To correct my toddler's speech (nicely)

[glitterjellybean]

NC for this. I have a dd coming up for 2 years old. She's bright and happy and her vocabulary is coming on in leaps in bounds.

Her df and I see eye to eye on pretty much everything except one thing. Speech.

Bit of background, and as much as I hate labels, dh is very working class (as in he's a total grafter with a common accent) and I'm from an upper middle class family where I was corrected to say the full words and names not abbreviate. If my mum heard me say the word "telly" she'd come back from the dead to tell me off 🙊.

It started off when she was small with my utter refusal to the whole "say taaaaaa!" thing. She now says please and thank you anyway, so it seemed unnecessary for her to learn two ways of saying it.

Now this last week "yes" has turned into "yep" and I keep (gently) saying "no xxx we say yes".

Dh thinks I'm being stuffy but I've never been turned down for a job in my life because I speak (in his words) "posh" and I'd like to give our dc as much of a chance as possible in life.

Dh is constantly getting annoyed because people judge him on his accent and the way he speaks, and we even had an incident in a posh cafe the other week where a patron made a comment loudly about "letting anybody in now". So surely if he's had issues like this he wouldn't want his kids to go through the same.

Lol this is a bit more detailed than I was expecting but as long as I'm doing it kindly and constructively (and not in a way that's demeaning) it's not a bad thing to speak "correctly"?

St. Martin's isn't a uni though is it OP. It's an art school.

@user1489261248 Seriously I've seen it happen! Same way that banks hire regional call centres because Geordie and Welsh accents are apparently "more trustworthy".

What is a perfect English accent?

@RubbishMantra Actually it's part of a university now. London Institute which is now University of the Arts London. Also includes London College of Fashion, Camberwell College of Art, London College of Communications etc.

And @user1489261248 I've not seen anybody sacked, they just don't get past the interview stages because of how they sound on the telephone.

But St Martin's not referred to as a uni - by the people that actually, y'know, attend/did attend it.

"Local expressions, aided by regional accents, can hinder understanding. It is good manners to make sure that the person to whom you are talking comprehends the first time around. We should not have to repeat ourselves."

William Hanson - Etiquette Consultant, The Daily Mail

Glittery:
"How do I explain that the upbringing that me and dh had was completely different without sounding like an utter tool?"
-should be "dh and I had"
and
"being able to send my siblings and I to private school"
-should be "my siblings and me".
These are very basic grammar mistakes, so sort yourself out before correcting your child.

Well I have never seen it happen... (people being got rid of because of their accent...)

I find it hard to believe.

But then I find it hard to believe that anyone would announce on a message board that they are proper posh, and their husband is right common, and they are worried sick the kids will turn out like him!

Agree with most of the others. Do correct, but by repeating back, not by 'We don't speak like that' and correct because it's not correct, not because it's 'lower class'.

I have an Irish accent, so not 'posh', but we do pronounce words correctly - 'butt- er- fly' not 'butt-a-fly'. Once my kids went to school and started picking up the London accent, we did correct them as otherwise the pronunciation came through in their spellings. No need for pearl-clutching, just pronounce the correct word back to them.

'yep' is hardly a local expression though, is it? its a phrase that i would wager is understood perfectly well anywhere in the English speaking world.

OP, are you going to address the fact that multiple people have explained why correcting language is detrimental to speech and development, at all?

I agree with PP, model correct way of saying a word rather than correcting directly, which could really impact your child's confidence and developing speech at this stage. You may just have to accept that your child is going to have a bit more of an accent than you.

Same way that banks hire regional call centres because Geordie and Welsh accents are apparently "more trustworthy".

So your child would be fine, you think, if she was developing a Geordie or a Welsh accent, but you fear for her entire future because she says 'yep' and occasionally drops a letter?

You're not being entirely consistent.

Actually no, hang on, you'd probably die a thousand deaths if your DD went to work in a call centre wouldn't you?

YANBU crack on!

The famous example of "correction" going awry:

You have no way of knowing what your child's accent will be at nearly 2

Children can't articulate certain speech sounds at this age.

Your worry about words like 'yep' is really over the top and if I were your DH I'd see it as a rejection of him

If this is real.

And @user1489261248 I've not seen anybody sacked, they just don't get past the interview stages because of how they sound on the telephone.

That's not what you said earlier

THIS is what you said... (4th post down on page 4...)

I've worked in jobs where there's been face-to-face and telephone contact and seen highly capable and skilled people dropped for speaking in slang and dropping letters etc.

You said nothing about people not getting past the interview stage.

The more I read this thread, the more I think this a goady troll thread...

@GreatFuckability I have listened and taken note. I have said I will adapt my approach. I've also stated I don't want my children to get a complex!

@Didyoumeantobesorude1 Apologies, didn't realise that frantically typing back to defend myself had to be spot on grammatically. I'd go back and correct but obviously I can't edit posts.

I don't think I'm posh to be honest I think I'm just a regular person. However it constantly being told I "speak posh" so it's obviously something that other people pick up on.

For what it's worth, I adore my dh and if my children grow up to be like him I'll be happy.

Just the fact that people have made sweeping judgements about me and my personality based on what information I've given here, and the way I've presented it, just backs up my point that you get judged immediately no matter what. Sort of reinforces my point albeit in a weird way.

And I don't believe your 'incident in a posh cafe'

@SapphireStrange I've worked in call centres when I was younger. Nothing wrong with that.

Do you really think a posh accent will get your kid into a 'better Ofsted rated school'?

I was going to say don't correct her - when learning language children self correct over time.

But as this is more of an accent debate I would still say don't correct her, but do model the speech you would prefer her to use.

XP was from Lancashire. Although he never had a broad accent it was enough that when DS learned to speak he picked up some Northern pronunciations. We live in the south, so although it felt a little out of place I just continued to use my Southern pronunciations.

After XP buggered off and DS started school he dropped the Northernisms because all he was hearing was Southern accents.

He's at an age now where he's trying out different accents (partly because he's seen me in things I've acted in and one of my skills is I'm good at picking up accents so I often have the role that requires an accent). His Scottish is painful, but his Estuary is impeccable- he sounds like a mini Danny Dyer!

When she reaches school age she will most likely adapt her speech to that of her peers anyway OP, so don't harshly correct, just model and find ways to repeat words back to her without criticism.

OP I agree you should help your daughter pronounce her words correctly. If a word is spoken correctly it is easier to spell. Better to model the correct pronunciation back to your DD rather than saying "No, we say ......" Its negative and all your dd will pick up on is the word 'No'

Nothing wrong with that.

No, indeed.

Thing is, your posts come across as if you think there IS something wrong with people sounding 'working class'.

@multivac Um no. I just said that wanting teaching your children to speak well is the same idea as wanting your child to go to a top rated OFSTED rated school. You want the best start and opportunities for your children and being well spoken is often deemed as a desirable quality.

And tbh the cafe incident was more dh relaying back to me something he had experienced. It caused him to rent for an hour in the car about people with "silver spoons shoved up their arses".