Get the Best Winter Activities
1. Take your cue from your child. Don't hang on to baby talk because you like it, but don't abandon it before your child is ready. Pay attention to how your child responds to you, and listen to how he or she is developing. When your child is beginning to experiment with more complete sentences, reflect that in your own language.
2. Play games with language. Try rhyming words with your child's name, replacing words in familiar songs, coming up with silly words to describe your child's world. Games are a way to keep language fun and playful, while enriching your child's understanding of sounds and meanings.
3. Don't shy away from vocabulary. Adults often underestimate children's ability to process more difficult vocabulary. But children have a need to label their world: provide your young child with words to describe feelings
(disappointed, worried, excited), sounds, colors, and textures (soft, bright, pale, rough), and ideas (interesting, fair, intelligent).
4. Sing! Singing is a natural and fun way to introduce vocabulary and to attune your child to sounds and rhythms. Don't worry if you have a tin ear. Your child won't even notice.
5. Preserve elements of baby talk for spe cial times. One of the essential benefits of baby talk is the way it reinforces the emotional bond between parent and child. Don’t feel embarrassed to use cutesy, babyish language with your slightly older child once in a while, for instance at bedtime or when he or she is hurt or sad. After all, one of the most important uses of language is to convey feeling, and as the parent, no one knows better how to comfort your child than you.
