Continuing to Expand Skills

One challenge parents often face, and one I discussed last night (prompting this post) is continuing to expand a child’s skill beyond the huge success they are finally seeing.

Let me share last night’s story to illustrate my point:

This family has a child with a language delay that’s largely been dealt with. This client speaks clearly and is able to speak in sentences.

However, when listening to the utterances from this child, they are not as sophisticated as they could be (imo). “want ___” is a common one, as well as labeling something “pink stripe” to signify they need their arm wiped, are common. This leads the caregiver to have to problem-solve for the child.

The example I want to focus on for the rest of this post is that recently (mostly as a result of Coco Melon) the child has begun to use words to describe their emotions (disappointed, frustrated..). Which is absolutely amazing progress given that they use these appropriately (in the correct context).

With this newfound skill - and perhaps not to rock the boat - those around the child are not encouraging further expansion; and continuing to problem solve for the child. Let’s give you the emotional example: The child says “I’m frustrated”, the caregiver enters the room and sees the child on the floor with socks in their hand, the caregiver then says “you’re frustrated that you can’t get your socks on - I’ll help you”. However, this isn’t moving the metre. That isn’t expanding skills. That isn’t adding in language.

What this teaches the child is that as long as they label their emotion (correctly) someone else will problem-solve the situation, and if that person talks throughout - so be it. So the child never learns to say “I’m frustrated and need help with my socks”.

I know the family and caregivers are SO excited with the correct labeling of their emotions. As a tip (from a service provider) once the child is able to independently label their emotion correctly, say 3 times, begin to expand that sentence before running over. This is the key: before helping they must repeat the expanded sentence. It feels punitive, however, if the child is capable, they should be expected to explain their frustration in a complete sentence.

It is a challenge!