Milestones.
As parents we expect them. We wait for them. We talk about them. We obsess about them, and then without even realising we compare them too.
Oh my child is crawling.
My child is walking.
My child is talking.
My child........and the list goes on.
We're all guilty of it. That chance to brag about our child's achievements. Who can blame us, that pride has got to burst out of somewhere, right?!
But what about when they don't hit a particular milestone? What then?
For us with Caleb that has been speech. From the youngest age Caleb has talked in his own language, wonderful big stories, facial expressions and hand gestures galore. Everyone told us, he'll be an early talker.
Quite the opposite in fact.
His own personal language remains with just a handful of actual words thrown in. What has grown and developed (thankfully) is his understanding of language. That eased our initial worry massively, but as we passed the two and half year old stage I knew we wanted to seek outside help. Thanks to our lovely Health Visitor we were referred to a Speech Therapist. We were told we should expect to wait up to two months for an appointment but received an appointment pretty much straight away.
I was intrigued and nervous about the appointment. I was eager to hear if there was anything we could be doing to help Caleb, but I also had that niggling feeling of guilt. Is it down to us that Caleb's speech is delayed? Could we have been doing more?
At the appointment I was met with zero judgement, our Speech Therapist listened as I brought her up to speed, and then she sent us away with a rather simple method. She recommended that we allow Caleb to choose an activity every day and for us to play with him for about 10 minutes (anymore and they may tire of it), and whilst we do so we are to narrate the play.
At first I thought, well we do that already.
What we do, however, is make a very common mistake that most parents make that have a child with delayed speech, and that is overloading Caleb with language as we play. Instead we should only narrate the play at the level at which Caleb is speaking. So for us that is only one to two words. This is something we absolutely have not been doing, we did in the early days when Caleb was much younger, but as his understanding of language has grown, and his speech didn't in our panic we've thought we should talking more. All this is doing is overwhelming Caleb, and not giving him the chance to pick up on new words for himself.
So here we are, at the start of our journey. One that may be long and equally may not. Only time will tell, but I'm so pleased we are heading in the right direction.
Anyone else who finds themselves in our shoes, don't beat yourself up, and absolutely don't be afraid to ask for help. Every child is different and will hit their own personal milestones when they are ready, and with some of those milestones they may just need a little help.
You can totally remind me about this post when I complain that Caleb never shuts up ;)
