Talking and listening to your toddler

• email
• save PDF
• print

Between the ages of about one to three, most children learn to talk. This is the time for listening, learning and trying out words. Although your toddler may only be able to say a few words by the age of eighteen months, he can understand many more!

While he’s still learning how to talk and coming to grips with his emotions, your toddler will also rely on other means to tell you what he’s thinking and feeling.

Listening and body language

Listening and talking to toddlers is as much about reading what they’re saying with their bodies as it is about hearing what they have to say. Meanwhile, your toddler isn’t just listening to your words, he’s also reading your gestures, facial expressions and the tone of your voice. Stuck for words, a toddler will use actions to communicate to you what he wants, such as tugging on your pants to be picked up, shaking or nodding his head and using distinctive gestures to tell you to ‘go away’. 

When your toddler relies on body language, you can help with talking by repeating back to him what it is that he wants and explaining your response as you go. For instance, ‘You want to be picked up, but mummy’s got something in her hand, so you can hold my other hand’ or ‘I can see you don’t want that, what about this?’

Likewise, by explaining what you are doing as you perform actions you can help your child to understand what words go with what actions.

Talking and offering choices

Between the ages of one and two, a toddler begins to use action words such as ‘Dog go away’ or ‘Daddy come here’. Often these simple sentences are accompanied by gestures. By expanding the sentence to ‘You want daddy to make the dog go away?’ you can help your child to understand how words go together and help to expand his vocabulary.

As the main theme of toddlerhood is one of asserting the self (think: No! Me! Mine! Now!), toddlers respond best to language that is about them and the exciting new idea that they can control the world. One tactic is to give your toddler choices: ‘It’s going to be cold, would you rather wear your red scarf or your blue scarf?’ rather than, ‘Put your scarf on, it’s cold’. This approach gives toddlers a sense of being in control and the satisfaction of having his opinion valued.

Sometimes as adults we forget that children don’t understand everything we say. If your toddler seems puzzled when you say something, try saying it in different ways and constantly revisit the words you have used. Also, have a look at the tone in your voice. Just like babies, toddlers will respond to the tone in your voice as much as to the content of the words.

• Rated7 ratingsRate this item
• FeedbackTell us what you think of this item