A question about playing
At 14 months Peter has no comprehensible words (although I have taken a few educated guesses) but can jargon for England. Today we were out in the back yard playing and he began chatting away to himself. It was very complex, clearly a long monologue that he could understand but completely incomprehensible to me. While he was doing this he was pointing to the lavender plant, pointing to the wall, putting something a pot, then back to the lavender and so on. I got the strong impression that he was engaging in some sort of imaginative play, but I don't really know what it was.
I love how well he entertains himself these days but I also want to encourage him in imaginative play. I just don't really know how to do it if I don't understand what he is saying. I don't want to interrupt what was clearly an engaging fantasy by getting things wrong. Can anyone suggest anything, or should I just leave him to it?
I love how well he entertains himself these days but I also want to encourage him in imaginative play. I just don't really know how to do it if I don't understand what he is saying. I don't want to interrupt what was clearly an engaging fantasy by getting things wrong. Can anyone suggest anything, or should I just leave him to it?
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I tend to let him be if he's chatting to himself, but at a little older than Peter is (around 15 months) he started 'telling me' about these things pointing to things and gesticulating a lot. When he does this I ask general questions - What happened next? Then what did you do? How did you do that? We can chat for 15-20 mins like that and my family think this is hilarious as he obviously knows what he's saying, and it seems very important and serious but we've no idea what he's saying at all. He soon lets me know if I'm saying the wrong thing or if he'd rather talk to himself.
So after all that garble, I'm basically saying follow his lead, he'll tell you if he's doing something wrong
Hope this helps!
Hugo is almost 20 months and has his own language inbetween the few latvian/swedish/english words he uses, lol. Trilingual!
Fooxoo, that was exactly what I thought, but he was so consistently chatty that it felt as if I was interrupting him.
Jemma, that is very encouraging. I'll keep an eye out for attempts to engage me. He is going through a developmental spurt at the moment, so who knows what will happen!
Y_m_g_m, it's fascinating how different children are. Most of the toddlers Peter's age that I know have a couple of comprehensible words but Peter has always done things his own way. I think as long as he is communicating, I am happy to go along with him to the best of my ability!