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Talking to kids

Maybe it's just me, but I realized the other day while conversing with Joshua (aged 2) that my speech consisted almost entirely of interrogatives with the occasional imperative thrown in -- usually an injunction to NOT do something. It was a pretty one-sided conversation with power heavily vested on my side of things. But how else are you going to talk to the kid? He was by no means cowed; he made some imperatives of his own.

On the more interactive side of things, a game Joshua and I like to play is "name that thing." He's got a little case full of vehicles which he holds up one by one and declares "truck!" I, in turn, offer a more specific, or accurate, name for the object. It goes like this:

J: "truck!"

K: [nodding] "car"

J: "truck!"

K: "fire engine"

J: "truck!"

K: "Caterpillar"

J: "truck!"

K: "tractor"

J: "truck!"

K: "yup, that one's a truck, alright"

As long as the game doesn't wear on too long, I get a kick out of it and I hope he has fun, too. Occasionally, he extends it to organic things like pets and family members where his specificity isn't lacking so badly but his pronunciation renders many words identical.

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