Speaking to Your Child in 3Rd Person

Hi S., my son will be three in April and he is just starting to use pronouns. Tell your hubby that your son will pick up on those pronouns soon enough.

I read that you should say to your child "Mommy loves MacKenna" instead of "I love you". It reinforces to them who you are and who they are. It helps them to learn their name. I would only say this to her when she was looking at me directly. It was tough for me at first, but I mix it up like you do. I want to say I read that in Parents magazine. I wish I still had it to email to you. Good Luck.

I copied the following from an article called "Speech and Language: Developmental Milestones" - http://www.comeunity.com/disability/speech/milestones.html

It didn't copy well into this non-formatted text area, but you can get the gist... a child doesn't "get" pronouns until the age of two or three. Maybe this will put your husband at ease.

Hope it helps, at any rate. - P.

12 - 17 months
Attends to a book or toy for about two minutes.
Follows simple directions accompanied by gestures.
Answers simple questions nonverbally.
Points to objects, pictures, and family members.
Says two to three words to label a person or object (pronunciation may not be clear).
Tries to imitate simple words.

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18 - 23 months
Enjoys being read to.
Follows simple commands without gestures.
Points to simple body parts such as "nose."
Understands simple verbs such as "eat," "sleep."
Correctly pronounces most vowels and n, m, p, h, especially in the beginning of syllables and short words. Also begins to use other speech sounds.
Says 8 to 10 words (pronunciation may still be unclear).
Asks for common foods by name.
Makes animal sounds such as "moo."
Starting to combine words such as "more milk."
Begins to use pronouns such as "mine."

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2 - 3 years
Knows about 50 words at 24 months.
Knows some spatial concepts such as "in," "on."
Knows pronouns such as "you," "me," "her."
Knows descriptive words such as "big," "happy."
Says around 40 words at 24 months.
Speech is becoming more accurate but may still leave off ending sounds. Strangers may not be able to understand much of what is said.
Answers simple questions.
Begins to use more pronouns such as "you," "I."
Speaks in two to three word phrases.
Uses question inflection to ask for something (e.g., "My ball?").
Begins to use plurals such as "shoes" or "socks" and regular past tense verbs such as "jumped."

Speaking to your child in 3rd person is the best way to get him/her to understand who the people around him are. When you say "give that to Mama" or "be nice to Mama", you are teaching him that the word associated with you is Mama. Otherwise, he'd start calling you "Me". The pronouns that babies don't understand are more the him,her,she,his,etc. But Daddy calling himself Daddy or you calling yourself Mama is no differnet than Jennifer calling herself Jennifer. As far as your little one is concerned, your name is Mama or Mommy. And by talking to your son in the 3rd person, you are teaching him his name. ie:" Is Jordan hungry?","Does Jordan want to play?".
Overanalyzing what babies do and don't understand makes things harder for everyone. Our instinct says to talk in 3rd person because that is how we were spoken to as babies. The pronouns will come in time on their own. And at that time, you will naturally start talking to him in 1st person.
Shoot, I even talk to my fiance in 3rd person when my 7 mo old is listening. I say,"Will Daddy go downstairs and get me a nice cold glass of lemonade?" :)

Hi there! I have a 20 month old and I do the same thing. My husband thinks third person sounds crazy as well. As you stated, all of the literature demonstrates children can not grasp pronouns until they approach the age of 3. The literature suggests you should make statements/ask questions two ways: one in third person, the other using the correct pronouns. It sounds like that's what you're doing already. To reassure your husband, remind him of how your child's language has developed thus far- babbles have turned into one syllable words, one syllable words have turned into multisyllabic words which have turned into phrases... In other words, there is a natural progression. Using language in the third person helps your child comprehend what you're saying. It doesn't mean you're "teaching" your child how to speak incorrectly. Your child will naturally begin to make the transition when cognitively he/she is ready.

I agree with the previous posters but I would like to emphasize that most of the literature also suggests that mothers usually do these things instinctively. Most of us know how to help our children learn language and this knowledge seems to come from within ourselves. This is not to suggest that men should not be involved in raising children, as there are many wonderful fathers out there. However, we ought to keep research like this in mind when our beloved spouses seek to criticize our parenting approaches.

S.,
You were correct when you said that young children do not understand pronouns. They are still learning many things about language. To help your son learn pronouns more quickly just speak to him using both forms. As in "Give that to me." Wait a second or two to see if he responds and then "Give that to mama." This works for the aquisition of many language skills, restating things in a simpler form after saying them in a more advanced form. Your son has a long way to go before he is speaking like an adult, or even a big kid. What you are doing is helping him learn in a natural way. If this upsets your husband maybe he would benefit from reading a book about how children learn language. I don't know if he is a reader or how agreeable he would be to spending time on that. My husband always wants me to do the reading and tell him what I've learned, but the nice thing is that he does listen to what I say. Probably because it comes from a book and it's not like I am correcting him. Good luck with this! It sounds like you know instinctively how to teach your son and just need some good literature to back you up.