How much do you 'ignore' your children?

[Gameboy]

Have just been out with two families - friends of ours- who have kids about the same age, and I have to confess, I am amzed by the extent to which they actively 'ignore' their children trhoughout the whole afternoon.

By this I mean they seem to 'zone out' from all the various requests/ questions/ constant 'to-ing and fro-ing' that seems typical of under- 6s??

As a result they actively seem to enjoy themselves more, manage to have 'adult' conversations (which I gave up years ago )and it seems that their kids eventually give up and go and sort out themselves whatever it is they want....( which seems like a good thing I suppose)

I can't decide whether I'm just a mug with my kids and let them dominate my life too much... but I simply CAN'T ignore them - it seems really rude and uncaring somehow??

Nosa is it?

Have just been out with two families - friends of ours- who have kids about the same age, and I have to confess, I am amzed by the extent to which they actively 'ignore' their children trhoughout the whole afternoon.

By this I mean they seem to 'zone out' from all the various requests/ questions/ constant 'to-ing and fro-ing' that seems typical of under- 6s??

As a result they actively seem to enjoy themselves more, manage to have 'adult' conversations (which I gave up years ago )and it seems that their kids eventually give up and go and sort out themselves whatever it is they want....( which seems like a good thing I suppose)

I can't decide whether I'm just a mug with my kids and let them dominate my life too much... but I simply CAN'T ignore them - it seems really rude and uncaring somehow??

It's interesting that vaunda seems to have balanced the attention to her child and to her friends so that they are all happy.

It is I!

I'm a regular MN's friend and she just happened to mention the thread and "Vaunda" and I figured there were'nt too many Vaundas in this world!

I ignore my children all the time, they are six and three and can't speak a word yet!

Something is puzzling me a little, and that is that it is received wisdom that children who are around adults a lot, and who don't get talked to in baby language, actually learn to speak at a later age.

I have to say that this was the case in our family. dd1, who spent her time with me and dx, and we didn't speak baby talk to her, was a very slow speaker. The next two were very fast, but they had the advantage of talking to each other.

Do other people's experiences bear this out?

ggglimpo, the mad yoga teacher lives behind the huge blue garage style doors in Benhill Road. Camberwell is packed to the gills with arty/boho/media types. All ducking the bullets

"motherese" helps learning langauge Nightynight. But a lot of speech development depends on motor skills (not just langauge) - as I said sometime about 1000 messages ago

TBH though I think a lot of speech and language development is just inbuilt - like learning to walk etc.

My DS1 was much slower to speak than DS2, often DS2's pronunciation is better than DS1's.

I agree, Jimjams.

My first cousin was wrongly labelled severely disabled in the late 1970s as he did not walk until 30 months or utter a word until he was 3.

He is now a very senior computer engineer w/Microsoft after getting his master's in computer engineering from a prestigious technological institute in the US at the age of 21.

When people commented on his late speech, he quips, 'What's there to talk about when you're an infant?'

magnolia- nice to see you on chat.

given not the best example, but good fun eh?

PMSL- there's hope for ds1 then

My friend met (and had a drink with) someone (autistic) who didn;t talk until 13- he was autistic, but definitely Aspie rather than severe as he had been. Weird weird weird.

sorry meant to say definitely aspie rather than non-verbal... etc etc

That cousin used to exasperate me, JimJams. I'd talk and talk at him - after all, I was 5 years older and therefore infinitely wiser - and he'd just smile and smile. It was a big family and I often found myself with him. I finally shouted at him, 'Why don't you talk!?' To which he replied, 'Why don't you shut up?'

The whole room fell silent.

!! OMG!!!

SPRAY

LOL

Great!

Luke Jackson went to bed one night unable to read - had been assessed by an ed psych- couldn;t read a thing - was off the scale for dyslexia. Woke up the next day and could read. They called back the ed psych who was amazed - never seen anything like it- all in his book.

geraldgiraffe:

Decided to stop lurking and start posting.

What a bloody huge mistake

Dh has almost disowned me

well its not normally quite this riveting magnolia

expat-

rofl

I've just caught up with this thread (as much as is possible without living in it) and it makes for uncomfortable reading.

Vaunda is unusual. She's not attempting to swim with the crowd. And many have decided this is enough reason to poke fun at her and to round on her with exceptional rudeness.

This is unseemly for grown women. It's the same as bullying at school. 'Let's find the different one and get her. (Snigger snigger)'.

Someone mentioned fox hunting.

Vaunda you've done well to stay relatively measured. I must admit though I don't know how you can have stood it for so long. Surely you should walk away.

i thought everyone was going to make this 2000 posts?

He's a strange kid, that cousin .