.

I laughed at 'talked like a twat' - I didn't occur to me that people would assume that the OP meant it in anything but a light-hearted manner, would actually say it to her child or was making a disparaging comment about those with speech impairments.

Thanks dojo! That's quite funny about blocks too!

I wasn't asked anything about relations with other children. It was all fine motor, gross motor, speech, and similar.

'speaks like a twat'

Ohhhhh lordy..twat?! Not cool.
Yabu you hqve no reason to be mad at anyone. Its not a competition.

Dd has her 2year check next week. Her speech and understanding is amazingly good (nursery tell me so) but I know at the check she will go all shy and refuse to say a word as she just won't talk in front of strangers.

Toddlers are wind-up merchants. DD2 did this, she would hardly say a word when we went to see the HV for her check-up (we had to go to them, no home visits). The difference was that the HV believed me when I told her she was normally very chatty.

When we were done and walked out of the door, DD turned round in the doorway, looks at the HV and says: 'Thank you, it was fun playing with your toys, can you come to my house?'

Minx.

BOTH my dc had significant speech delay, symptomatic of ASD. Both still have difficulties, with ds struggling greatly with comprehension and social communication at aged 11. Dd has increasing difficulties with receptive language and without intervention will gradually fall more and more behind and struggle greatly in school and social environments. I still am not offended because it's quite clear that the OP was relating it to her child refusing to step up on the day and not the lack of speech or difficulties with speech. I am the first to be beating the disablist drum both here and in RL but it is quite clear what OP meant and it made be laugh.

All my three children 'failed' their 2 year checks spectacularly, wouldn't build a three brick tower, wouldn't say a single word, at home the little horrors were happily completing big jigsaws, counting up to 30 fluently and talking the hind leg off a donkey. Don't worry if your're happy with their speech at home although I would happily go along to further assessments, it will do no harm.
FWIW DD has just got a first at uni and DS1 is heading for a first in Modern Languages so has had no effect on their future.
DS2 has had speech therapy but more for understanding speech rather than speaking, but he has ASD so a little different.

DS had a severe speech delay. I also took twat as a joke and also as not much worse than twit. I didn't realise until I went to uni that people in other areas considered it so offensive.

I wouldn't worry about the HV check. DS had one with a nursery nurse at 2, a ridiculous and pointless tick box exercise. She barely interacted with him at all. He had a full development check with a paed at 2.5ish which was really useful, as were the SALT assessments he had.

The twat question comes up on MN at regular intervals. And every time it is established that in some circles and some parts of the country it is considered very offensive, and in other parts/circles not so. Could we not just have an automatic function that refers posters to such a thread whenever the word comes up?

The twat but made me laugh too - got where you were coming from. My SIL took her son for a check around the same age - HV held up a range of pictures for him to say out loud eg cat, train and car and dn just looked at her blankly. When they got home he excitedly said to his dad " I saw some lovey pictures of a cat. A train and a car......"

Sparklysilversequins Thu 20-Mar-14 20:45:53
"I still am not offended because it's quite clear that the OP was relating it to her child refusing to step up on the day and not the lack of speech or difficulties with speech. I am the first to be beating the disablist drum both here and in RL but it is quite clear what OP meant and it made be laugh."

This.

I got what you meant OP, i think sparkly summed itup well.

Very irritating, but there you go. I wish that I could borrow this amazing diagnosing HV she can come and reduce my backlog of SALT referrals- huge shortage of staff in this area means massive waiting lists.

Omg emu baby he is just a baby, he is 2, not 22 fgs!

DD2 had just come out of hospital aged 9m and had me in tears because she was refusing to drink anything at all. The nursery nurse at our toddler group saw how upset I was and came to visit later that day.

DD2 had drunk very little during the day and of course sat on this lovely nurses lap and guzzled a beaker of water. The pair of us just gave each other that look.

I took 2 yo DS to his health check and he refused to speak a word, despite chatting like crazy just before we walked it and after we left. Typical kids.

OP a friend of mine's 2yr check has become family folklore - his mum tells him the HV asked him to "point at the cat", he went silent and refused, his DM was saying "come on DS, you know what a cat looks like, point at it for the nice lady" etc - no joy.
After they left his DM said "DS why didn't you point at the cat when she asked you to?"
"Because it wasn't a cat mummy, it was a kitten."

I don't see the problem. It's not like she'll be asked whether or not she "failed" her 2 yr check when applying for jobs.

The HV is just diarising a follow-up check. I had a follow-up with DS1 who was barely saying a proper word at 2, but went straight to full sentences a month later. The HV just rang up and asked if I had any ongoing concerns.

DS2 completely refused to cooperate with the 2 yr check. Wouldn't say a word, or do anything anyone asked him, and screamed blue murder when the HV tried to weigh him.

HV asked if I needed a follow-up and I just said no thanks - he's talking better than his brother at the same age, and that was the end of it.

It's just a process that is intended to pick up potential problems early if at all possible. The HV is only fussed about whether a child is not doing something at an appropriate age - they don't care whether or not a child is advanced, or exceeding targets or anything like that.

I fell off a chair, landing on my head, aged about 4. DM took me to see the GP because she was worried about concussion.
The doctor checked me over then showed me a pencil and asked me what it was - I refused to answer. On the way home DM asked why I hadn't answered the doctor and I replied 'he already knew what it was - he didn't need me to tell him'.

I think I need to reassess my use of the word Twat. I've never given it a moments thought. I never normally swear, but have always thought twat was an innocent phrase and have used it throughout my life. I was born and bred in South London.