More on languages: cognition development

The other day, I was sitting with the boys at the dinner table - we were chatting, while having breakfast. Abraham was, as usual, engaged in one of favorite activities: throwing food. I asked him to stop. The cleaning up after every meal is quite a bit of work, but that’s not my main concern; the problem is that after Abraham has amused himself by throwing all his food on the floor, he wants to eat – he wants his food – but obviously it’s gone. So, I explained to him that while he might enjoy the throwing, the result is that he loses all his food, and will have nothing to eat. At least not the custom baby portion that I had taken time to prepare. I concluded, “If you are hungry, you should put your food in your mouth. When you are full, if there’s still food left – by all means – feel free to play.” William looked at me with amazement, and asked, “Why are you saying all that to him, mama? He doesn't speak English.” I looked up in surprise, “What do you mean, William? What *does* he speak then? Of course he speaks English. That’s his language. That’s how we communicate with him; in English.” William said, “But he doesn’t understand what you are saying,” upon which the entire family engaged in a long discussion on cognition and child development.

We never really used baby talk in our family. Sometimes I will make a clarification, i.e. I’ll say, “Abraham, if you touch the cactus you will have a handful of thorns, and they hurt you, so why don’t you look at this plant instead?” and then I’ll hold my hand up in front of the cactus and say “Ouch; boo-boo!” I’ve found that eventually they catch on. (Although not necessarily in reference to the cactus thing; I just had to remove thorns from Courtney’s hand the other day. As someone said the other day, “I can explain it to you, but I can’t make you understand it.”)