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Original poster

Shocked about what ds's friend aged 6 can't do ...

188 replies

Easy · 24/02/2006 17:51

Today We took ds's friend (well his girlfriend, according to him) for an outing, our first time with this friend. Now I know my ds is advanced for 6 (everyone tells me so), but I was shocked to find that she
a) is unable to fasten a car seatbelt herself (her mum put her in my car as we went, she couldn't fasten it herself for the return journey)
b) Doesn't know when her birthday is, beyond being able to say "It's a long time to my birthday"
c ) can't identify the months of the year, and doesn't know it is February now.

Also can't understand why I corrected the phrase " I don't want no chips", altho' I recognise this may be acceptable language at her house.

My son has fastened his own seatbelt since just after his 5th birthday, has a complete grasp of the calendar, and has been able to tell people his birthday date since 3 y.o.

He can now tell the time (altho' won't admit it, he's too sly).

Are my expectations too high and the girlfriend is average for 6, or is his friend "a bit behind"

I'm genuinely curious about this one

OP posts:
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doormat · 24/02/2006 19:14

I think kids develop differently

My ds3 has been able to do seatbelt since he was 3.
Since he was 4 he can unplug an xbox and attach leads to it to another tv in house and set it up and play it on his own
But he is 5 and doesnt know the concept of months and days yet, nor his birthday date

He is more mechanical than anything.

Sparklemagic · 24/02/2006 19:15

notquitecockney I cab't let your comment pass - I'm not a snob about the English language and have no problem accepting that some things that are common parlance become more accepted in the language nowadays - but this isn't correct grammar for anyone! Because it's simply WRONG - if you don't want to have any chips and you say "I don't want no chips" what you are ACTUALLY saying is that you don't want to have NO chips, therefore you must want to have SOME.

Don't mind change in the language as long as people don't end up saying the opposite of what they mean.

Sorry. daughter of english teachers. it's ingrained.

Original poster
Easy · 24/02/2006 19:19

Sparklemagic, I cringed at NQC's comment too.

"I don't want no ....." shouldn't be considered acceptable at all.

And yes I know that IS judgemental.

OP posts:
spidermama · 24/02/2006 19:19

I find car seat belts incredibly difficult fgs! Also, all car seat belts a different. Most of my grown up friends really struggle when trying to do up our kids belts and I end up taking over.

I've just asked my bright 7 year old girl to recite the months of the year and she got to August then didn't know the rest.

I was amazed to discover she doesn't know her birthday.

She has been reading and writing since 3.5. She has been reading entire books on her own in bed for over a year. (Worst Witch, Roald Dahl type books). So I think that they really do develop different skills at different rates.

spidermama · 24/02/2006 19:21

As for the4 double negative thing .... Grrrrrrr! I have this argument with my dh. I tell him it's wrong and inaccurate and that I don't want my children picking it up. He says it's part of how English has evolved.

RedZuleika · 24/02/2006 19:21

Sparklemagic: I'm glad you said that because I've been twitching towards the keyboard to say the same thing (but held off because I know I'm a spelling and grammar nazi...)

doormat · 24/02/2006 19:22

this is weird but my ds3 can tell you what make of car by looking at it, he has done this since he was 3
man thing obviously

tigermoth · 24/02/2006 19:26

I think you have to take into account that some children know but wont say - especailly to strangers.

My 6 year old son is fond of hanging onto information. At age 4 he would not tell anyone including me, his age. I was actaully worried and started a thread on it. He had his 5th birthday and hey presto, announced to everyone he was 5, but he hated being 4 (youngest in class) so wouldn't admit to it.

swanny · 24/02/2006 19:28

at least she knows about healthy food in refusing chips!

singersgirl · 24/02/2006 19:30

Am also Ms Pedant about language rules, but the double negative is valid dialectal English - just not standard English. I wouldn't let it pass in my house because we speak standard English.

On the other stuff, I was horrified to discover last year that my bright 6 year old didn't know months of the year, though he has known his birthday for years. He's now 7 and still wouldn't be able to tell you what the date is (does know the months now). He has only just managed his seatbelt this year, but has fine motor difficulties.

My 4 year old does know the months of the year and birthday etc.

Sparklemagic · 24/02/2006 19:55

yes, someone get my pills, I shouldn't worry about this stuff should I!

Fine, it is valid dialectal English then but let it never be standard English because I like a language that lets us say what we mean, not the opposite of what we mean....

chipmonkey · 24/02/2006 19:57

Ds1 was able to do all those tgings at 6. Ds2 is 7 and would probably struggle with a lot of them. But he's more "emotionally intelligent" than ds1. Always says the right thing!

spidermama · 24/02/2006 20:20

Who says it's valid dialectal English singer's girl? This would mean my dh is right. I can't take this lying down.

noddyholder · 24/02/2006 20:22

We are all different thank god and it isn't necessary to know the ins and outs of all our childrens friends abilities

manitz · 24/02/2006 20:24

just had a quick scan but i'm so pleased. was embarrassed as other peoples 2 and 4 year olds know their birthday/age (and will repeat on demand) etc and my 3 yo doesn't (and won't) hurrah. keep saying 'oh but her pincer movement is fab!', not sure how much longer i can be pleased about that..

drosophila · 24/02/2006 20:41

My DS is a bit of a know it all (gets it from his dad) and worryingly corrects our grammar. He is 6. One day when I said I was starving hungry (not something I usually say),he replied you can't be you are either hungry or starving. I suspect as he gets older he will be a real pedant.

Thing that worries me is that he's not got a girlfriend yet and your 6yr old has. Should I be worried?

batters · 24/02/2006 21:00

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

singersgirl · 24/02/2006 21:28

Well, Spidermama, I'm not really an expert on this (almost-kind-of-backtracking emoticon) but if you read stuff like David Crystal and Stephen Pinker on language, they talk about the difference between accepted standard grammar and dialectal variations.

In particular, I remember reading how African-American English has its own syntax and grammatical rules, including double negatives, which are incorrect in standard American English, but actually correct in A-A English - can't remember where I read this though.

Similarly, pronunciations which are 'wrong' in standard English can be valid in dialects - for example, my in-laws in Devon all say 'v' instead of voiced 'th', even though DH has regularised his pronunciation. So whereas I spent weeks trying to get DS1 to say 'th' properly, it's not seen as a speech delay among the other members of the family.

And of course in other languages eg French double negatives are perfectly regular ('ne....pas').

I remember some quote I read once that "a language is a dialect with an army and navy behind it"

Anyway, Easy and you are quite right that it is not considered good English, and honestly I'm the most pedantic person I know about things like this.

Congrats if you've managed to wade through the dull stuff!

spidermama · 24/02/2006 21:38

Thanks for that clarification singersgirl.

Bozza · 24/02/2006 21:58

Honestly, I can't believe how much some of you are getting your knickers in a twist about the double negative. It's not standard English, as has already been stated, but if it is understood then it is perfectly valid. I probably would correct it, but only because I was worried about my child being judged negatively by mother's like you.

Easy it's hard to say whether it's your expectations or if she is a bit behind. You appear to have got the impression that she is a bit behind, and I assume that you have just given us a few examples of what happened to cause you to form this idea.

I have started trying to get DS (5 last Monday) to fasten his own seatbelt but to no avail. The CM is more concerned with this because sometimes he goes in the back row of her Galaxy.

DS has known for a couple of years that his birthday is in February. But it's only this year that he has picked up on the date and I would imagine that in a couple of months he might have forgotten that.

He knows the names of several months and events in them (eg DD's birthday is in May, Halloween is in October, Christmas in December etc) but has no idea of the chronology.

He can do the o'clocks, half past, and quarters on telling the time but that is it.

I think with things such as you mention a lot of it is what is actively taught. DS knows his address and phone number but I don't think many of his friends do, for instance.

Elibean · 24/02/2006 21:59

I'd have noticed a six year old refusing chips more than I would have noticed her grammar, tbh. Would pounce on DD if she said it (if she was six) but don't have particular expectations of other peoples' kids - apart from general good behaviour.
And I'm an English grad...obviously lax by MS standards

Bozza · 24/02/2006 21:59

Ah singersgirl - mentioning those names, you bring back memories of my English Language and Linguistics degree...

NotQuiteCockney · 25/02/2006 08:15

I hung around a bit to see if anyone was going to snap at me about the whole "I don't want no chips" thing, and wandered off before you all did!

Yes, it is valid dialectical English. The double negative thing used to be entirely valid in English, and continues to be valid in many other languages. (It's only since the Middle Ages that we even had this rule: cite )

Here's a lovely quote from the above page:

But are double negatives really as illogical as some would have us think? Is there any ambiguity in the sense of the line from Bob Dylan?s song Maggie?s Farm: ?I ain?t gonna work on Maggie?s farm no more?? Does the listener have to stop and think about the motives of the character, finally concluding that if he is not going to work no more, he must mean that he is going to work some more? The double negative works here in much the same way as the archaic usage which was once commonplace, and still has the power of emphasis even if it is not considered ?correct?.
(end quote)

It's only a perverse insistence on "logic" applying that suddenly made the double negative unacceptable! Like logic applies to spoken English in any other way.

No, I don't use the double negative construction. It's not valid in my dialect. And yes I would correct my kids. But it bugs me way less than people saying "They visited he and I", etc. Which lots of supposedly competant Standard English people do.

MamaG · 25/02/2006 09:17

my 6 year old DD knows her birthday, what month it is, her grammar is good etc, but she doesn't fasten her own seatbelt. TBH, she's never tried: I like to fasten it every time so I know she is safely strapped in.

Greensleeves · 25/02/2006 09:28

GRUMPF about the double negative. It's just plain wrong. "I don't want no chips". That child would starve quite quickly in my house. It's inarticulate, illogical, clumsy... if I ever catch either of my children using such lousy English, I will force them to copy out passages of Foucault in copperplate script. While sticking pins into their thighs.

Bloody wishy-washy "common usage" lobby.