When my oldest child – who is now 17 years old – hit about 18 months, and he still wasn’t really saying more than two or three words clearly, I got worried. All the books I was reading about child development (and I was reading a lot of them, being a very anxious 24-year-old first time mama) said he should have a lot more to say by that point. At 20 months, I contacted a speech pathologist, who told me not to worry – yet – but that if he wasn’t saying quite a few more words by his second birthday, he would need to be evaluated. I continued to worry.
But suddenly, just about the time he turned two, he began talking and talking and talking. His vocabulary just took off. Today, he’s very verbal, but extremely shy. He’s not a chatty person by nature, and he continues to be a kid who declines to demonstrate any skill unless and until he’s sure he can do it very well. (This quality, by the way, is a whole “how-do-you-parent-this-particular-kid” blog post unto itself, but I digress…). I think he just waited to talk until he was sure he could do it in a way that would be satisfying to him. That’s just the way he rolls.
My next two children acquired language at exactly the pace the books said they should. They weren’t especially early talkers, but they weren’t late, either.
Now we have Miss C, who at 18 months old talks as well as many three year olds I’ve met. She sings her ABCs clearly and on-key. She can count to five, and sometimes to 10. She speaks in complete sentences, and she knows so many words now that I can’t keep up. Most interestingly to me, she “gets” words that deal with concepts, as opposed to words that simply name concrete things. For example, she will look at two photos of dogs in a book, and will tell you which one is big and which one is little. I did not teach her this, and as far as I know, no one else did either. She just started doing it. She also grasps the concept of humor, telling us “This is funny,” when something entertains her, or when one of her siblings does something purposely silly. She also knows hot and cold, up and down, heavy and light, and dark and bright. Again, I am not entirely clear where she picked all of this up. The whole process is wildly mysterious to me.
But maybe because her little brain is so busy with language, she is definitely lagging a little in the area of gross motor skills – not lagging in an actual developmental delay kind of way, but just in an “I’m a rather naturally clumsy person” kind of way. Her same-age cousin, NC, can already climb up and down a small ladder on a slide, and she is able to safely get herself up and down off of staircases and beds, etc. C, on the other hand, can’t quite figure out where to put her feet and hands when trying to get up the ladder, and she still topples headfirst off of things when you don’t watch her carefully.
Several children ago, I would have read a great deal into all of this. I would have assumed that her early talking ability would absolutely translate into eventual superior verbal performance on the SAT, and I would have predicted that the clumsiness she is exhibiting now would mean a lifetime of Chevy Chase pratfalls. But now that I’ve already watched her two older brothers and one big sister go through babyhood and beyond, I know that it’s all a guessing game. Children reveal themselves – all the ways they are unique and different and special – over many years – sometimes in really unexpected ways. The early talker may end up being an introverted math geek, while the clumsy toddler may emerge as the star high school basketball player.
See, that’s why parenting is like a box of chocolates. You never know just what you will end up with, which is both exciting and terrifying.
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Boy, I can relate to that… I’m only a mother of one, but my son (who just turned 2) is a lot like C. Maybe he wasn’t as “advanced” as her at 18 month for language, but still much ahead compared to all other kids his age. We’ve been having conversations with him for a long time, he graps concepts that totally baffle me, he’s juggling with two languages (we’re native French speakers but we want him to learn English as well), impressively links stuff together, and displays a memory that sometimes scare me (like talking about things that happened last summer, when he was 1 1/2). He can name nearly all the kids, all the teachers, and knows whose parent goes with which child at his 70-kids daycare.
But he was also a late walker, and is just always a bit behind when it comes to gross motor skills. He’s clumsy and accident-prone. He climbs up and down the stairs for instance, but often slips so we still don’t let him do it unassisted. He runs, but falls down A LOT. He never really tried climbing on things. He keeps on knocking himself on furniture, and just seems less physical than his little friends (his fine motor skills are fine).
Everyone notices it and makes comments about it, but his doctors are not worried (they say it’s still a variant of normality). I’m trying to keep cool about it and not give in to motherly anxiety, while still praying they are right. But for the past year, I’ve been asking myself whether the two were linked (if being ahead for language caused the physical “delay”), without really having anwsers. I guess your post is reassuring in this way…
So . . . time for potty training??!!
Katie, you seem to forget that at that age H understood everything we said in French and actually knew more French words than English ones. Don’t you remember calling for a quick translation of something he wanted?
—bkg
Ah, yes! Henry’s grandmere is correct. I should add that when he was a toddler, he was hearing TWO languages on a regular basis, and his comprehension of both was excellent! When he did start talking, he would often use both French and English words.
As for potty training, well, she already asks to use her little potty fairly frequently – and then does. My elder daughter was totally out of diapers by the time she turned 2. I am wondering whether baby sister will follow suit. (My boys, not so much. They took a good year longer…)
-Katie
the French is wonderful are your kids bilingual?
Ha! I wish my kids were bilingual. Despite having French-speaking grandparents with whom they spent lots of time, daily French classes (at school) since early childhood – every single year – and for H and J, several trips to France with the grandparents, my children’s French is atrocious. I am actually pretty disappointed with the school on that count.
-Katie
I’m eager to hear that “how you parent that kind of kid” post, since I have one of those of my own!
Marta Rose – I’ll tell you what, when I figure it out, I’ll let you know! Or if you figure it out, please let ME know
Katie
QUESTION TO ALL OF YOU – re. Second Language.
Our 27 month-old hears two languages. English is her main language, but I speak Language #2 to her exlusively. Everyone else speaks English, and I am the only person that he hears Language #2 from (no other choice – not a common language here).
English is her strong language. She understands Language #2 completely, BUT only says a few words in it, instead responding in English to everything.
To those of you with experience, does this mean that she will never speak in Language #2? I have heard different things. Some people say that if she is not already speaking back in Language #2, she will always have a passive understanding but will never speak in it. Others say that she will suddenly start speaking it in her own time down the road.
Any advice?
I was a very verbal child and had (and have!) terrible gross motor skills- which I prefer to call being clumsy! Unless it truly becomes a terrible issue, I advise to not do what my mother did- which was make me do extra work with my gym teacher to improve in elementary school. Made me feel awkward and made no difference.