Mommy, Daddy! Look at Me! (No, really look.)

Sad to say, but if you just sit back and observe how parents interact with their kids, you'll find that most of them totally ignore the kids unless they're fussing or screaming. It's rather enlightening. Sad, but enlightening. And think about it. How many times a day do you actually look your kid in the eye and talk to them? Or at least talk with them if your eyes are trained on dinner or the road in front of you?

Here's a good article on how speaking to your child speeds up the language learning process.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/october/fernald-vocab-development-101513.html

It makes perfect sense. You can't stick a kid in front of a screen and expect them to pick up language as quickly as those who interact with an actual human. There are subtle cues in language - we use our tone, eyes, face, and body to communicate a heck of a lot - that kids miss when watching it on a screen. It's like with preemie babies. Have you ever heard how parents are encouraged to "kangaroo" preemies? Those little angels arrive on Earth a little too early, but tend to grow and thrive better with actual human, skin-to-skin contact. Why? Why isn't it good enough to have them "grow" in an incubator, away from germs and stimulus? Well, because it just isn't! Humans have a light energy about them that cannot be replicated from a machine. It's living. It's love. Communication is meant to happen with two actual, living people. We are just very accustomed to it being electronic and get lured into thinking that the tech we stick in front of our kids is "educational." Get yourself away from that line of thinking!

Babies and toddlers need you to look at them. Talk and interact with them. Guide them. Teach them about the world. Don't let a gadget do that for you. Please.

Cheers and Zen to you! (Do those even go together? Hunh.)