<p>Even as kids are beyond preschool, if everyone is plugged in electronically, there is less talking while each focuses on e-media. Some of our best conversations where ehen I shuttled my kids home and they were in a chatty mood. If either of us were using media, these opportunities would have been lost. I think sometimes it was easier for them to talk when they were relaxing in the back seat instead of us being face to face.</p>
<p>[Too</a> Small to Fail](<a href=“http://toosmall.org/]Too”>http://toosmall.org/)</p>
<p>The tablet thread wore me out with my preaching about the importance of brain development the first 1000 days of life…but see above website an initiative of the Clinton Foundation. </p>
<p>And then rinse and repeat everything I said in the tablet thread about the importance of books, real live people reading to children, etc. Many homes do not have language rich conversation. Many of the “words” children hear are commands - “get your shoes we are leaving”, “time to eat”, “stop!” - not very language/conversationally rich. Books can help to provide the words and setting for conversation in otherwise non-language rich homes. Books expand vocabulary - how many opportunities are there for an inner city or very urban child to talk about zebras, hippos and tractors on a daily basis? Books can introduce new words not in a child’s daily world. Language skills are the single most important predictor of school success - the best way for a young child to increase their language skills is to either be talked to or read to.</p>
<p>The first couple years of a child’s development are so key to their growth and well-being that its almost scary. Our country would be wise to incorporate more resources for young families e.g. more liberal maternity/paternity policies, better early childhood care, etc. It’s done in many European countries, Scandinavian countries are a prime example. I think the paybacks for this type of investment in our country’s greatest resource - it people and future workforce - would be paid back in spades with a happy, healthy, and more intelligent workforce.
This article expresses my thoughts on the subject better than I can:
[Where</a> Are the Happy Babies? | Psychology Today](<a href=“http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/moral-landscapes/201108/where-are-the-happy-babies]Where”>http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/moral-landscapes/201108/where-are-the-happy-babies)</p>
<p>A parent does not have to be rich or well educated to show their children love, attention or to help mold those curious little minds. It is free to point out and talk about a tree, an item in the store or a bright colored car. The library is free and even if the parent is not a good reader, they can still discuss the pictures with their children. </p>
<p>What is missing here is that some of these young parents simply do not know how to do this, why to do this or why this type of interaction is vital. We must find a way to get this important message across to future parents and to give them tips on parenting.</p>
<p>I think it has more to do with daily INTERACTION and less with money. (how did our ancestors do it?)</p>
<p>I just wanted to thank Consolation and the other posters in this thread for pointing out that such behavior transcends racial lines. I feel that the OP made it seem like “minority” mothers are usually poor and neglectful while white mothers are the opposite…</p>
<p>At the risk of sounding like a horrid snob, the well educated also tend to have a larger word bank from which to draw. This afternoon my 12 year old daughter was singing “Dona Nobis Pacem”, a song on which her school chorus is working. We ended up in a conversation about the meaning of the words (“grant us peace”) and the connection between the Latin and English (Dona->Donate, Pacem->Pacify, Pacific). It’s that kind of thing that makes it easier for kids from middle and upper class backgrounds to outperform less privileged kids on the SAT, regardless of raw brainpower.</p>
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<p>We already have this program for people who cannot afford it. It is called HeadStart.</p>
<p>With one kid on the autism spectrum and another who was neurotypical but restless, I’ve sometimes envied moms whose kids would sit quietly in a stroller!</p>
<p>But maybe my boys did not want to sit quietly because I was usually talking to them and showing them things. I didn’t use strollers too much either…tended to carry them until they could walk.</p>
<p>We have two adults kids.
Oldest son, neurotypical, gifted artistically, great writer, deep thinker but QUIET.</p>
<p>Daughter with special needs, also a deep thinker in her own way, and CHATTY.
Talking from daybreak to bedtime.
LOVES to watch and discuss Jeopardy with DH and me. It triggers all kind of cool discussions and DD enjoys showing off her language/vocabulary skills! </p>
<p>We enjoy seeing how our old fashioned interactive parenting translated in our two very different kids.</p>
<p>How do some people overcome word deficit?</p>
<p>I’ve always been fascinated by Camus. His father died in World War I. His mother had a severe hearing loss. Her vocabulary is said to have been limited to 300 words. (She worked as a hotel maid cleaning rooms, and as a small child, Camus wore mostly clothes that hotel guests had left behind.) BTW, Camus adored her. He said she did her best and was exceedingly kind, generous, and loving to him. </p>
<p>Yet, he grew up to be Camus. No matter what you think of his philosophy, he had no vocabulary issues. </p>
<p>Obviously, he is not the only person who has achieved great fame despite being born poor. But in his case, we know that his mother had an exceedingly limited vocabulary.</p>
<p>How do some people catch up?</p>
<p>Can the OP please explain to me why he felt it was needed to mention race?</p>
<h1>30 - jonri</h1>
<p>That is fascinating!</p>
<p>I wonder if, as parents, we have less impact than we like to think or just a completely different impact than we imagine or plan?</p>
<p>According to his Op, he mentioned race because he reported to us what he saw.
He saw a disparity.
It was (some) people here that drew a larger conclusion based on what few people he saw, or assumed he had made conclusions based on what he saw. </p>
<p>The Op may have made conclusions, but I don’t know, he didn’t say so in his post. Some here are guessing that he did, and that it was necessary for them to explain why the Op was wrong. But he isn’t wrong if he has only reported what he saw. My point of view is that the Op is reporting from a very limited perspective and there is too little info to draw any conclusion about all young parents.</p>
<p>Suppose I report that I saw an older white woman stealing office supplies from her workplace, and say nothing more. Anyone that draws broad generalizations about all of society from that, or assumes I have made generalizations from that, is making generalizations that are too broad given the info provided.</p>
<p>Starting pre-school earlier is contrary to many studies I have read. The result is that kids in day care have less vocabulary because (no brainer) they interact with other kids with no more vocabulary than their own. And they may talk “baby talk” much longer. Kids around adults (who actually interact with them–I get the OP’s point) have much greater vocabulary.</p>
<p>“Educational TV” (again according to studies I’ve read) does not increase vocabulary. It’s the live interaction with adults which makes the real difference.</p>
<p>Camus, whoever he may be, was given the gifts of interaction and love…it is very sad to feel alone when you are with your family.</p>
<p>^^^ There was still no use to mention the races. They had zero bearing on anything he was talking about.</p>
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<p>Among other things, he WAS a Nobel prize winner in literature. See more here [Albert</a> Camus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus]Albert”>Albert Camus - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>My point is that the original article discusses the “poverty of words” children of the uneducated have. This allegedly hinders the development of their brains. They are doomed to fail in school, again according to the article.</p>
<p>There are exceptions to this thesis though. Camus is simply one of the most notable. Yes, there is no doubt that his mother loved him. There is also no doubt that due to her very limited hearing, she failed to develop any but the most elementary speech. Yet, her son became a well-known writer. </p>
<p>If his mother’s limitations pre-determined Camus’s brain development, he could never have become the person that he did. </p>
<p>Thus, it may be --as you suggest–that love and interaction is what is important and it IS possible–contrary to the author of the article–to make up later for a lack of vocabulary. How many words a child knows by kindergarten or first grade will not dictate his/her future, as the author suggests.</p>
<p>Or perhaps Camus interacted frequently with other adults who cared for him and his mother. </p>
<p>A friend’s D has a lot of difficulty with language. She was adopted from Russia, and she apparently lived with impoverished, uneducated, very dysfunctional family members who barely spoke to her. She had a grandmother to whom she was very attached, but she could only speak her native language in a very limited way when she was adopted at about age 7. She had never been to school of any kind. Here, she has had a very different kind of life with highly educated, devoted parents. It is hard to say to what degree her language issues are nature or nurture.</p>
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<p>That’s not my understanding…although it’s possible that other adults tried telling little Albert when they couldn’t get his mother to understand something. </p>
<p>My point isn’t to tell everyone Camus’s life story. It’s just to point out that he developed normally in intellectual terms despite the fact that he had a mother who wasn’t teaching him high level vocabulary because she only knew about 300 words. </p>
<p>This suggests to me that we shouldn’t just wring our hands and say “It’s too late!” when a child starts kindergarten. Maybe we should spend some time studying people who did develop normally despite less than ideal homes or CODA kids. (CODA is child of deaf adults; at least some such children learn sign language first. Thus, they may have a vocabulary.) </p>
<p>I think that how we solve the problem depends in part on studying the exceptions to the rule. I also think that we have a much better chance of getting young, poor mothers who do love their kids to spend more time talking to them and interacting with them than we have of teaching these mothers lots of new vocabulary words so they can pass them on to their kids. </p>
<p>And maybe we should spend more time in kindergarten on basic vocabulary than basic reading skills–at least for those kids who do have limited vocabularies.</p>
<p>@Jonri- How do some people catch up?
Interesting question. There have been success stories of children that experienced poverty, child abuse, alcoholism in the family, when they became adults they sought out speech language therapy and exposed themselves to children’s books. By reading children’s books it can present a life or world never previously known. Literacy in children’s books can still be a pathway to full literacy for adults. The illiteracy chain can be broken by adults who strive toward literacy.
@Beachlover- I am sorry the original observation was a quote from NYT and not from me which is why I wrote anonymous at the end of the quote. I have been trying to figure out how to highlight quotes on CC but have not spent much time figuring it out. I will admit though I don’t have a problem what that person observed. Being African American I wonder why so many in the minority community don’t understand the importance of engaging their children in various learning modalities (Visual, Auditory etc). Local book drives specifically collecting children’s books in inner cities and outer impoverished areas need to happen. Access to reading material is the greatest predictor of literacy and academic success. When a home is flush with books that are owned, those books can be passed on to younger siblings breaking the cycle of illiteracy.</p>