How to comment and not question your child?

Ms. Nayantara Nambiar, Speech Language Pathologist, Unified Brain Health Care

Asking questions is how we get to know new information, but questioning may not always be helpful for your child, especially a child with speech problems and language issues.

Questions can be scary for children who are learning to speak as they can create pressure to understand the question and answer it. Whereas, if you turned that question into a comment, it will encourage your child to listen, learn from you and then respond if they want to.

For example, make the question, “What are we going to do now?” into a comment, “It’s play time, let’s go!”

Commenting includes talking about what your child is doing, what you are doing and what is happening around you. So next time, instead of asking the ‘What’, ‘Who’ and ‘Where’ questions, try commenting:

1. Comment on what the child is doing:

Example: When you and your child are drawing a picture, you can say

“You are drawing”

“That is a pencil..That is a crayon”

“You drew the circle on top of the square”

2. Comment on what you are doing:

Example: When you are doing house chores, you can say

“Look Daddy is wiping the table”

“Mummy is washing, wash wash wash”

“Lots of soap”

3. Comment on what is happening around you:

Example: When you are out for a walk or at the supermarket, you can say

“That is a bird”

“Aunty is walking”

“Uncle is going home”

Questions are NOT BAD but just remember to use more comments than questions in any interaction with your child.

How do you converse with your child? Record your next playtime with your child and count how many questions you ask. If the number of questions exceeds the number of comments, you know you just need to turn some of them into comments.

Contact Us if you have concerns about your child's speech and language development or if you want to learn more about how to interact with your child. Growing Brains is our package to help little children and their parents to unleash their potentials.

Unified Brain Health Care is one of a kind Neuro Rehabilitation Centre in Chennai for adults and children offering in person and online therapy in Cognitive Rehabilitation, Clinical Psychology, Speech Therapy, Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Clinical Nutrition, Career Counselling, Fitness Coaching and Educational Intervention. We also offer help for PCOS, Pregnancy Care, Post-Pregnancy care for New Moms, Infant and Early Childhood Stimulation, Care for Caregivers and to promote Holistic Brain Health.