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NATURAL SKILLS:
You will be doing all the natural things that other parents do to support their children, but your child is finding it hard to know what to do to help themselves and communicate. Your confidence will have been knocked. You may even start to think that you have done something different to other parents or that because your child has a known diagnosis or difficulty you should be doing something very different. |
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This isn't the case. You will have been doing all the things that your friends do. But it is obviously trickier for your child. A confident child pulls out of the adult what they need, the adult doesn't even think about it. It just happens. That is the position we are all in when children find it easy and this will be the case with you and any other child that is finding it easy.
As soon as a child is finding things a bit more challenging, they find co-ordinating and using clear signals hard. Without even knowing it, as adults, we start to worry and start to do more things to try and sort it out.
In trying even harder we tend to 'overcompensate'. Doing and saying a lot more, asking a lot of questions, trying to teach our child and moving them on before they have had a chance to look at something and think it through. We tend to steal the silence and dominate. The more we do, the less space there is for them to have a go. The more worried we become, the more we start to feel we need to make communication a 'task' and that we need to teach our child to 'talk'. We can feel that all the fun has been sucked out of our time with our child.
It will feel really odd and against the grain, but the best thing we can do is increase the space for our child and do far less. Listening and watching more. Enjoying our time and having a giggle. By us going quiet, our child will feel the need to include and help us.
Doing things that are fun, playing with silence and giving our child time to think and organise what they are doing gives them a chance to exercise their own abilities.
We stop placing them in the 'can't' role and watch and trust what they can...
In becoming tuned in to their subtle signals ....watch how they grow into clear communication.
As soon as a child is finding things a bit more challenging, they find co-ordinating and using clear signals hard. Without even knowing it, as adults, we start to worry and start to do more things to try and sort it out.
In trying even harder we tend to 'overcompensate'. Doing and saying a lot more, asking a lot of questions, trying to teach our child and moving them on before they have had a chance to look at something and think it through. We tend to steal the silence and dominate. The more we do, the less space there is for them to have a go. The more worried we become, the more we start to feel we need to make communication a 'task' and that we need to teach our child to 'talk'. We can feel that all the fun has been sucked out of our time with our child.
It will feel really odd and against the grain, but the best thing we can do is increase the space for our child and do far less. Listening and watching more. Enjoying our time and having a giggle. By us going quiet, our child will feel the need to include and help us.
Doing things that are fun, playing with silence and giving our child time to think and organise what they are doing gives them a chance to exercise their own abilities.
We stop placing them in the 'can't' role and watch and trust what they can...
In becoming tuned in to their subtle signals ....watch how they grow into clear communication.
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Playing for words:
Words have no shape and are hard to see – they are said and gone. There is nothing to hold on to. Play helps words to stick and for words to have meaning Children use objects and things to help words stick in their memory. |
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Vgotsky (a brilliant Russian psychologist ) noticed that always before we are able to talk about something we need to have played with it /done it first.
So our children need the chance to have a go (experiment) with something, explore what it does, e.g scrambling through the pots and pans drawer, picking one up, and then looking to see what it is called.
What the toys or objects do, helps our child to think things through.
To put their ideas in order ready for words.
Children need the chance to be doing something e.g getting on a slide or a swing, feeling what they are doing, having time to notice what they are doing and then to look for a word that has meaning.
The most important thing when waiting for language to develop is for us to watch what each child is doing. They will be doing loads of things that show us what is going on in their head, even though they are not talking yet.
Seeing what is going on in their head helps us to know exactly what their thoughts are.
Only then can we give them the right words.
For instance - You’ll often see a 'home corner' e.g. at Nursery. This home corner lays out smaller (Play) versions of what our children see every day at home e.g. cooker, pans, pizza, bowls, rice. What each child does, even though they have no words yet, is they will pick something up and do what they have seen mummy or daddy doing with it at home.
This shows that they have started to organise the ideas in their head ready for words.
Being calm helps them to explore, gives them time to pick something up, to look , have a go and see what happens with it. Every time they have a go to see what happens, if it’s fun and works, they do it again and then they do it some more. They are learning what to do and how, and what not to do. Remembering.
By playing – turn taking starts to develop. Our child has an idea e.g. they pick up the saucepan and put it on the play cooker, the adult gently turns on the knob beneath and stops. Our child watches, puts on another saucepan, turns on the pretend gas and then stirs the pot. We copy them stirring and get a bowl, they get a bowl and tip the saucepan in to the bowl…………. We take it in turns to help and learn from each other.
Keeping silent unless our child looks at us gives them the chance to experiment and explore, try something out and to think. If they want any words- they will signal they are ready by looking up.
Organising what’s in front of them, having a go with it, seeing what happens, and adding a new idea builds thinking
Silent thinking is essential to all talking.
So our children need the chance to have a go (experiment) with something, explore what it does, e.g scrambling through the pots and pans drawer, picking one up, and then looking to see what it is called.
What the toys or objects do, helps our child to think things through.
To put their ideas in order ready for words.
Children need the chance to be doing something e.g getting on a slide or a swing, feeling what they are doing, having time to notice what they are doing and then to look for a word that has meaning.
The most important thing when waiting for language to develop is for us to watch what each child is doing. They will be doing loads of things that show us what is going on in their head, even though they are not talking yet.
Seeing what is going on in their head helps us to know exactly what their thoughts are.
Only then can we give them the right words.
For instance - You’ll often see a 'home corner' e.g. at Nursery. This home corner lays out smaller (Play) versions of what our children see every day at home e.g. cooker, pans, pizza, bowls, rice. What each child does, even though they have no words yet, is they will pick something up and do what they have seen mummy or daddy doing with it at home.
This shows that they have started to organise the ideas in their head ready for words.
Being calm helps them to explore, gives them time to pick something up, to look , have a go and see what happens with it. Every time they have a go to see what happens, if it’s fun and works, they do it again and then they do it some more. They are learning what to do and how, and what not to do. Remembering.
By playing – turn taking starts to develop. Our child has an idea e.g. they pick up the saucepan and put it on the play cooker, the adult gently turns on the knob beneath and stops. Our child watches, puts on another saucepan, turns on the pretend gas and then stirs the pot. We copy them stirring and get a bowl, they get a bowl and tip the saucepan in to the bowl…………. We take it in turns to help and learn from each other.
Keeping silent unless our child looks at us gives them the chance to experiment and explore, try something out and to think. If they want any words- they will signal they are ready by looking up.
Organising what’s in front of them, having a go with it, seeing what happens, and adding a new idea builds thinking
Silent thinking is essential to all talking.