Small activities like reading together can make a difference
The recession has forced almost three quarters of British parents to take on extra work to make ends meet and as a result it's putting pressure on home life and time with their children.
The survey, conducted by OnePoll for I CAN, the children's comminication charity, found that of the 2,000 people questioned 35 per cent say they rarely have time to talk to their children and are blaming the increased workloads.
Not having time to speak to your child you potentially impact on your chld's communication development and their school readiness. Evidence shows that children's understanding and use of vocabularly at two is very strongly associated with their performance on entering primary school.
Nineteen per cent of parents explain that by the time they get home from work, they're just too tired to chat and even when they do around a third stated that answering work calls or responding to emails usually disrupted it their chat anyway.
We have the top tips for busy parents and how they can make the most of everyday routines to support communication development:
Changing nappies is a perfect time to engage with your baby – you are likely to be face to face with them anyway and they will probably be watching your face very closely at this point.
Pull faces with your child – smile or stick your tongue out and watch to see if your baby copies you. Give them plenty of time to respond and then copy once again what they have done. This shows your baby that you are listening to them and what they have to say is important – it can be very rewarding. Very quickly, this routine can change into a turntaking game – a fundamental part of learning to communicate.
At food time, try and take some time to sit down with your child while they are eating. This gives you a perfect opportunity to talk in simple, repetitive language about what your child is doing. For very young children, under the age of one, simple phrases like “Mmm, that’s nice” and “You like that, don’t you?”.
When your child is starting to use words themselves, you can add to what they are saying eg “Those are carrots, they’re lovely”. As they get older, mealtimes can be a good time to learn vocabulary - using words like “crunchy”, “tasty”, “soft” will help children learn what these mean in a very real context.
Going out and about, whether by bus, car or walking can also be used very effectively to support communication development:
Talk about what you see as you go along. Use sentences that are about one word longer than your child currently uses. So, if most of their sentences are three words long, use four. Or if they are not talking yet, use one word at a time. This will help your child to focus on what you are saying and provides them with something to copy when they are ready to move onto the next stage of communication.
Bathtime can be great fun and is usually a time when you will need to be with your child. Depending on their age, you may be holding them or have your hands free to play with any bathtime toys. This is a good time to sing some songs with your child. You can adapt traditional nursery rhymes or chart songs that you know, or even make up your own!
It doesn’t matter whether you are singing in tune, your child will grow to enjoy the routine. They can also can learn from what you are singing about.
Sing songs with new words so that they are relevant to your child eg “This is the way we wash your toes, wash your toes, wash your toes. This is the way, we wash your toes, when you’re having bathtime”. Or sing about the toys in the bath, like “Three little ducks went swimming one day, over the hills and far away. Mummy duck said ‘quack, quack, quack,quack, but only two little ducks came back”.
Singing makes communicating fun. Songs that relate to what is happening at the time can teach new words in a simple way. Songs are also very repetitive which helps children learn and they love it.