The BEST reason to teach your child to talk early (if you can)
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Teaching your child to talk can be a daunting time for many parents.
It can be super frustrating when your child doesn't understand, or does understand and cannot convey the meaning back to us.
Not only is this frustrating for us as parents, it's super annoying for the child, too!
This post will share with you the absolute BEST reason to teach your child to talk early.
So why should you teach your child to talk early if you can?
The effort needed to teach your child to talk early is a big investment of time, energy and LOTS of talking yourself.
A recent post 'How to teach your Child to Talk' gives parents strategies about HOW to physically and consistently teach your child to talk.
There are actually many, many benefits for our children in learning to communicate early.
1: Increased Social Learning
Learning to talk earlier means children can begin to learn and understand social cues and expectations earlier than they otherwise would have.
Think about when our children are learning to share. If our child can talk, the sharing and communication between those children can commence more effectively.
Take this common little scenario:
Our child snatches something from another child to play with. We go to them and make them give the toy back, but then we use our tone and our calm voice to give them the words and attitude to ask the other child if we can have a turn next. We do this by telling our child 'Now we can say 'Can I please have it when you're finished?''
We then expect our child to say this to the other child (who is hopefully listening) and this teaches our child that you will not speak for him, but you will be a proactive parent who will listen to and help him when he needs help managing himself and his social capabilities.
This builds connection, love and responsibility to your child all at the same time.
2: Increased Learning overall
Another reason to teach your child to talk early is that their learning is increased.
This is because they are able to not only be listening to others communicate information, but they can join in the communication too!
This is a big reason why I have group coaching programs here at Smart Mama Smart Kids. Apart from the cost being lower for Mamas who want to feel more confident (but still getting amazing value), the group learning aspect is a massive bonus because it means we all create a shared learning space.
It's the same for kids. They communicate, learn, listen, learn, watch, learn and the cycle goes around again.
Teaching your child to talk early is a massive bonus in this area.
Still, as I said, there are many benefits to having an early talker-the best is yet to come!
3: Your child can learn to communicate emotion
Children are learning emotional regulation from their parents ALL the time.
(This can be a bit daunting, especially if you feel like you might not be the best example or struggle with your own emotions!)
When your child can communicate effectively, you can start to teach them on a very basic level, how to communicate their emotional state.
I am serious.
Teaching your child to regulate their emotions, to learn to identify their own emotion, means they are streets ahead of others their own age and stage.
A quick word of clarity here, though-children are ALWAYS developing, and learning to talk early doesn't short-circuit their developmental milestones. It can help in SO many ways, but your child's brain is still needing to access maturity too.
This is intended for parent information and inspiration, not that we end up expecting WAYYY too much of our small child.
Do you want your child to have increased learning, increased communication levels, and a better ability to communicate their emotion?
4: Children can connect with parents on a deeper level
This is the true meaning of building a relationship with your child.
Do we need to do this? YES.
Why? Because this connection, this factor, this deeper level of connection, means our child, at the core of their being, feels:
- safer
- more understood
- better trust of their parent
- more confident
- like you have 'got their back'
- happier
Think about how the situation goes in that tricky period between not talking and able to talk.
Children are struggling to express themselves or communicate, and this creates confusion and often annoyance on the part of the parent (and the child).
They feel like they aren't being heard, and like they are being ignored-often resulting in an emotional meltdown and continued miscommunication.
You may feel frustration and pity because you can't help your child and just don't know what they want, either-which causes you stress, too.
Conclusion
There are many and varied benefits to teaching your child to talk as early as you can.
These benefits are not only to your child's language development, but their social and emotional development too.
However, the BEST reason to teach your child to talk early (or as early as possible) is that they can then build an even deeper relationship with you and immediate family too-and this increases their resilience and feeling of safety-which then impacts everything else they do.
This is a wonderful reason to teach your child how to communicate as early as possible-without putting them under undue pressure.
How early did your children talk?
Disclaimer: This post is intended to give reasons why a parent might start teaching their child to talk. If your child is not talking when you think they should be, you can try these tips.
But...I am not a doctor or medical person!
If you are worried about your child's development, see your healthcare provider or health nurse.
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