• Young babies (birth to 6 months):

Pictures are a worthy enough substitute for the words your baby cannot yet write. Snap photos of your adorable little one in her grandparent-funded layette.  Your sister-n-law will know that you (and baby) appreciate the cute and useful gift of a teething ring when she sees a pic of your infant happily gnawing away.  Tuck these precious moments into your thank-you notes.

• Older babies and toddlers (6 – 24 months):

More active babies might need a more active medium to convey their delight with a new gift or toy: video.  Smart phones and small recorders make it easy to capture a special moment and email it within minutes.  Older toddlers can talk enough and follow simple directions long enough to participate in the filming — you two can work together to produce a sincere, simple “thank you!” shout-out that will make the recipient’s day.

• Two and Three year olds:

Let the scribbling begin!  Really.  Your youngster can “ready, aim, scribble” on a piece of paper, so let her.  On the first try, a two year-old might approach this task with the grace of Norman Bates, turned loose on another shower curtain; but by age 3, many children will have the muscular control to grasp a kid-sized (washable!) marker  and copy the example circle that you draw.  When she adds eyes and a smile to that circle, she will have written a powerfully accurate chronicle of how someone’s generosity made her feel.

• Preschoolers:

If, at this stage of note-writing, your child asks you to be the scribe, it’s very helpful for you to go along. Just make sure the words are all hers. Kiddie thoughts move much faster than little fingers. Reading back the note you’ve written on behalf of your child reinforces the magical connection between ideas and the words that represent them.

We know that a kid this age isn’t often in touch with her “inner editor.”  And you know what?  She don’t need an external one right now.  Let her experiment with letter-like squiggles, random letters, crooked letters, and invented spellings. That stuff is all developmentally appropriate at this stage.

Thank you for reading.

Parents await baby’s first word with a vigilance that rivals the arrival of baby himself.

The ability to communicate is one of the markers of leaving babyhood and entering full personhood.  In about 17 years, this ability will also be a marker of leaving home, and entering college.  Got SAT scores?

Talkative Toddlers defined:

Toddler

Well, to be precise I’ll define a toddler as someone who might or might not walk alone yet.  And if he does walk, he might or might not do it with unsteady steps, hence the word, toddle.

To be imprecise, yet ironically more accurate to the way the word is used, I’ll decree that a toddler is generally considered to be a child between the ages of 12 and 36 months.  A child with one or two birthdays behind him.

Talkative

The ability to use, understand, enjoy, practice, or respond to a developmentally-appropriate quantity of spoken language sounds, body language cues, and meanings.

Your 12 to 24 month-old will be talkative when he:

• Uses words and/or body language to express himself.
• Learns enough words to follow simple instructions.
• Has favorite songs, fingerplays, poems, or stories.  And enjoys hearing them repeated.
• Speaks baby jargon.  This interesting phenomenon sounds like “real” speech because of your baby’s ability to imitate grownup speech rhythms and vocal inflections.

Your 24 to 36 month-old will be a talkative one when he:

• Speaks in sentences.  Two and three words, at first.
• Understands orientational words like under, over, on, behind, in, out, and front.
• Is able to follow more complex instructions.
• Remember the words to his favorite songs, fingerplays, poems, or stories.  He’ll even say the words along with you as you read.
• Enjoys naming things.  Pictures in books, body parts, environmental graphics and print.

Success Secrets Revealed:

1. Talkative toddlers began life as talked-to babies.
2. They were seen and heard.  Adults spoke Parentese to them, listened to their cues, respected their requests.
3. Their parents knew what to expect.  Their loved ones understood that babies can understand more words, and understand them sooner than they can express those very words.
4. Talkative toddlers are multimedia-savvy.  In addition to words, there are songs, poems, and storybooks in their world.
5. They had role models.  Their big people (parents, siblings) played with songs, poems, conversations, books —  words in general.

I’m talking about the ability to talk.  There are differences in temperament, learning styles, and personality that will determine some children’s communication preferences.  Those traits are for people to choose and honor as they grow.  It is the work of parents to make sure that children have words at the ready when they want to use them.

It usually comes at me like this:  ”She’s growing so fast!” or  ”Does she look different to you?”  Sometimes a mom just sighs and says, “Ohh, he’s losing all his baby fat since he started walking.”

I tell parents that just as babies grow across diverse developmental domains, they also grow up in several observable ways.

Because I believe that parents are the real experts about their own babies, years ago I started asking parents themselves to help me solve the babyhood demarcation question.  There has always been a fascinating pattern to the answers.

Pre-parents (especially pregnant couples) give a definitive answer.  They tend to think that babyhood ends around the time of the first birthday.  But on-the-job parents (especially moms) who may or may not have already answered my question previously, describe the end of babyhood in terms of milestones, often physical ones like walking.  Hands-on parents also see changes in body type as a gauge of emerging toddler-ness.  When Moms and Dads do specify a time frame as the end of babyhood, they usually say 18 months or later.

The following developmental milestones begin to emerge around the time baby is 12 months old, and most children display nearly all of them by 18 months — exactly the time frame bounded by my terribly unscientific, yet excruciatingly accurate, longitudinal-ish survey.  Once again, parents know best.

You will know your infant is making a big move from the very needy first year of life, to the external world of multiple relationships, complex interactions, and asserting a separate identity when you observe the following milestones:

1. Imitation.  Your child will mimic simple actions, like talking on the telephone, or applying mascara (have we talked about safety-proofing yet?).  This isn’t the same as pretending.  Pretending involves an awareness of the unreality of the scenario.  When a 12-month old decides to rummage through your purse to use your cell phone, he’s not kidding.
2. Shaking head side-to-side.  We all know what that means.
3. Wanting to help when you put his clothes on.  He knows the routine, and he knows he can participate, so he does.  Quite charming.
4. Walks without help.  This time frame varies much more than new parents realize.  What really matters is the year-long sequence of body development that leads to walking.
5. Playing with others.  I didn’t say “sharing,” did I?  I didn’t even say “taking turns.”  That, too will have to be learned.
6. Purposefully uses a writing tool.  I can’t remember, so I have to imagine how empowering it must feel to go from needing a big person for almost everything in life, to being able to leave a mark on an otherwise blank surface.  Then another one!  And another! Why is mommy running toward me?  Oh, she wants to color, too — she doesn’t like clean bare walls, either.  Yay!
7. Will hand you an object when you ask.  If you ask nicely.  Unless it’s the marker he’s using to spiff up those boring walls of yours.
8. Wanting to control his own eating.  This is a prime time for power struggles around food and finickiness to begin.  Avoid them by knowing when he’s ready and capable of feeding himself.  He’ll certainly know.
9. Skills.  Social skills, to be precise.  Your growing baby enjoys saying “Hi” — at the appropriate time.  This feat is quite advanced beyond the stage of waving “bye-bye” on command.  That’s so 9-months old.  When your baby greets someone, he shows that he understands how people are to treat one another, and when to do so.
10. Often says ”No.”  Often says it when you interrupt his coloring, or anything else he thinks needs to be done at that moment.  But who can blame him?  He’s been hearing that word a lot lately.

Moms and Dads instinctively understand what it means to be a baby: Dependence.  And what it means to grow up: Independence.  Moving from needing others to wanting to function independently is something that babies instinctively know they’re ready for.  It’s something they are eager to announce to the world.

His glare dispersed part-time villains as a light breeze and healthy imagination buoyed his invisible, yet fluttering, red cape.

Elsewhere on the playground, a village of miniature mamacitas sporadically nurtured their plastic babies.  While fending off occasional interlopers who had strayed from their villain duties, these mini-mamas prepared a feast of mud pies, dandelion salads, and murky beverages garnished with grass.  Their suspiciously compliant doll babies coincidentally awakened from their naps just in time to share the morning’s bounty.

Other denizens of the park that day: mothers, fathers, grandparents, and nannies.  Some of the adults busied themselves with newspapers or knitting; others tended squirming infants too small to play along with older siblings, but old enough to know something exciting was happening.  An occasional sincere shriek or a hard landing commanded the attention of the guardians, but beyond their supporting roles, few of the adults watched the kids at play.  That is because few adults know how to observe kids at play or what to look for.  Any parent who wonders about a child’s social development can perform an instant reality check by watching the child interact with the tools of play:  other children, adults, toys, household items, and the home itself.

During pretend play, children master several developmental milestones.  Playground negotiations use communication skills; the resulting compromises and turn taking increase the social (and emotional) repertoire of the participants.  The challenges of gravity and physics encourage thinking skills.  And teamwork helps kids to meet almost any playtime challenge.  Feats of imagined strength and bravery serve as antidotes to prior episodes of fear or powerlessness.  Children direct energy into the endless footsteps required to run, slide, hop, wiggle and climb.  Their daring ideas rely on natural creativity and the freedom to explore.  New teachable moments captivate young minds only if there was freedom to indulge in previous curiosity.  Even the rough and tumble of shifting social alliances will eventually reward the players by helping them discover the emotional resilience that lies within them.

Tips for older siblings:

By age 5 or 6, children will become capable of cooperating with each other to develop a plan for playing:

• assigning roles,
• loosely scripting the action, and
• infusing characters with specific traits that reveal personality.
• older children can create more definite beginnings, middles, and endings to their play plans.
• Although the play date might end for the day, the 5 and 6 year-olds can recapture the same theme from one play date to the next.

One of our family’s favorite photographs shows my Army veteran dad in his new uniform: pajamas and bathrobe.  The photo shows Dad perched at the edge of the sofa that dominated our den, as he dutifully fed a baby doll.

He had barely awakened and poured his coffee one Thanksgiving morning when a higher-ranking officer, my toddler daughter Nia, gave him his orders.

Having served as designated doll sitter on a previous occasion, he knew the drill.  Nia allowed Gramps to carry on with his joke telling and bonding with grandsons, as long as he tended to her doll.  If a burst of laughter or a raucous knee slap threatened to displace “Baby,” Nia approached and righted the bottle’s aim at her doll’s perpetually parted lips. If voices rose at the delivery of a punch line, my daughter admonished Gramps by pressing a dimpled index finger to her pursed lips that had only recently abandoned their own pacifier.  My dad always responded to her supervision with a good-natured smile, and by renewing his attention to doll duty.

Gramps might not have known how to explain the child development theory at work that morning, but he knew the importance of participating.  By playing along with his grandaughter, he clearly conveyed that her ideas were worthy of his efforts.  Joining in pretend play gives parents and other important people an opportunity to practice narration techniques like parallel talk.  When my mother offered Nia a running commentary on her activities by saying, “You wrapped your baby so carefully in her blanket,” or “You carry your baby on your hip like your mother carries you around,” she gave even more validation to the importance of the pretend play scenario.

Questions serve the same supportive purpose —  they stimulate more thinking, more creating. Extend the possibilities of playtime by asking your little one to tell you her baby’s name, which car can go faster, or why the lion is so quiet.  The spontaneity you add will demonstrate your attunement .  She knows you are paying attention when you wonder out loud where the pirates have hidden the marshmallows or why the teddy bear needs a Band-Aid.  When important adults become part of the setting for pretend play, they make it easier for children to immerse themselves in it.

Ways to boost the developmental benefits of pretend play:

• Add music.  Regular exposure to music has been correlated higher SAT scores, higher reading scores, elevating the mood of children, and even reducing misbehavior on school buses!

• Add dance.  Your kinesthetic learner will thank you.

• Add costumes (more on that in part 3 of this series on Sociodramatic Play).

• Add food.  The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is a terrific multi-age book that promotes healthy snacking — until day 6, that is!

• Add art.  The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats’ is a lovely starting point for making paper snowflakes and watercolor painting.

• Snap pictures for later discussion and memory enhancement.  Make a book of them.

• Ask your child for instructions on how to participate, or play a role.  Talk about planning skills!

Remember:

• Dramatic play strengthens every area of development.
• Pretend play empowers children to re-visit (and re-write the ending to) difficult or challenging events.
• Pretend play supports every area of future learning such as language and literacy; abstract thinking skills that convert into math and science ability; the bodily awareness that promotes physical fitness; and social skills.
• Adults and siblings participate in the play when they accept invitations to join in

One day a boy might be a tough guy – a man of few words who walks with a swagger; the next he’s a lost explorer trusting his hero friends to follow his cries for help.  Every child can be an Olympic champion – if Mom remembers to save the lids from the frozen orange juice for the medal ceremony.   For very little expenditure of money or time, parents can set the stage for the sociodramatic play that will benefit children for a lifetime.

You will greatly enhance their play time if you:

• Maintain an alert eye for props like real clothing, costumes, hats, purses, scarves, stethoscopes, or discarded keys on a real keychain.

• Always safety-test your finds.  Check for lead content and toy recalls.  Keep choking hazards away from children under 3, or children over 3 who still mouth explore.  Throw away broken toys, flimsy toys or  items with loose parts.  Keep in mind a time frame for the usefulness of the props.

• Conduct your searches at thrift stores, garage sales, and grandparents’ attics for interesting finds with built-in history lessons.

• Organize and store the supplies around themes.  Grocery store, or post office, for example.

• Securely tape a snapshot of items to storage shelves to encourage a fast, fun matching game at cleanup time.

• Color or decorate the boxes in which supplies are stored.  That will give a pre-reader as much information as a sign or label will give an adult.

• Label storage shelves and boxes with words.  Children with an emerging curiosity about reading and writing will be able have their intellectual needs met as soon as they realize they are interested — without having to ask (or wait for) an adult.

• Cheerfully expect to perform an opera of animal sounds when your living room becomes a petting zoo for the day.

• Change the pace at the end of the playtime with a calming, well-illustrated book related to the play theme.

• Save coupons, sale ads, paper bags, and empty cereal boxes to set up an excursion to a make-believe grocery store.

• Provide child-safe, age-appropriate, writing tools and paper for all the love letters, grocery lists, warning signs, parking tickets, etc., children will want to write.

• Provide adult supervision at all times.

Remember:

• Older children (by age 5 or 6) can plan their play episodes, and can sustain the plot from session to session.
• Cardboard boxes can be covered with contact paper to create makeshift desks, grocery store shelves, and checkout counters.
• An old microphone will spur some young children to sing a song or deliver a sermon.
• Stuffed animals do double duty as friends, audience members, characters, and oh yes, wildlife.
• Books and environmental print introduce valuable vocabulary words that sustain pretend play schemes.
• Worn-out or broken toys frustrate and endanger children.
• Adults affirm dramatic play by supplying props, costumes, and a safe space for exploration.