It's a truth universally acknowledged that parents are to blame for almost everything that goes wrong in their children's life. (Well, acknowledged by the offspring, if not the entire universe).
If we're unathletic, it's because our parents didn't make us play sports as a child. If we have poor eating habits, our parents didn't discipline us enough. If we were shy, our parents disciplined us too much. We have crooked teeth because our parents didn't take us to the dentist. If we're fat, it's because our mothers put too much ghee in our food. If we're thin, it's because our mothers didn't pay as much attention to our nutrition as they should have.
It doesn't matter if our parents tried to do all the things we accuse them of not doing; they didn't try 'hard enough' is how we see it.
The blame game starts around the teenage years and never ends -- for most people. For some, it abruptly ends when the kids themselves become parents, and foresee history repeating itself.
Well, now, scientists have discovered one more thing we can blame (or thank) our parents for -- our language skills. After tracking infants of both sexes and recording their activity for over a year, scientists at Duke University have discovered that babies whose parents talk to them a lot develop stronger language and conversational skills than kids with quiet parents.
The action apparently begins with the babies. It's they who get the conversation going by chattering volubly with their caregivers. But that little action has a giant butterfly effect because parents talk more to talkative toddlers than they do to the quiet ones, the babble ends up actively influencing the extent and quality of the little talkers' vocabulary.
You'd think the parents would talk more to the quiet babies in an attempt to make them speak more. But no. It's the chatterboxes that gurgle and babble away who get to hear more from their caregivers.
Not surprisingly, as the verbal interaction grows, so does the babies' language development. The young brains soak up the sounds, tones and language employed by the parents, and use them to form their own words. Remember, the baby brain is a centre of endless activity. Indeed, 80 per cent of the brain's physical development happens during a child's first three years.
The parent-baby chit-chat doesn't have to make sense. In fact, some studies say baby talk, or the sing-song way people tend to speak to infants, is the best way to fuel a child's language development. That's because infants pay more attention and respond more eagerly to baby talk than to normal adult conversation.
The exaggerated, high-pitched tone used in baby talk reportedly lights up a baby's brain. The more their parents talk to them, the more synapses fire up in the baby's brain. And by the time they're two, the ones most proficient in baby talk know far more words than their peers.
The journey continues as the kids grow up, strengthening their learning ability and their language skills. Presumably giving them more words to thank their parents. For once.
(Shampa Dhar-Kamath is Faculty-in-Residence and Communication Coach at Harappa Education. She can be reached at shampadhar@gmail.com.)