How often do you talk to your child? What are you talking about? Is your speech simple or complex? It turns out that this largely depends on what success he will achieve in the future.
We all talk to our children in one way or another. The question is about what and how. Famous child psychologists Betty Hart and Todd Risley once identified two types of communication between parents and children.
«Put on a jacket», «Let’s go for a walk» «Don’t touch!» This is business language. If parents limit themselves to this, such communication hinders the cognitive development of the child. And if we talk with a child about a variety of matters without simplifying our language, that is, we build a conversation between two full participants, create a kind of “language dance”, then we thereby develop his cognitive abilities and language competence. The vocabulary of such children is much wider than those with whom parents communicate purely functionally.
The discoveries of Hart and Risley gave rise to many new studies in this area. As it turns out, «quality» communication provides the child with a wide variety of benefits. For example, in 2006, a group of American psychologists set up an experiment in which mothers had to discuss various events with their children. At the same time, they had to ask the children questions in such a way as to focus the child’s attention on certain details of what happened (for example, “What did we do at grandma’s?”). As it turned out, after such discussions, the children remembered the events better and also used more memory strategies.
If in the first years of the child the mother was sensitive and responsive, then later he turned out to be more successful in his studies.
It is equally important for a child when parents openly tell him about their desires and preferences, about what they want and what they like. In this case, as a recent study shows, even young children develop the ability to see the situation through the eyes of another person. And this is an extremely important factor for the development of his social competence.
In addition, daily conversations and informal, warm parent-child interactions establish and strengthen their emotional bond. And she, in turn, helps the child to better perceive, respect and assimilate the values that guide the elders.
The ability of parents to subtly feel their child and respond to his needs is also very important for him. As a study conducted in 2014 by a group of American psychologists showed, if in the first years of the child the mother was sensitive and responsive to him, then later he turned out to be more successful in school, and his social competence was higher.
There is evidence that warm relationships with parents help the child develop skills that will be useful to him later in his work. This, for example, is the ability to effectively interact with people and resolve conflicts. But perhaps even more important is self-confidence, which allows a person to be flexible in building his career, not be afraid to try new options and consciously change the field of activity.