Effective communication makes life easier for anyone. Parents are the first one to build this skill in their kids in their early childhood. Once the base is established, this skill can be further enriched by one's own effort and polishing. So, parents have a big responsibility of laying a right foundation for the development of this skill in their child. With a little patience and creativity, parents can make this enjoyable for them and their babies. Following tips seems to be really helpful:
- It's never too early to start: Start talking to your baby from the very first day. Babies can perceive sound from the very beginning. At early stages the communication is one sided and it might seem boring. But as soon as your infant becomes a toddler you will start getting responses. The first response would be smiles and babbles followed by a series of consonants and few meaningful words and then would come joining of strings of words to form sentences. It is very important for parents to start communicating at early stages as babies can perceive the tones and emotions in it.
- Keep talking: Talk, talk and talk a lot with your baby. Whether you are changing their diaper or giving them bath, keep talking them. The more you talk, the more your child will be exposed to language and more he would pick it up.
- Avoid baby talk: Clarity of speech is an essential part of an effective communication. So speak clearly with modulation in your tone to express the emotions. Baby talk should be strictly avoided. Use simple, straight and illustrative sentences.
- Reading: Reading to your kids really helps them build their vocabulary and improve conversational skill. It is never too early to start reading to your baby. Develop a habit of reading books right from the age of three months. Start with colorful picture books. It is also a good age to start story telling. Story telling enhances their comprehension and sequence analysis skill. Ask your toddler to explain the pictures from storybooks. It will enhance their speech, vocabulary and sequence analysis.
- Music: Introduce your child to music from an early stage. This will inculcate an interest in music and understanding of rhythms right from the childhood. Trust me music makes learning fun and much easier.
- Make your child social: Social interaction with same age group toddlers is really important. Interaction with outsiders on a frequent basis will improve their expression and would automatically teach them etiquettes of communication. So arrange for frequent play dates, take your baby out to play parks and kids activity areas in shopping malls. It is the right time to take them to zoo and aquariums.
- Give them words: Providing them the words right from age of six-seven months will gradually build their vocabulary. Whenever they point to any picture in their books or object in house, give them the words for it.
- Be patient: Patience makes you a wonderful parent. There is an enormous increase in your child's vocabulary with each growing day. Every child is different. Some kids can talk properly like adults even at the age of 2 while others might have the vocabulary of few words. An average two-year toddler will have a vocabulary of 100-200 words and can join two or three words together to form simple sentences. They learn an average of 10-20 new words every week.
No matter what is the vocabulary size and conversational skills of your child, you will find a tremendous increase in her expressions through gestures and speech as well. This is the age when your child seeks your maximum attention. Do not ignore her when she is talking to you. Try to involve her more in your talks. Avoid using baby talks and talk to her like an adult with clear pronunciation and modulation in your speech.
This will further build up your baby's vocabulary and improve her conversational skill. You will be bombarded with hundreds of questions but take your patience to reply to all of them. You will be surprised to unfold the curious innocent brain of your toddler and to see that vast questionnaire. You will enjoy those funny questions and will get lots of chances to smile on them. Trust me, some of these funny curiosities might get registered in your joke book as the joke of the millennium. - Be corrective: These young and new learners would make a lot of mistakes in their pronunciation. Some of them would be really funny. Take your time to listen to them and do correct them by giving right pronunciation of the word. Ask your baby to repeat it with you. Doing this frequently will do away with the errors with passing time.
- Be creatve: It's a time when moms have to be creative and think of new interesting games for their little genius. Some of the games that I have created for my daughter are-
Pekaboo game: This game is favorite for almost all toddlers. Your creativity can make it a learning game too. I used to hide behind different objects in this game and tell my daughter where I was hiding-“Well, mommy is hidng behind a pink blanket”. “Now it is your turn to hide behind blue pillow.” This way she learned all her colors and names of all these objects.
I spy: “I spy with my eye something square and black in color in the centre of room”. My daughter would instantly point at the coffee table. This made her learn a lot of things like her shapes, colors and name of objects in her environment.
Folding laundry: I always involved my daughter while I was folding laundry. I would ask her to pick her father's blue shirt or her own pink blanket. This way she learnt colors and name of all the different cloths.
Pretend animal :I tell the name of the animal and she has to show me its action and sounds. Now it is her turn to tell an animal name and I act that out.
Learning body parts- I give her a soft toy and ask her to carry in between her palms and walk in the room without dropping the toy. She does it, then I ask her to repeat the same task by grabbing the toy in between her two knees. Then comes the two elbows, underarms, neck and shoulder and so on. So she has a lot of fun learning her new body parts.
Patience and creativity makes you a wonderful parent of a cheerful baby. These fun filled tricks surely cause a strong bonding between you and your toddler. As an experienced mother of two daughters I can tell you that these will make learning fun for your baby and you. Your child will master the art of communication with the passing time.
