Parenthood is filled with to-do-lists that never get any shorter and a mental load that doesn’t seem to get any lighter. The washing pile never ends, toys get scattered across the floor immediately after you tidied them, coordinating every family member’s schedule is a juggle and if you have to make one more snack that gets half eaten you might just burst. You really don’t need anything else added to your plate. The universe doesn’t always listen though, does it?
If you have concerns about your child’s speech and language development, or if you’ve just enrolled your child in speech pathology services, you may have found yourself down another rabbit-hole of figuring out how you can support your child at home (and how on earth you are going to fit it in during daylight hours). If you have been googling or researching, or closely observing your child’s speech pathology sessions, the amount of information that you find and learn can be overwhelming. It’s like learning a whole new language. Where are you even supposed to start!?
Well, if you decide that you want to spring clean your house, you aren’t going to do it all at once. I mean you could if you wanted to, but I know that I certainly couldn’t when you throw day-to-day life into the mix! You are more likely to declutter one room, or even one section, at a time. And it’s probably going to take you weeks or even months to get through the whole house! You can tackle implementing speech and language strategies in exactly the same way.
So, if you have found some ideas from speech pathologists online, or are enrolled in speech pathology services, try:
I tend to have the viewpoint that it’s better to focus on one thing and do it well, rather than focusing on multiple things and not having enough opportunity to practise or execute them all. Therefore, choosing one strategy or skill will enable you to provide lots of opportunities to practice and won’t overwhelm you or your child.
Choose a time that will work for you and your family. It could be setting aside some time right after lunch, or during bath time. It could be on Saturday and Sunday if during the week is just too hectic at the moment.
After you have been practising the strategy for a week or so, check in with yourself for a quick evaluation. Are you able to make the time to practise? Can you change anything if you are having trouble practising? Have you noticed if you are creating other opportunities outside of the time that you have been practising? Sometimes when you are focusing on one strategy, you may start to see other times where you could use it. You may then find yourself doing it even more!
An example of this in action, could be:
Once you are getting the hang of implementing one strategy, you can either:
And remember, it will take time to incorporate practising speech and language strategies at home!
If you are wanting to try to spark your child’s interest in books, there are a few things that you can try. Your child may start to become interested, or you might keep persisting and their interest develops later. Remember, there are lots of different ways to develop their language.
