Language Stimulation can be Fun!

“Play with your kids!” they say. For our generation of highly engaged parents, it is drilled through every avenue possible that in order to stimulate our children’s language development in the early developmental years, we must play with them! Every pediatrician, developmental specialist, therapist, teacher and pinterest-parent will advise us to get on the floor and play with our children - to the extent that it has almost turned into an intimidating phenomenon for some parents.

If we’re not playing with our children or actively engaging them in intellectually stimulating activities in every pocket of shared time, we are at risk for thinking poorly of ourselves. But the reality is that playing with our children does not need to be incredibly complicated like constructing volcanoes or trying new recipes each day - it can be simple and easy!

Being a speech-language therapist and a parent of two young children (6 and 3 years old), I can relate to the modern-day working parents who are working hard in their jobs and also trying to be the best parent they can! It is often difficult to find time for complex, time-consuming activities, so I take the practical approach. Spending time with young children in everyday activities can be stimulating for their development as well - you may just need to tweak your style a bit.

So here are my top tips for playing with your kids in a fuss-free, chilled out way:

1. Follow Your Child’s Interest:

Most parents know what their kids enjoy doing and playing. Currently, for my son, it’s trains (Thomas the tank engine has made a comeback for the 3rd time in 6 years) and for my daughter, it’s painting and pretend house play. If the kids are playing with their toys, the easiest thing to do is to follow their interest (trains or painting/pretend house play).

You might feel compelled to bring out the new 3D model you bought for them last week or build a model of the Tower of Pisa, but if that’s not their area of interest, it will be tougher to engage them and get them excited. For a simple start, just observe what they are interested in doing and join them!

2. Join in their Play:

In my experience of parent-training, this is easier said than done for most. You’ve observed that your child wants to play with trains or blocks, you’re around the activity with them but now what?

If your child is busy playing on his/her own and does not seem interested in engaging with you, try imitating his/her actions. Take a train for yourself and start pushing it along the track. Copy your child and see if it makes them notice you. If they do not want you to copy them, start playing alongside them - depending on your child’s communication level, make train sounds or start a simple, little story of your own about your train.

For children who immediately want to engage with you, go with their flow. Try not to introduce too many of your ideas in the beginning and just go along with their story - take on a role and/or just comment on the actions (your train is going so fast!) - basically, go with their flow. Avoid asking too many questions as this tends to create a testing environment that does not feel very playful for most children. Remember the Rule of 5 - you can ask one question after you’ve talked about four things (4 comments:1 question).  

3. Keep it Fun:

Kids love being silly! They are naturally engaged when the activity is fun and it looks like their parents are having a great time too! For example, when we pretend to be monsters and chase them around the house or start a game of tickles. People games are all incredibly simple - no planning and not many materials required, for example:

• Peek-a-boo

• Hide and seek (do this under a blanket in bed if you’ve had a tiring day)

• Tickles

• Singing songs together or duets

• Dance and freeze

• Acting out nursery rhymes together

• Reading books together while taking on different character voices (try a squeaky voice

• Talking about pictures in books

• Pictionary (guess what the other person is drawing)

• Dumb charades (guess what the other person is acting)

• Dramatic role play - be a monster, a mama who has an ‘ouchie’ or boo-boo or a very hungry baby who keeps asking for food and gobbling it all up (faster than the mama or the chef can feed you)!

In other words, let’s take the pressure out of parenting! In my series of blog posts, I’ll be talking about ways to simplify your parenting journey, spend quality time with your kids and have fun doing it all, while stimulating their language development at the same time! More tips to come!

Have fun! :)