The Talking Baby
July 5, 2009 by Karianne Wilkins
Filed under Books, Recent Articles
I just finished a new book written by a husband and wife team, Jeremy and Karina Sweet, titled The Talking Baby. Jeremy and Karina are a father and mother who are able to speak from personal child rearing experience. Additionally, Karina has experience as an elementary school teacher. The book is designed to help parents learn not only how to communicate with their child, but also to help a child gain the desire and confidence to speak sooner. Although the book is thin, it is full of ideas to incorporate into your daily life and written in an easy-to-understand way for parents. If babies were born with an instruction guide on how to communicate with them, The Talking Baby would be that guide.
The book is 56 pages long and divided into 20 parts, with 16 of those being the communication tips and techniques. Each tip is explained and examples are provided, including numerous examples of exactly how to say things to your baby to encourage communication and learning. Just a few of the communication tips to use with your child are words to start with, use of repetition, reading books, introducing a foreign language, and how to praise. The tips are presented in easily digestible parts, usually only 2-4 pages long. This is great for busy parents and parents of newborns who do not have time to sit down and read a long book.
As stated in the conclusion of the book, my advice would be to start with a couple of the communication ideas presented and incorporate them into your daily routine. It would be overwhelming, if not impossible, to do all of these tips at once. My guess is that many parents may already be using some of these techniques naturally with their child. However, I would recommend this book to parents who feel overwhelmed and don’t know how to start communicating with their child or for others who may be looking for ideas to jumpstart their child’s communication skills.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book to review from the author. No compensation is being received for this review or from any sales of the book.
The single greatest thing my wife and I did to encourage our son to begin speaking before he was a year old, and having full-sentence conversations prior to 18 months was institute a “no baby talk” policy. I am convinced that this is the reason why he’s so advanced in this aspect. He’s 2 1/2 now and routinely my wife and I are asked if he is 4 or 5 due to his speech. Not braggin’, just sayin’.
Jason, that’s awesome! As every parent knows, kids learn by example (good or bad!)and by you and your wife setting such a great example of proper speech, your son has excelled. Now if you could just get him to stop talking some of the time…right?
Oh, my word. Isn’t that the truth?