There’s a lot to be said about parents who are actively participating in their children’s physical and mental growth. Children grow in various ways, and it’s always worthwhile to explore different approaches to ensure they receive the best possible environment in which to do so. That’s exactly what a father from Hawaii realized when he noticed he was actively hindering his child’s ability to speak.
At the end of the day, you always want what is best for your children. But sometimes your own actions can have consequences that affect their development at a young, impressionable age.
The above video was posted to the TikTok account @dean.of.mauil, which belongs to Dean Wong, a father and CEO of Discover IMUA, a children’s non-profit organization in Hawaii. Most of Dean’s videos feature insight and general advice on fostering an environment for children that encourages play. This video was a little different, as he talks about how he realized that the approach he took to his own child’s play was contradictory to his growth.
He talks about speaking with a speech pathologist at the non-profit about this issue. The speech pathologist asked various questions, from how the child plays to when the parents give them snacks or a drink. It was soon clear that, because of the routine Dean had set up for his child, the child felt there really wasn’t a reason to speak.
It wasn’t that Dean had done anything wrong, but the fact that he was being an attentive, routine parent reportedly led his child’s speech to regress, since they knew they didn’t need to ask for things.
Hawaiian Father Shares Parenting Tip For Children With Speech Regression
Commenters jumped into the replies to give their own thoughts on the conversation, with one person even saying, “Speech Therapist here – providing opportunities for communication attempts (i.e. giving food in a package that’s difficult to open) is a great way to encourage intrinsic motivation to communicate! However, please remember to validate and encourage any and all attempts to communicate (i.e. vocalizations, gestures, pointing, etc.) and never withhold items if the child is unable to communicate! Use language like, ” oh, I saw you point to the chips! thank you for telling me that you want chips!”. we can also model the words/phrases we except to use in that moment, i.e. “i want ball” etc. We want communication to be comfortable and not something that causes stress in the child!! Good luck parents, you got this !!“
Dean ends the video by saying that since introducing a new way for his son to communicate, he’s noticed improvements in his son’s speech development.
Parenting isn’t laid out to be some really simple and smooth task that can be attended to later when you don’t feel like working on it now. It’s great that there are people like Dean out there who are willing to share their stories so others may potentially use them to their own benefit. That feels like the definition of ‘wholesome.’
