Group items tagged

unwittingly likely to increase the bad behaviour and tantrums that youngsters often rely on to get attention

Children learned the word when the teaching was not interrupted, but when the interaction was interrupted, they didn’t learn the word.

The vocal patterns parents everywhere tend to adopt during exchanges with infants and toddlers are marked by a higher-pitched tone, simplified grammar, and engaged, exaggerated enthusiasm. Though this talk is cloying to adult observers, babies can’t get enough of it. Not only that: One study showed that infants exposed to this interactive, emotionally responsive speech style at 11 months and 14 months knew twice as many words at age 2 as ones who weren’t exposed to it,” she writes.

Perhaps more alarmingly, Christakis also points out that distracted parents put their children in danger.