Baby-talk is a universal human phenomenal and almost certainly plays an important role in helping kids learn language.
The implication that not using baby talk somehow unlocks rapid development of language is simply not true.
But it's very funny to respond to babies babbling nonsense with "yes, I see, an intriguing point."
Conversely, it's also very funny to respond to self-important adults babbling nonsense with baby talk.
Kids perceive a lot more than we might think. I know my parents made lots of well-intentioned, passing comments that were nothing to them but stay with me decades later.
While I agree with you about the funniness, I worry that a kid might justifiably feel condescended to by that response and thus lose trust in the responder, an authority figure - especially if that figure is a parent, which is to say, a person they have to trust as an implicit safe figure.
I want my toddler to feel free to say anything to me, be it gibberish or a deep and well articulated philosophical point, and know that they won't be mocked for it. That's how they know it's okay to explore and, if they wish to, share their thoughts. Even if their thoughts don't make sense to me.
Teasing a kid isn't inherently wrong, but even before they're articulate, your response to their words - or gibberish - matters.
Baby talk overemphasizes everything, including repetitions, that makes it easier for babies to actually get what you want and what all those cues are supposed to mean.
So yeah, kind of important, even though it sounds stupid.
That being said, there is a point at which kids should be taken seriously and communicated with accordingly. Some parents talk to relatively old kids like with toddlers and that can't be healthy either.
There is a big difference between recoding "I am unable to do this currently because I am tied up with other work, ask me in a few hours" to "Daddy's busy right now sweetie, maybe later?"
and
"Aww whosa sweet wittuh one! My wittle girlie so preshusss!"
Idk man. There's this 3yr old girl that's a child of one of our family's friends. She's pretty expressive with her vocabulary. Like i can have full blown conversations with this girl without dumbing much down, and i think that might be due to her parents' pedanticalness.
Children pick up language at different rates. But also, while most kids learn words and build up, some learn to deploy whole chunks.
My cousin could say "Excuse me daddy could I please have a cookie?" at like 2 iirc. It sounds very advanced when you hear it, but she couldn't, for example, replace 'a cookie' with 'that' or direct the request to me rather than her dad.
Once kids have learned more and more chunks they can sound very proficient, but it's still just normal child language acquisition. Of course people gifted in language can happen too.
Also, no one is mentioning that there is still a significant amount of "translating" that has to happen. My kids all picked up language pretty quickly, but unless you are familiar enough with their specific pronunciation and vocabulary, it still sounds like baby talk to outsiders.
For example, last night when I got my 2yo out of the bath, he asked me for help putting on his favorite pajamas, if he could have a cookie, and asked to watch his favorite music video before bed, all in one sentence. But if you didn't know he pronounces pajamas as "comfy cozies," cookies are called "treat from under the stairs" and "hear wheelie rainbow neckshun" means watching Willie Nelson's cover of "Rainbow Connection," then of course it would sound like gibberish.
A baby's babbling can express fairly sophisticated grammar and sentence structure if you meet them halfway. And frankly, making it clear that you can understand them expressing their ideas in their own words is highly valuable when it comes to raising healthy, confident kids.
pedanticalness
pedanticness ... OOOOOHHHHH!
Pedanticness is a noun that is considered obsolete and was only used in the mid-1600s.
I am only giving you a hard time bc (1) it's funny, all the more so bc (2) you are the police of these matters! :-D
Pedanticness is a noun that is considered obsolete and was only used in the mid-1600s.
Erm, what can i say. I'm a connoisseur of the archaic.
I am only giving you a hard time because* (1) it's funny, all the more so because (2) you are the police of these matters! :-D
You don't wanna get on my bad side pal👮😎🔫
I think it's both true that baby talk is good for infants and that people infantilize children for far longer than they should
Is it really universal though? I don't recall that from my linguistics masters at all, in fact I think I recall pretty much the opposite...
I speak to my dog in complete sentences which was a mistake because now she knows every synonym for park, walk, treats, and any time we're referring to her even if we just say 'her,' 'it,' or 'the hound.' She even learned that any time we spell a word it's related to something she likes and she goes bonkers.
"They're deliberately trying not to look like they're talking about me!"
"They must be talking about me!"
We had a dog once that was super smart and would learn what different words meant very rapidly. I'd say with most dogs I've had, you can go most of their life and they'll maybe learn 2-3 different words for "dinner" and you can use other words if you're trying not to excite them too much. But this dog I swear near the end of her life we would have to say ridiculous things around her like "Did you put the K9 cereal in the receptacle?" because she had learned just about every other basic way to say "did you feed the dog?".
It takes her only 2-3 repetitions to learn a new word, it's wild. She's super clever but also the doofiest dog I've ever seen, it's hilarious
You're supposed to use baby talk with them from about 15 years old and until they're 18, to really piss them off.
The little shits have almost certainly done something to deserve it
I have taught my kids to communicate with me solely via email, or via their lawyers.
The secret ingredient is unchecked alcoholism and rampant psychological abuse.
(/s, I don't even have kids)
Denying their existence is totally on-brand
Not sure why this triggered a snarky response unless Ted is just waving a monkey puppet for internet points. Talking normally to kids is not rocket science, and it's not stereotypical yuppies desperate to get their gifted darlings into AP class. It's very simple - little kids can handle normal speech just fine, so why use baby talk?
It really depends on the kid and the complexity of the message. Young kids are still learning the intricacies of the language and building a vocabulary. Not talking down to them helps build those skills up. But at the end of the day, if the message is not getting across, it's the fault of the communicator.
Plus it's an annoying flex to say "see how amazing my kid is? It's all because of me!" Some kids just pick up language easier, some kids sleep all the way through the night earlier, some kids toilet train easier, etc. Usually it's better for parents to quietly take the little victory rather than treat it as a reflection of their amazing parenting skills.
We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o’clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o’clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
I had to roll a boulder to the top of a mountain each day. And at the top, my liver would get eaten by an eagle. Afterwards the boulder would roll down and I had to start my work all over again.
But what do I know, I only see shadows on a cave wall.
You try telling that to the young people today, and they won't believe you!
According to Alfred Matthew Yankovic:
There were seventy three of us living in a cardboard box.
All I got for Christmas was a lousy bag of rocks.
Every night for dinner, we had a big ol' chunk of dirt.
If we were really good, we didn't get dessert.
If you treat your kids like an adult they grow up to be one. We see plenty of example of people who are of legal age acting like children. Now you know why.
I avoid the baby talk with my nieces and nephews after they get past one year old. My oldest nephew said I'm his favorite because I don't talk down to him
laughs in condescending to children at a level they just don't comprehend
It's one thing to use baby talk with an infant, (hence the baby talk moniker), and another to speak that way to a child that is actually learning to form words and construct a sentence.
Use whatever voice you prefer with your pets. Dogs actually enjoy the soft sounds of baby talk. A bit of brilliant manipulation of humans by the dogs.
Meh, Adam is obnoxious but correct
Correct but obviously exaggerating. I'd love to hear his not-quite-2-year-old daughter "using" 4-syllable words 🙄
I’m not a wordologist. Do words become harder to say when they’re longer? I mean, alalalalalong has 6 syllables.
Obnoxious, but also NOT correct. As another poster pointed out baby talk does serve a purpose in language development, and is a pretty universal part of child rearing. It's not some recent cultural phenomenon that's holding people bad from their full potential (or whatever BS this person is trying to imply). Using big words or skipping the baby talk stage doesn't lead to more rapid or better development.
A better vocabulary is learned somewhere. Adopting an upbeat tone was always sufficient for me to hold toddlers attention.
Two notes from my actual coursework in education and psych; first, baby talk exists for a reason but it's the singasong voice that matters most, especially when they're picking up sounds. The funny thing there is you can say absolutely terrible things in a singasong voice and they will love it and remember it better.
Second, the arse in the example isn't actually all the way wrong, using vocabulary is important especially in that second and third year. I forget the author but there's some studies that show preschool vocabulary is directly related to parental education and they found it's because of the vocab the parents use. We're taking tens of thousands more words learned. Too bad I can't remember the author, just that it was four letters (and since leaving academia, my zotero is long gone).
Me, a chinese that only use one syllable word for my first 6 years: ._.
As with most advice regarding early childhood development, your mileage may vary.
I was non-verbal for almost the first five years, so good luck with that mister “parent of the year”.
I baby talked my kids (now it’s Brain Rot). I also talk to them like an adult. I’ve always encouraged them to ask questions when they don’t understand something. My 9-year-old is not shy about stopping mid-conversation and asking what a word or phrase means.
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