Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to not want my dd's nursery to teach her to say "ta"?!

300 replies

mummy2isla · 27/05/2009 10:10

Not to be snobby or anything .... ... but I HATE babies being taught to say "ta" - my dd (11 months) has just started in nursery and all the nursery staff tell her to say "ta" all the time - I don't like it, but have the feeling I would be a bit awful to ask them not to?

OP posts:
BonsoirAnna · 27/05/2009 11:48

My DD could say "thank you" quite clearly at 12 months - I don't agree that it is necessary to shorten it to "ta" to make it possible for babies to thank people.

cthea · 27/05/2009 11:49

Poor show. Mine could say it before she was born. It's not necessary but some people use it as part of motherease.

juneybean · 27/05/2009 11:56

i do think some of the aforementioned phrases are regional and I can sense a north/south debate emerging.

WhiteFish · 27/05/2009 11:58

I hate ta

thanks or " i am a baby i cannot speak"

oodlesofpoodles · 27/05/2009 12:02

I am from a non ta place and I hate ta. I also dislike my dcs midland accents. My accent is much broader and from further north so I'm not a 'bbc english only' snob but they don't sound like my children.

Stigaloid · 27/05/2009 12:05

YANBU my son's nursery teaches him 'ta' and i HATE it. He is perfectly able to say thank you and often does. We don't speak slang at home and nor does anybody we meet, so to teach him slang is lazy IMO. Why not teach children how to speak properly from a young age rather than confuse them with slang? I would prefer 'thanks' to 'ta' any day. I don't say anything though as they seem to do it throughout the nursery but one time i saw a nursery staff member saying to a child over and over again, 'say ta! say ta! Say ta!'. Yet when i visited for my son's first stay and the children kept bringing me over things to show me i kept saying thank you and they kept saying it back - it is not because they can't say it that they teach it, so i don't know why they do.

Sorry - is a real pet hate with me.

(steps off soap box)

junglist1 · 27/05/2009 12:24

I'm a cockney, sometimes I say cheers or ta, and my children say fanks, not thanks. I wouldn't dream of correcting them, and wouldn't appreciate anyone else doing it. They are being polite, end of, that's what matters. Oh, and it must be a class thing, because I was ripped to shreds on another thread for admitting to dropping my Hs, and accused of being thick (which I'm not, I'm educated). Haven't read the whole thread so not meaning anyone in particular but it amazes me that people on the other thread were more concerned with elocution than their own disgusting attitudes towards other people!

Tortington · 27/05/2009 12:26

its very common, only poor people who eat fish guts and liver say this

jumpingbeans · 27/05/2009 12:29

I must be very poor, I love liver, but then again perhaps not I don't like fish guts

BarbaraWoodlouse · 27/05/2009 12:30

Jumpingbeans - is it organic liver? That might explain your confusion

sleepyeyes · 27/05/2009 12:33

As a nanny whom mainly cares for babies and toddlers I never use baby speak or say Ta, I've always used the full correct terms for any word. Yes it may take a little longer for them to say it, by 14-16 months they can usually say it.
The children I have cared for have always grown up to have clear speach using the correct terms, which is far more important than a young baby that has no comprehension of saying thank you, so why teach them to say Ta at 12 months?

HeinzSight · 27/05/2009 12:33

I don't like 'ta' personally. I agree with whoever it was who said 'thank you' or I'm a baby and can't speak yet.

An alternative is to teach the sign thank you which the baby can do along with whatever sound they might make like 'a' or 'coo' whatever.

IMO babies LOVE signing, I'm a strong advocate of sing and sign.

lovelyboy · 27/05/2009 12:58

junglist1 i'm with you. I've got a cockney accent, but live middle class life (I do hate this class stuff but just to put you in the picture). My dh is posh and quite often pulls me up on my 'cockney speak'. pisses me off actually. I always drop H's. So what, who cares really how someone speaks as long as they are polite, nice and respectful.

Ceebee74 · 27/05/2009 13:09

Well you would hate me then! I always say 'change your bum' to my DC, they were taught to say 'ta' although DS1 went to 'thank you' quite quickly and now says 'thanks'. He also calls sandwiches 'butties' as that is what they call them at nursery - which I find quite cute so we now call them 'am butties' at home

To those of you who had these marvellous early-speaking children - well done!! As DS1 was hardly saying much by the time he was 2, I was just grateful that we got 'ta' out of him tbh - maybe if you had a child that didn't speak much, you would be happy for them to say 'ta' aswell!

CoffeeAndCarrotCake · 27/05/2009 13:10

Hilarious! I'd made peace with the fact that I'm a bit of a snob and that DH is a TERRIBLE snob (AND from London / the South), however we are both absolutely fine with DD saying "Peas" and "Ta". Actually, we're also fine with her running around semi-naked in other peoples' homes in the summer, eating food she'd dropped on the floor (10 second rule - extended to up to a week for raisins lurking in the car seat) and referring to her "bot bot" when needing to do a "poo poo", with not even a mention of "posterior" or "faeces", as appropriate.

Perhaps we're really more hillbillies than snobs!

junglist1 · 27/05/2009 13:16
Grin
SoupDragon · 27/05/2009 13:18

Best ensure she learns Mother, Father and Grandmother rather than the dreadfully incorrect Mum, Dad or

OrmIrian · 27/05/2009 13:21

I don't like it either. If LOs have to say something what is wrong with teaching them to say thankyou or even thanks.

SoupDragon · 27/05/2009 13:27

Because Ta is easier. Not many children's first word will be elephant and very few run before they can crawl.

SoupDragon · 27/05/2009 13:28

It's just teaching them to make a response. They change the word easily as their language improves.

junglist1 · 27/05/2009 13:29

My sons first words were awight mate and wos appenin

cthea · 27/05/2009 13:34

CaCC - please tell me you've at least taught your DD to say vagina rather than... can I bring myself to even type it...fanny.

goldrock · 27/05/2009 13:37

Coffeeandcarrotcake - I like the idea of a correlation between speaking properly and food hygiene - my DCs all have/stiil do eat food from the floor, run around semi-clad and wear clothes with holes in. But at all times they do so with clear diction and washed and ironed.

lovelyboy · 27/05/2009 13:43

JUNGLIST, psml . I went to dinner the other week to friends of dh (right snobs). All the kids were there, anyway, my ds was talking and one of the adults (stuck up twonk who thought he was funny) said that my ds sounded like bloody Dick Van Dyke.

CoffeeAndCarrotCake · 27/05/2009 13:43

Goldrock - my DH and I make a point of NEVER ironing our DD. She simply doesn't like it, and we just don't like to force the issue.

Swipe left for the next trending thread