‘swhat I’m talkin’ about.
Before I had kids, and before I took some entry level speech development and pathology courses, I tried like the Dickens to avoid motherese. When I learned it was actually beneficial, I stopped trying to fight my own impulses, and subsequently found that the kids I was dealing with where suddenly more attentive and quietly alert.
Now that I have a toddler and an infant, it’s been interesting to me how my instinctive way of communicating with them changes as the grow. With the baby, it’s extreme baby-talk (at least, in the pronunciation), and with the toddler, the pronunciation is more “correct,” but I still find myself with a very high pitch to my voice that I don’t normally use. It does get her attention better than my usual voice.
I tend to talk to older children almost the same as I would adults, with a few exceptions. The tone stays lighter, sometimes I give them silly nicknames (my little sister has been Brat, Midget, Munchkin, etc.), and I joke with them in as non-condescending a way as I can manage.
Littler kids get simpler language, but still complete, grammatical sentences. Babies get, well, not exactly baby-talk, but something closer. Generally, they get whatever they respond to most.
Whether it’s the right thing to do or not, my wife and I have always avoided the baby talk with our kids. We can’t stand the babyish words some parents use with their kids, and I find that the words they invented when the kids were infants are still being used now that they’re 5-6 or older. We use a different tone when speaking to our kids, and if they need a word defined we define it for them, but otherwise we’re conversationally consistent with them. I’m happy that my kids were correctly using words like however, rather and although (for example) when they were three.
My parents never baby-talked to me. They never censored topics, and they never talked down to me or as though my life was less significant because I was a kid. I had a pretty good vocabulary so I never really felt like they reached for age-appropriate language.
I remember asking my dad about a dirty cartoon, and him explaining to me why it was funny that a man who claimed he’d had an innocent but enjoyable vacation had a sunburn shaped like a woman giving him a blowjob. I was 12 at the time. I don’t imagine many other kids would get the honest explanation I did.
When the Princess was an infant, I used baby talk, but Mr. Lucky preferred talking to her in a more adult-sounding voice. He sometimes read to her from the newspaper or a non-fiction book as well as children’s books, and she’d fall asleep listening to him whether he was reading Dr. Seuss or an anthropology text. My siblings would always tell us, “How come you always talk to her like an adult? She probably doesn’t even understand half of what you’re saying, anyway.” I still get that, sometimes. But the kid has actually grown into a pretty smart individual, and I’m not just saying that because I’m her mom. She reads at 2nd grade level, and can actually hold her own in conversations. Earlier today, she saw a TV commercial for a breast cancer benefit walk, and asked some fairly advanced (for her age) questions about cancer. I tried to answer them as well as I could without talking down to her. Then she asked me, “Will I ever get cancer?” I told her, “Probably not, if you take care of yourself and go to the doctor regularly.” That seemed to satisfy her for the time being, and she went back to her cartoon.
The way to talk to kids, to me, is to give as much age-appropriate information as possible without being condescending or boring. Kids will signal when they’ve had enough intellectual conversation, I’ve noticed.
And if what you want is to earn a kd’s trust, show interest on his thought process.
“hey, check this out”, “What do you think of…”, “Would you like to…”, “Let’s find out if…” are all great phrases for a kid to hear. They show you care about his thoughts. Kids hate being quizzed. Don’t ask questions that it is obvious you know the answer to and are asking just to hear them respond.
“Did you see that squirrel dart from behind that tree? Where do you think it is going? Come, let’s check it out” is better than “Did you see the little squirrel? He is probably looking for his mommy. Do you like your mommy?”
The trick is never to talk down to them. Talk to them as not just equals but co-conspirators. This was the secret of Shel Silverstein and Doctor Seuss.
I agree that babies need babytalk. Evidence shows that it’s actually an instinctual response to them. The repetition and odd pitch help them.
But once they start to talk, talk back at the most advanced level they will understand. If you have an interest, share it with them like you would with anybody else.
I agree that things should be censored as little as possible. When my seven-year old niece asks me questions, she gets the truth. Kids are used to being talked down to, or told they’re too young to understand. They love anybody who gives them straight answers.
Figuring out things not yet understood is a big part of what childhood is about. Kids start with no language comprehension at all, and in a couple of years get pretty good at it.
If you think about it, limiting your words to what you are sure a child understands would be a serious mistake.
I don’t have any particular set way of talking to my son. I can say that I don’t talk to him like I talk to everyone else. While I don’t use baby talk with him, my conversations with him involve a lot more labeling and slightly exaggerated inflection than they would with an adult. For example, I would never say to an adult, “That’s right. That’s a block. And look - it’s red and it has the letter A on it on this side. But if you turn it over, there’s a picture of an apple. Can you say apple?”
Still, I do have moments when I come to and find myself yammering away at my son like he’s my age, which I guess is good so he knows what regular conversation sounds like, even if it’s one sided.
This describes how I talk to little-bitty kids as well. When I’m taking my 18 month old nephew for a walk, I tend to keep up a running commentary, “Oh, look at those yellow daffodils! You have daffodils in your yard, too. Do you see the dog? Isn’t he a handsome dog?” It comes completely naturally, but I’m sure it makes me sound like a blithering idiot to passersby.
That’s kind of how I talk to my kids, too. Well, not the 3-year-old, because she can pretty much hold a normal conversation these days. Well, kind of. But enough where I can ask her normal questions and get some kind of a sensical answer.
I think it comes naturally to do that because that’s what we’ve evolved to do…that it helps kids to develop language and understand the world.
Not a parent, and greatly admire those that commit to the long term of raising a child. I often get: “Why didn’t you have children, you are so great with them???”
I don’t know why I haven’t, except by being careful with it, but, in dealing with children, at least those who are receptive, It’s a matter of dropping all pretention and
being there in the moment. I love that moment, and just treat each sweet being as if they were the only one on the planet. No, really, Ya just look into their eyes, smile, and love them for the moment, and go on from there. Plus, I love to teach kids about nature, and pointing out natural life to kids is really easy; lots of questions and wonder. Stupid faces help too.
Of course, this is probably all blessed over by patience sustained by not having to have kids at home all the time, but, I really try to view a child as a complete human being, deserving decent attention.
My kids are teenagers, but I not only talk to them, I’d ask them questions. Stuff like, “Where’s your nose? What color is this? What shape is that?”
I remember having lunch with my co-workers and one of them brought along his wife and their little boy. I had a fun time playing with him on the crayons. I’d hold up one and ask him the color, then I’d hold up and orange one and say, “This is green, right?” He’d laugh and shake his head at the silly lady and correct me.
So, not only was I passing the time, I was reinforcing his colors and helping him to understand that it’s okay to tell someone they’re wrong. I didn’t realize it at the time, of course, I was just playing, but I thought about it later.
My parents didn’t believe this, and spoke to us both the same way you would adults; I also was not allowed to use babytalk to speak to my brother when he was an infant. We were both speaking real words (not the babble ones like mama, dada and baba) by eight months and spoke a lot by one year. It’d be interesting to read a study that shows kids learn faster or better if you do babytalk them. I’d be surprised if such studies actually were set up as babytalk vs adultlike talk, rather than either vs rarely talking to baby at all.
I don’t spend much time around infants or toddlers, but I assume anyone over the age of three or so is capable of conversation, and treat them accordingly. If you get blank looks it’s time to rephrase what you meant, but even little ones are usually able to understand what you’re saying as long as you don’t get too verbose.
I also think they’re like adults in that they may know something I don’t, so I ask them questions that allow them to teach me, instead of just the other way around. (kind of like asking guys about sports) They often seem surprised, and pleased, by this. they really do know things we don’t sometimes: an eight-year-old taught me how to play mancala 
Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct offers an excellent synopsis of, and several compelling arguments for, the Chomskian theory that language is a human instinct which is learned independently of parental efforts to teach it–in layman’s terms. I strongly urge those who think that babies “need” baby talk, to go to a library or bookstore, find that book in the linguistics section, and sit down and read at least a chapter or two; that’s all you’ll need. (I’m only in Chapter 3, myself.)
Without going into the compelling scientific arguments in-depth, I will give one of the examples which should be pretty meaningful to everyone here. Pinker told the story of a culture somewhere in (I think) a Pacific island, where parents teach their children how to stand, sit and lie down. They make a big production out of it, making them practice on makeshift chairs and stumps all day long. Nobody there takes the chance of not teaching their children how to stand, sit and lie down, but of course, if they didn’t, the children would still figure out how to do it just fine. You may think that sounds absurd, but they would say the same thing about the idea that parents teach language to their children, which is unheard of over there–yet their kids learn the local language just fine.
Aw, what the hell, let’s throw in another one. When the proposed Hawaiian railroad system began construction and it suddenly became clear that it had placed a demand for workers that the local population couldn’t fill, immigrants came in from all over the world, from Puerto Rico, Japan, Korea, China, Portugal and the Philippines. A pidgin–a primitive linguistic system created by adults who speak different languages from each other, where words are combined from the different languages in a haphazard fashion–quickly formed. Some recorded examples of this pidgin follow:
This was by no means a language, lacking a coherent and comprehensive grammar system, and with no real syntax; just a bunch of words strung together, with the listener encouraged to use contextual and body-language clues to fill in the gaps.
These immigrant workers’ children, OTOH, actually invented a new language, Hawaiian Creole:
Some additional explanation:
In short, an entire generation of kids learned a language they could speak to each other in fluently, just like kids who grow up on the same block in New Jersey, when their parents did not teach them any language at all. They soaked up the words they heard around them, figured their meaning out by context (and, to be fair, probably some primitive labeling), and built a complete grammar system around what they heard–the same grammar system which each child instinctively and unconsciously created in exactly the same way. In even-shorter: trying to teach your children their native language is a waste of time*, especially if you do it by using “simplified English” or “baby talk” which robs them of the real usage examples they crave. Just talk.
FTR, WhyNot, I don’t have access to the cites, but your claim that babies respond to vowel sounds first is absolutely true, and borne out by research. Nevertheless, I think the argument that children should be exposed to real language use, without all the “Look at that! What is that? Is that a doggie? Say doggie! Where did the doggie go?” etc., is convincing. It’s also true, BTW, that children (and second-language learners, for that matter) can understand more language than they can produce. For example, it’s quite common (as you parents know) for a young child to pronounce both “tar” and “car” as tar, but my linguistics teacher told a cute story about a little impromptu research he did on his little nephew:
Professor: What’s that?
Nephew: It’s my tar! [toy car]
Professor: Oh, is that your tar?
Nephew: No, it’s my tar! [car]
Professor: Oh, it’s your car?
Nephew: Yeah, my tar! [car]
…my kids grew up with a dad (me) who’s a Dylan freak. When they were little (they’re now 24 and 20) everywhere I took 'em, I had Dylan playing in the car. To this day they both love wordplay and puns. It made me proud when I’d say to them, “The sun is not yellow…” and they’d shout back “It’s chicken!!!” and laugh and giggle.
Your kids are badasses.
I absolutely agree with you. I’m not sure how I miscommunicated so badly, but several posters seem to think I’m advocating Idiot Speak. That’s not the case at all. I’m just pointing out that the “instinctual” (I put that in quotes because I don’t think it’s instinctual like building a nest, but it does seem to cross many cultural and language boundaries) way of altering the tone and production of speech that we call “motherese” or “babytalk” is a valuable PART of speaking with very young children. ALSO speaking to them or around them with full use of your dialect is useful as well - assuming you want them to grow up to talk more or less like you do.
IOW, it’s not one or the other, it’s both.
However, I think much of young children’s fundamental language learning comes not from direct interaction at all, but from observation of a dialogue between already fluent speakers. Mostly, her parents, but also on television (which is why I LOATHE Baby Bear and Elmo on Sesame Street) and people on the bus. There’s a stage where they are amazing mimics, and they’re never not listening.
A distinction: I think motherese has value for helping to teach language. I think Idiot Speak or *condescending *talk - regardless of the grammar - aimed at any age is another kettle o’ fish, and probably more what the OP was asking about. I guess I should have asked for a clearer definition of terms before answering. If condescension is what we’re talking about, and an absence of it is “talking to kids as if they were people”, then yeah, I talk to kids as if they were people. I’m no more condescending to children then to adults - which is still sometimes more often than I like, but it’s due to my desire for clarity, resulting in overexplaining, not due to my disdain of a person based on age.