Learning to talk: my/your, mine/yours

[Esther12345]

Out of interest, has anyone else's child found it difficult to grasp the use of my/your, mine/yours, me/you etc? My little girl consistently got them the wrong way round for months and months. Presumably this was because she was copying what she heard, so she would refer to her own drink as "your drink" and to my drink as "my drink" etc. I was just wondering if anyone else's child had had the same confusion...?

Yes! I gave DD until she was 3 to get it right, but she still hasn't so I am going to the speech and language drop in in December locally to speak to a therapist about it. I am sure I read somewhere that they should grow out of getting it wrong (or most do) by age 3. I want to know if I should be correcting her and getting her to repeat it back to me as it should be said, or just to keep modelling the right way to say it - which as you said, has led to her copying me and thinking that "you" is another word for her own name, and that "me" is another word for mummy, or whoever she is talking to (same with mine and yours etc). Interestingly she gets her, his, she, him, and other gender based definitions.

My son (just turned 2) describes himself as "you" sometimes, because he hears me refer to him as "you". V common.

They find it easier if you say "where's fred's drink" rather than "where's your drink".

My son has no problem shouting "mine" though!!

My ds is 3 and always says "me do that", "me no like that", that kinda thing.
I'm not worried, it'll come in time.

My son is three next week and still hasn't got his pronouns right. He sometimes talks about himself in the third person or says "Mummy fetched you" or "X ate your banana." On the other hand, sometimes he uses the correct word - "it's crawling on my trousers" or "I didn't like it." I think he struggles with "me".

We had me/you firmly the wrong way round until late this summer around 2.5 - only just now reading this thread i realise that she always gets it right now!

i found the hardest thing about it was relaying tales of the funny things she said to other people - i always had to remember to tell it with te correct pronouns, but then it didn't sound right!

Yes. Pronouns are tricky, my DD struggled with this too, it has pretty much come right now, although she still struggles at times, I think it is pretty normal.

She does say "willn't" instead of "won't". Completely logical, but not correct stupid English language