Do You Speak Child-ish?

Have you ever noticed that children have their own language before they start to talk in a way others can understand? Most of the time, their parents are the only ones able to understand small children. And sometimes, not even they understand what their children so proudly tell them.

As children get older, they start to speak in an understandable way. Still, they often use words we can't understand, sometimes in the middle of a sentence but most often when they are talking to themselves. Have you ever watched a two-year-old sitting in front of the TV and babbling all to himself? It's so cute...really, watch small children when they think no one does. And listen to them. It definitely will make you smile.

I have noticed that I always need a bit before I start to understand the child-ish dialect of a particular child. And even then, there are moments when I have no clue what they want from me. Luckily, their moms sometimes don't have a clue, either, so that makes me feel a bit less dumb. Nonetheless, it is more often guessing than really knowing when a child approaches me and either tells me something with such a proud face that I feel really guilty for not understanding a word of it or asks me something and I have to guess what he wants from me. My advice: Use his facial expression and his gestures to find out at the first guess what he wants. The problem is, sometimes their own words don't even sound similar to the "real" words!

I think every mom, dad, grandmom, granddad, preschool teacher and every other person dealing with small children needs to get an award for understanding child-ish! If you are such a person, feel yourself decorated with the special "I speak child-ish" award! If you know such a person, feel free to award them. After all, it IS a big achievement!