Dumbing Down Language

[mrnickheath]

Over here in Northern Ireland, the prevailing way to say thank you to a child pre-speech seems to be "ta taa".

We HATE it. We've always just used full words e.g. thank you with our three. With our middle child she just started saying "tick-ooo" instead of thank you.

We understand that full words are more difficult for little people, but why yeah them ta ta, and then tell them when they're 3, actually the word we've been teaching you is wrong, you need to say thank you. Just seems patronising to a child's (often considerable) intelligence.

Thoughts? (Not that we're for changing lol)

I used to say "ta" for my little one, we are in the north so everyone says it 🤷🏻‍♀️but he decided at some point to say thank you instead, not sure when. He was two in October and people always comment on what a good talker he is, and he always says thank you, please, you're welcome etc. I've never "baby talked" him, just spoke to him normally which I think helps, but think he's just a good talker. Didn't walk till he was 18 months old though!
He loves bing bunny and it always irritates me when they say words wrong on there! "I fell'd over", why teach them the wrong words instead of the proper ones?

We're probably a bit a-typical as we're home educators. We let ours say things like Christmas Father, or 'I felled over'. They'll learn it in time, and to a certain extent, so many of us as parents I think, worry too much about appearances, and people thinking "that child doesn't talk well yet". If our 4 year old calls a bear a sloth for a while, meh, which she did then corrected herself.
Again I think we're far too quick to correct children too often in society, again our 4 year when counting will often miss a number (16 quite often for some reason lol) but she always goes back and fills it in and counts again.
Although obviously we correct things like hitting immediately lol

'Ta' for 'thank you' sounds ridiculous. You are right to avoid it.

Parents who teach their children to say BIB BIB like a car horn, instead of excuse me, when they want to get past. Not cute, just obnoxious, ignorant and pathetic.