Even though babies and toddlers don’t have much in their heads, they have lots to say. Listening to them, and then responding appropriately makes a huge impact on their language skills and consequently their emotional development.
How?
Even if a baby doesn’t know how to talk yet, they do know how to listen. And they are listening to every thing you say. This is one of the initial ways they start to learn your language. Just by listening.
Conversational turns, the back-and-forth exchanges that happen during a conversation improves both language and concepts. These turns can happen before a baby even starts talking.
Reading to an infant in the babbling stage, for example, allows them hear the sounds of our language combined in words and sentences. Along the way, asking questions about the book is a great way to get them speaking. It has been found that babbling is a huge predictor of first words and language development.
When we learn a foreign language, we initially learn the fruits, colors and animals, and then later delve into grammar. This makes us think we know the language, but it’s when we attempt to speak that our true skills are put to the test. When we want to say something and don’t know HOW to say it, we may get annoyed. This annoyance prompts babies to start speaking. They really want people to know what they want.
But how can language and conversations impact emotional development?
First, we need to understand what emotional development is, and what milestones a little infant should be achieving.
Emotional development allows children to understand, express, and manage their emotions as they grow. They also develop the ability to recognize and interpret the emotions of others, which helps them build relationships with those around them.
This a type of development, which means that it isn’t pre-installed in babies, and parents actually have to facilitate this. Infants typically develop the ability to regulate themselves and feel empathy by the age of 5.
Coming back to the point, we know that talking with children and listening to them is how they learn to speak. How does this stop them from getting frustrated?
Quite obviously, they will now have the words to ask for what they want, instead of throwing a temper tantrum and making their caregivers decode their emotional morse code.
Nevertheless, its important to know that kids are kids. They will have temper tantrums (even adults have their moments).
Talking to kids makes them feel heard and validated, helps in building the relationship between the caregiver and the child, and also helps in other areas of development, like cognitive development.
So, while their vocabulary might not be Shakespearean, encouraging those early conversations not only helps them master language but also keeps the frustration-fueled baby meltdowns to a minimum. It’s a simple yet profound way to support both their linguistic and emotional growth, laying a solid foundation for their future.
References:
Babble to Books: Reading with Your Very Young Child
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