The “I” factor
My two-year old son Drake is having a hard time with pronouns. For a long time during diaper changes, I’d ask him, “Who do I love?” Then, when he wouldn’t answer, because he didn’t talk until well past 18 months old, I’d say, “You!” Of course, when he did finally answer me, he answered as I did. When I hold out my hand to help him down the stairs, he says, “No, do it yourself.” Often, when he does something for which we’ve praised him in the past, he’ll jump up and down and say, “Yay, you did it!” (I don’t sense he’s hurting in the esteem department.) The past few weeks I’ve been correcting him, which has proved awkward.
I say, “No, Drake, you say, ‘I want to do it myself.’ Or, “No, Drake, you say ‘me’.”
These get confusing even to me, so I’m sure it’s clear as mud to him. He’s a mimic, and I’m sure understanding will come eventually, but for now I think it’s best to just model what I think he means, rather than cluttering it up with more pronouns.
November 11th, 2005 at 9:50 am
Lissa has just been having problems mainly right now with gender pronouns. It seems like some days she just chooses one gender and sticks with it so everyone is her or she for the day.
When she started out she’d say “Help you?” when she needed help with something, now she says “You help me?”
She also used to say “No, MY do it” instead of “No, I do it.”
I think it’s so interesting to see them accquire this language skill. It’s something that I wouldn’t have personally thought of before as being difficult or hard to explain.
November 12th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
This is completely normal. According to my mother, the expert, most children don’t learn the use of I until at least 2 and a half. And lots of cute stories abound about exactly the kind of phrases you describe (pick you up! being one of them.
As you say, they learn speech by mimicry, so best not to confuse him.
November 17th, 2005 at 1:34 pm
I quote the sage of my Saturday mornings, Daffy Duck:
“Aha. Pronoun trouble.”
Besides, how refreshing to hang out with someone who has a healthy sense of self, but not a lot of inclination or arsenal for dwelling too much on it.