They do say, ' once a speech therapist always a speech therapist' so its difficult to 'switch off when I'm not working. It's very difficult to walk on by when see example of things going worng but I do force myself as I know they'd probably ask me what business it is of mine. They're right of course but I know they'd want the best for their children, they just might not know what that is.
I was in the queue at Pets at Home the other day with my therapy dog. He dislikes any form of raised voice and actually gets upset even if they're not shouting at him. We heard a woman's voice loudly saying 'Sit', 'Sit down', 'Sit there now', 'I've told you SIT down'. Ralph was getting a bit anxious so I peeked around the corner expecting to see an unruly puppy........instead it was 3 year old who had come to see the animal petting!!
Yesterday, I went out for lunch and directly opposite me so I couldn't look away, there was a young mother with her parents and daughter aged approx 2.5 years. Not one of the adults engaged the delightful little girl, in fact, her mother was much more interested in her phone, taking calls and almost constantly texting. She even managed to pick up her daughter to take her to the toilet while texting at the same time (some feat!). The only time she interacted with her child was to wipe her nose (without mentioning what she was doing before the tissue was launched across the poor child's face) and when she wiped chocolate off her top. A dummy was firmly fixed in the girl's mouth.
I, as the parent whose children grew up in the blink of an eye, wanted to tell her that she was missing so much joy, so much special time while the SLT in me wanted to explain what was going wrong and how easily it could be remedied. Instead, I was just glad when they finished before us and left.
But is not just me being old, miserable and doom mongering, read this:
http://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20180325/parent-distraction-can-hinder-babies-language-skills
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