Very Involved Parents (VIP)

Stuttering is a problem among children of the age between 2 to 5 and usually would take about one to two years for the child to recover. The issue is, as parents, how would you play the role in handling stuttering among your children? In fact, the more knowledgeable you are about this problem, it would be easier for you to accept and deal with it.

You would need to understand that your stuttering child would need more care and love from you as they usually end up being targets of mean jokes or bullies by other kids. However, if they misbehave, don’t treat them differently from their siblings but give them the same punishment as you give to the others.

Did you notice when your child starts to worry or gets uncomfortable about trying not to stutter, the harder they try the worse the stuttering gets! Try slowing down your speaking pace when talking to them to allow them to catch up. A short pause in between would do the trick. When they speak, show interest in what they are saying by looking at them and maintain your eye contact even when their speech is slow. Avoid questioning your child madly as too many questions would just put more pressure on them. Instead, give them some time to answer without rushing for answers.

You can help by calming your child down every time before you speak to them. If it works, your child will not feel pressured and will talk smoother too! However, if your child does not show signs of improvements or is still reluctant to speak or stammers a lot, try consulting a child pathologist to see if there is anything that can be done to solve the issue.

Alternatively as parents, you can take the initiative to join support groups where you can meet others who suffer from the same disorder and encourage your child to follow along as it could help them to accept themselves and get use to their current condition bit by bit. When you see improvements, quickly acknowledge it with compliments or rewards to build their confidence in improving more. Don’t forget to ensure your child has enough sleep as their condition could get worst if they are lack ample rest.

As parents, it’s important to accept your child as they are even if their condition does not improve in the future. You must bear in mind that you are the best support your child can get. So, try not to blame yourself too much as this will only create a huge burden for you and indirectly hurt your child’s feelings. In fact, people with speaking problems should lead a normal life like us too!

Communication is widely misunderstood as speech. We, as humans are given five senses; touch, smell, sight, taste and hearing. All these five senses play an important role in helping us to nurture language developments in infants. An infant’s mind is not fully matured and is unable to process information in the form of words or speech. Body languages and facial expressions play a more important role during this time.

The infantile period is the time when babies are trying to get use to their environment by beginning to learn the about the world around them. Unable to communicate by speech, they depend on other ways to communicate. Thus, when a baby smiles, coos or babble are their way of communicating with us. It’s important to have eye contact with your infant as a start and mimicking them through facial expressions would help them to recognize people and things around them and eventually learn their first words through copying sounds made by people around them.

Talking to them will help them to learn names and objects around them. Always instill the habit of telling your infants what you’re doing or explaining objects like their toys or clothing around them by pointing to them. However, nurturing language development in infants is not a one sided thing to do. When you see your infant showing signs of responding, encourage them more by playing taking-turns games or show them you understand the message they are trying to tell you.

Music is one of the better ways to teach infants on the different rhythms of languages. You can also read the children books or poetries to them in lively voices! Amazingly, basic sign languages are also another great way in nurturing language for infants which enable them to have higher IQs and speak sooner!

Infants enjoy listening to people speaking and instead of letting them watch television or listen to the radio, speak to them instead to build a rapport between parent and baby. Either way, try to have your spouse beside you when you speak to your baby as this indirectly let your infant feels closer to the both of you and this also helps the infant to develop language skills better than exposure to the television and radio. It may consist of baby talk and proper words but beware of exposing infants to more than one language at the same time as they will mix them up.

Young children age ranging between 5 to 10 years old are at their golden years of learning, usually this is the time where their brain had developed almost completely as in a grown-up brain. This is the best time for them to learn new things and new languages because of their capability to absolve new knowledge.

In general, young children from the Asian countries tend to be poor in their English communication as well as English writings as compared to their peers in the non-Asian countries. Of course one of the most obvious reason would be English is not the mother tongue in Asian, while they are for those who stays and dwell in the United States of American.

There are a lot of potential ways where these can be driven, there are 3 key sources which need to stay on the same page with consistent sync-up between each other pertaining to the new learning in young children. They are the parents, teachers and their peers – other young children of the same age range. Among these 3 key parties, parents hold the greatest responsibility to ensure the success of their little ones.

Young children are very eager to learn and experience new ideas. However the problems lie in that they are more enthusiastic to learn by themselves rather than having someone to teach and coach them. Great examples are: lose of interest in the class, felt boring on the sharing, lack of motivation to explore the new areas etc.

Here are 5 key tips on how to keep them interested in learning English more:

1. Keep yourself and the tutors high motivated

Teachers and tutors should be the role model for these younger children in terms of showing their great enthusiasm and commitment in the new learning. There is hardly any situation where the students will be greatly motivated without the keen involvement of their tutors and parents.

2. Be patient in teaching young children

We need to always remind ourselves that every young children are different in their learning capability as some of them learn fast, while others don’t. Therefore it is crucial for teachers and parents to understand the strength and limitations of their students and children in order to make learning an exciting process for them. Patience is one of the key pre-requisite for being a great tutor to your young ones.

3. Don’t forget about encouragement

Young children strive on praises and good attention from their parents and other adults for doing great in their classes, examinations, in the sports, playing music etc. The same goes for learning of English language. Encourage and motivate them often when they show improvements even if they are tiny. If encouragement is done appropriately, young kids will thrive to do even better in the near future.

4. Learning through creative ways

Everyone loves to learn through the fun way. With creative ideas in mind, teachers and parents can change the whole English learning progress from something which is boring to something which is fun and exciting by incorporating the learning of English lessons such as grammar or even vocabulary through English games. Don’t expect those children to sit quietly for 1-2 hours and do everything that you expect them to do. Making learning fun and exciting will go a long way for young children.

5. Get them involved

Young children learn and absorb better if they are engaged in the learning process. Once in a while, get some of them to come out and standing in-front of the classroom and act as the teacher, asking questions which you have prepared to get the students to answer. Make them take turns to play the role of the teacher and I bet you that at the end of the lesson, everyone gets to find himself getting to understand the new stuffs taught more than any other lessons in the past.

Research conducted by the Child specialists have cited that the best and most efficient stage of learning to speak a new language is from the age of two till seven. At this age, their brain development is at its peak, where they could easily pick up new words and phrases, as well as new languages effortless. Parents need to be made aware of these critical growing years and they should make the best out of these golden years to train your child on their mother tongue and also to pick up secondary language to better equipped themselves with multiple language skills.

Scientists revealed that studies carried out on many different multiple nationalities across the world showed that children who are raised bilingually or with multilingual are actually ‘smarter’ where they are found to have better and sharper cognitive powers than their monolingual peers.  This had been claimed to be the effect of significant computational analysis demands of processing and interpreting different languages in the brain.

In foreign countries, children were sent to language school as early as age 3 to have their strong foundation built for their mother tongue, while at the same time trying their hands on other foreign language, such as Hindu, Chinese, Japanese, France, Bengali and others. The ability of using more than one language in oral and writing placed them competitiveness well above their peers, as children who lives their lives bilingual or multilingual have the ability to access their curriculum through multiple languages and face no limitations when it comes to communications.

Not only do young children pick up conversing in the new foreign languages faster, but they are also found to be making new friends from different nationality and culture because young children tend show lesser resistance to start speaking with their new learned language as compared to adults. As speaking made perfect, children are able to speak more fluently using their new language as compared to their parents which learning the same thing.

Today, in recognition of the benefits of early bilingual learning, local authorities have enforced the support of mother tongue learning through bilingual learning activities in formal schools and learning institutions. The National Language Strategy in the U.S.A as well as the Ministry of education in the third world countries have begun to promote their strategy of early learning in this area now for they have came to realize the value of bilingualism in the society today.