Communication is one of the strongest bonds we have as people. We use it to get our feelings across, whether they be disagreements or compliments, or even to complain about our days. But what happens when even the most talkative person won't even mutter a word?
At one point in time, if you told me that our baby would grow up just like any normal one would, I would have absolutely believed you. But why is it that now our child has the ability to speak long before any normal kid should be able to?
The one painful thing that comes from her being able to talk is that she doesn't really want to stop. It was cute when it first started, she'd make all these silly noises and attempt to make words out of them. Now she has learned speech so well that we're surprised she can't read yet.
We wanted to send her off to a school for gifted kids so that she could learn with people nearly as smart as she is. As much as I'd enjoy this idea, however, the wife and I would absolutely miss her with everything in us. Who else would we be able to have meaningless conversations with? Not that what she was able to say was in any way meaningless.
Lately, the way she's been talking has my wife and I scared. She's been having conversations with people we can't see. And not like any basic, 'I know a few words' kinda baby talk, but full on conversations with an invisible entity kinda talk.
I didn't know what to think of the situation, neither did my wife. Should we continue trying to encourage her to talk more, even if she's talking to herself, or should we intervene and punish her for toying with her possible imagination? It was a difficult choice to make, but we made one in the end.
We decided it would be best to try and get her to talk more. What would be the worst that could happen? We bought her flash cards with words on them that got more and more difficult with every word she got right. We loved being able to encourage her.
It didn't take too long before we realized she was almost capable to have nearly adult conversations. Without teaching her any sort of profanity, of course. I tell you what, it's interesting and somewhat funny to have an incredibly serious conversation with a little child haggling you.
There were so many times we couldn't help but smile as we knew we were raising some kind of genius.
That was, until she decided one night that she was going to close herself off from us. It didn't make much sense, she just up and locked herself in her room. How she even managed to reach the lock was beyond us. The first time she locked herself in her room, we panicked and asked her what all was going on in there. Her only response was she was playing with her imaginary friend. We knew exactly who she was talking about.
We didn't think it was too unhealthy for her to have an imaginary friend, especially at her age. What we found oddly peculiar was that she would listen and shake her head as she listened to what they had to say rather than her doing all the talking. Where did she learn to behave like that? Was it from a movie she'd watched?
Nothing could have prepared us for what happened the next day. After all of her locking herself in her room, she would eat less and less than what we were feeding her, saying she wasn't hungry any time we offered her anything. We didn't want to bother her too much. She was two years old and talking far smarter than I could ever imagine. I figured she knew what we best for herself.
My wife didn't agree. She would find ways to be a parent to her whether she wanted it or not. They started to really get into it. Eventually, my wife demanded to know how she even learned half of the words she was using. We hardly let her out of the house and we were the only people that talked to her. None of us took the time to explain what every word was.
She sighed and explained that the person we believed was her imaginary friend had taught her so much and wanted to share more of their well of knowledge with her. We asked her if she could share some of it with us. All she said was we'd never understand.
At one point in time, if you told me that our baby would grow up just like any normal one would, I would have absolutely believed you. But why is it that now our child has the ability to speak long before any normal kid should be able to?
The one painful thing that comes from her being able to talk is that she doesn't really want to stop. It was cute when it first started, she'd make all these silly noises and attempt to make words out of them. Now she has learned speech so well that we're surprised she can't read yet.
We wanted to send her off to a school for gifted kids so that she could learn with people nearly as smart as she is. As much as I'd enjoy this idea, however, the wife and I would absolutely miss her with everything in us. Who else would we be able to have meaningless conversations with? Not that what she was able to say was in any way meaningless.
Lately, the way she's been talking has my wife and I scared. She's been having conversations with people we can't see. And not like any basic, 'I know a few words' kinda baby talk, but full on conversations with an invisible entity kinda talk.
I didn't know what to think of the situation, neither did my wife. Should we continue trying to encourage her to talk more, even if she's talking to herself, or should we intervene and punish her for toying with her possible imagination? It was a difficult choice to make, but we made one in the end.
We decided it would be best to try and get her to talk more. What would be the worst that could happen? We bought her flash cards with words on them that got more and more difficult with every word she got right. We loved being able to encourage her.
It didn't take too long before we realized she was almost capable to have nearly adult conversations. Without teaching her any sort of profanity, of course. I tell you what, it's interesting and somewhat funny to have an incredibly serious conversation with a little child haggling you.
There were so many times we couldn't help but smile as we knew we were raising some kind of genius.
That was, until she decided one night that she was going to close herself off from us. It didn't make much sense, she just up and locked herself in her room. How she even managed to reach the lock was beyond us. The first time she locked herself in her room, we panicked and asked her what all was going on in there. Her only response was she was playing with her imaginary friend. We knew exactly who she was talking about.
We didn't think it was too unhealthy for her to have an imaginary friend, especially at her age. What we found oddly peculiar was that she would listen and shake her head as she listened to what they had to say rather than her doing all the talking. Where did she learn to behave like that? Was it from a movie she'd watched?
Nothing could have prepared us for what happened the next day. After all of her locking herself in her room, she would eat less and less than what we were feeding her, saying she wasn't hungry any time we offered her anything. We didn't want to bother her too much. She was two years old and talking far smarter than I could ever imagine. I figured she knew what we best for herself.
My wife didn't agree. She would find ways to be a parent to her whether she wanted it or not. They started to really get into it. Eventually, my wife demanded to know how she even learned half of the words she was using. We hardly let her out of the house and we were the only people that talked to her. None of us took the time to explain what every word was.
She sighed and explained that the person we believed was her imaginary friend had taught her so much and wanted to share more of their well of knowledge with her. We asked her if she could share some of it with us. All she said was we'd never understand.
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