The Language of Living

"Drawings Made With Text" @ incredibleart.org

At my teacher's meeting this morning, we spent a lot of time talking about when and how children acquire language. Did you know that from birth to twenty-four months, the average child learns about two words per day? From age two, on, their acquisition of language is frankly quite staggering! This is very dependent on their home environment (no surprise there)...how frequently they are spoken to verses "at", how often (if ever) they are read to, etc. all have a huge impact on their growth. One of the teachers from our meeting stood up and shared with us a story about her fifteen-month-old goddaughter. She said that after reading about this research, she was very aware (and a little freaked out) about how she spoke to the child. She wondered, "Did she learn two words today? If so, were they good ones?" We all chuckled. I did because I know just how neurotic I can be when faced with lots of new information!

As I thought back to when my own daughters were small, I tried to recall precisely how their father and I speak to them, treated them? Unaware of any of this research (which was probably a good thing), we did what we thought was "right". Turns out, most of the time it WAS (whew!). To our minds, we were simply teaching them the language of living, i.e. how to express themselves, know the difference between right and wrong, and opening up as much of the big ol' world to them as possible. We read to them almost daily, and left the rest of their education up to the girls, themselves, their teachers and life.

Often one of the first lessons parents teach their children is the basic, "Don't touch the hot stove or you'll get burned." Unfortunately, until they actually do it, they don't have any framework for what being "burned" means, so inevitably most try it just to see what will happen. The lesson is a potent one and most of the time, they do not touch a hot stove intentionally again. Of course by touching the stove they also learned other things, such as their parents care about them and their well-being, and that sometimes the consequences of their actions can be painful. As an adult, this became a powerful metaphor for me, one that I apply to almost every choice I must make that comes with potentially painful risks, i.e. getting close to someone or making a big career decision. I have also discovered that the more I learn, the more I want to learn (even when it makes me neurotic...and I apologize to my family for this in advance).  Whether that's as a teacher or merely plain ol' life lessons, my desire to continue growing has become nearly insatiable. Turns out that is something I have in common with children (one of my favorite somethings, in fact)! It is a connection that helps me help them to develop their own language of living...new little voices in a big ol' world finding their place...or making one!