Teaching Your Child to Respond to His/her Name | www.agentsofspeech.com/micro

Oh, hey, guys. Today we're going to talk about how to get your child to respond to their names. And this question has been coming up a lot, even inside the micro course. And actually the whole agents of speech community where parents just hop on in the Facebook group and ask me and sometimes they might email me or something, and most of the time I get it inside the comments of the course. So if you want to know more about the course, you can go to agents of speech.com micro. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that. What I want to say is how to get them to listen to you, okay? And a lot of parents are doing it wrong. And I'm saying a lot, it might be you, it might not be you. Don't take this personally. What I mean is I'm just going to tell you what works, okay? So what's working is that when you are asking for a child's attention, make sure that you have something for them, right? Don't just call them and repeat and call them and repeat and call them and do it a thousand times hoping that they would listen to you. And if you're doing this all the time, and I see this with, like, my friends with their pets or something, you're treating your kid like a pet then, right? Because if you keep on, like, repeating and saying, like, let's say that your son's called Tom, right? And he came on saying Tom, Tom, Tom. Like, what is the end goal of you calling his name? Right? And a lot of parents are saying, like, okay, they do listen to me when I say, hey, Tom, do you want, like, biscuit? And then they'll come running at you. Yeah, of course. Because you have something to offer. But if you have nothing to offer, okay, then there's no point for them to actually listen, right? There's no point. And if you do it, you keep on doing it. It basically becomes background noise and you're teaching them to actually just ignore you, okay? And we talk about this a lot inside the micro course. And why I always talk about the micro course is because I don't want to. I don't want to repeat myself that much. And inside the micro course, we talk about teaching your child how to, like, answer questions. And the first thing I say basically, is that don't ask questions, okay? And if you follow that mindset, then you shouldn't be calling for a child's name because that's something you're asking for their precious, precious attention. All right? Think about how much time they spend with You. Okay, just think about that. If it's very little, then if you ask for that attention, it better be something good. If not, then next time they won't listen. Okay? So it's basically. Basically like salesman. You are a salesman, okay? You're asking for attention, okay? If there's nothing rewarding at the end of the day, like those, you know, phone calls you get, especially now, I'm back in Hong Kong for a bit, and then once I get off into Hong Kong, people are calling me, like, random numbers, right? And they're like asking like, oh, do you want whatever? Are you the. Are you, like, are you Ming? Or whatever? And then they start talking to me about, you know, like getting a loan or something. And most of the time I just hang up because there's nothing in for me. I don't want a loan, I don't want whatever, right? So think about it that way. If you're asking for a child's attention, don't use it like that. So you might ask me, okay, so if I don't call for my child, then what should I do? Well, very easy. Whenever your child wants something from you and they're walking towards you, you say their name and you pair it up with the feeling of them wanting something from you or like them running towards you. So usually what happens is that when a child comes to me, I will say their name, okay? I'll say, good, good Robbie, or like, good, Tom, good, whatever, good Steven, or whatever. And then slowly, it takes time that, you know, they pair that their name equals to them. All right? So many times that, you know, when parents use their name too much, it becomes like, just. It doesn't mean anything. It's just whatever. But if you use it at the right time, at the right, like, at the right function and at the right context, it's going to mean something to them. Okay? So how you do it is basically, you don't need to, like, formulate. You don't need to have something in your hand or whatever. Whenever they want something from you, they're coming over to you. It's like, oh, good, good, Tom, nice coming to mom or something. Keep it natural, okay? Don't ask for the attention. Use something else to get their attention. Use, like a food, a snack. And I've been talking about a lot about this. You know, like, use like a TV remote. Use the TV itself. Use a bottle. I don't know. So stuff that they like. And then when they are coming at you, you say the name so that you're pairing, okay? And you might say that, hey, isn't that the same as using a clicker for, like, a dog or like a cat or like a certain pet? Yeah, to some extent, yes. But at the same time, there's. There is a meaning behind their name. If you keep on using their name over and over again for no particular reason, then they won't get the meaning. All the think that they're doing is that you're just being whatever, right? So at the end of the day, find something that they want and then say the name when they're looking at you and when they're, like, wanting something from you. And slowly they will understand. Okay, so a lot of parents will say, right, if I do this, wouldn't they learn their names very slowly? Well, yes and no, man. I mean, if you really want your child to learn something real quick, have something that will die for, right? Like something that, you know. Like, for instance, if you want to learn something, put something on the edge, right? Put like $10,000 on the edge, on the line, and then make sure that you learn something so that you don't lose it. And this was the same as teaching anyone, any human being or any animal or whatever, but put something. Get something that I like, and then keep on making them listen to it and come to you, okay? So now I'm getting a little repetitive. And you might think that, okay, this is easy, so I'll go ahead and do it. But I'm telling you, it's human nature. It's in your blood to keep on repeating and asking for a child's attention for no particular reason. And this is something you have to understand. You have to understand that it's something that is selfish, okay? I'm not judging you. It's just that you're selfish. You want your child's attention, okay? There's nothing in for them. It's just that you. A lot of time is that when I go to a friend's, like, at my age, my friends are starting to have kids, all right, and starting to have pets. And what they do is basically they ask for that attention. And after that they just go, yeah, good, good, good. Thanks. Right? There's nothing, okay? And you think about it. You have to shift your mind, okay? Think about it. If your child has a speech delayed, it's like, on a spectrum, okay? It's already hard to get them to look at you. It's already hard to get them to play with you. It's already difficult for them to, like, engage with you. Then what are the chances of Them, like responding to their names, right? It's near to zero. So let me tell you something. I'm sure that your child will come to you when you call their name during dinner time when they're hungry, okay? That's for sure. That's for sure. So what I'm telling you to do is, you know, use the names only. Only when you know it's. How to say it's worthy of their time, okay? Use it only when you have something to offer. Use it only when you have something to reward them with, all right? Do not use it. Do not repeat stuff. Because when you repeat things, repeat phrases, repeat words, you're using something that doesn't work, okay? If you're doing something that doesn't work over and over again, you know that they're gonna, they're gonna ignore you, then why are you doing it in the first place, right? You're hoping to, like, break a wall by crashing into it. It's the same thing. And it takes someone like myself from a third eye, you know, third person perspective to tell you that this doesn't work, okay? So it needs to be the other way around. If you want your child to respond to you when you call the name, don't repeat yourself, okay? Either. Like, I'm not even going to say that. Just don't repeat yourself, okay? And other than having something that they want, make sure that you say it when they're having fun with you, okay? And make sure that when you call a name, you don't use that tone. And what I mean by tone is that, how to say this, everyone has a tone when they call someone that they're like, they're close to, don't use that tone, okay? Because whenever you use that tone, children, especially on, you know, like, who are delayed or on a spectrum, they catch onto these things because that's how they cope with the world, you know, like, they don't know a lot about this world. So whenever they hear that type of tone or that type of. When you're telling them, tell them to do something and then you call their name, then they know it's work, right? Especially when parents say, oh, Dave, Dave. Like Dave, right? I'm not going to use his real name, right? But there's a client of mine that, you know, whenever he finishes playing, the parents want him to pack up and then let's say his name is Dave, right? The mom will say, like, Dave, it's time to pack up, Dave. You didn't listen to me. She keeps on repeating and then finally when the child starts to pack up and then she's like, yeah, okay, just sits back without praising, without rewarding, without anything. And what does it mean? It means that the word, Dave, the word pack, the sentence, pack up, didn't mean anything. It's just by chance that the child finished and he wanted to pack up to play the next game. Okay? And I want you to take a step back and look, is there any, like, interaction like that? Because the more you do like that, the more the child thinks that this is something that they can ignore and they will ignore. And in the future, it's very difficult to teach. All right, So I might be going a little too, like, long winded here. But what I. What I need you to understand and so that, you know, you don't need to ask me anymore, is that, are you, like, annoying your child like, crazy? Are you, like, telling them to pack up over and over again? Are you telling to come over to do something or, like, throw something in the bin by calling their name? Are you pairing up work with their name? That's the biggest problem. You're not pairing rewards and fun stuff with their name, but you're pairing work and what they should do according to what we think. Like, they should pack up. They should, like, clean the plates, they should throw away the trash. You know, they. They should, like, give us the newspaper, you know, whatever. I've seen a lot of stuff as a speech therapist, okay? I've seen parents wanting the kid to, like, read the Bible and do a prayer together when they can't talk. And it sounds crazy to you right now, but when you're doing it, you don't think you're crazy because, you know, a child who doesn't. Who cannot talk and has problems with speaking, and the parents who want them to pray because, you know, religion is before a lot of things in a lot of cultures. I respect that. And actually, I am kind of like that as well, you know, like, you cannot expect them to recite a prayer or a Bible verse just because you call the name over and over again, okay? Children don't respond to you is because you're not helping them enough because it's too difficult or they don't want to. We can solve both of that by making sure that it's easy to look at you, right? Because you're at ground level, like, eye level, all right? You're not pulling your head or whatever. Like, think about it. Like, a lot of parents tell me, like, not a lot. Okay? This week there were four. Okay? Four parents asked Me, no matter what I do, I call the name, I twist the neck. You know, I put something next. Like let's say they wanted, like what do we have here? Look like a phone, right? They wanted a phone. I put the phone next to my eye. That's what the, you know, professionals say. Put something they want next to the eye and then they'll look at you, right? I'll say like their name, something like Dave, Dave, Dave, Dave, Dave. Like that. Still not looking. Okay, why is it not working? Because first of all, you're not making it easy for them. They don't understand what you're doing. You're forcing them, you're turning the head. You're basically twisting your necks, right? It's not comfortable. Think about it, if every time someone calls your name and twistes your neck, what are you going to do? You're going to hate it. And whenever you hear a name, it reminds you of that experience. So it's not cool. Okay, so I'm going to like, I know this topic is very, very, very, very, very hot because a lot of parents ask me this and I'm going to include it in the micro course about like a step by step way of how to do it. Obviously I'm going off the cuff here and just ranting a little bit. But at the same time, it's literally what you need to do, right? You just need to have something they want, have a reason for them to respond, you know, and also don't, don't like pair it with like stuff that you don't like. For instance, like doing work and twisting your necks and stuff. Okay, so Danya here says my son looks to his name about a little more than a half of the time. I believe he knows his name because he started requesting Daniel tablet. Our SLP told us to teach him. I want and he just, well, stat. How do you teach him? My name is Daniel. Okay. So my, the question is always for me is like why do you think this is something functional for him? Like for instance, if you are teaching him to answer what's your name? I think it's fine. Okay, like to answer what's your name? But when would it be, wouldn't it be functional for him to say my name is Daniel? Does he have to say it when he orders food at the counter or if he's in a shopping mall, which he would be very lost anyways and he would be very, he would be very stressed out anyways. He, he cannot like say the, the speech or language that he learned with you. Or your therapist. Right. So why is it that you think it's like, I'm. It's. It's for sure. It's. I'm trying to answer your question, but at the same time, I don't think that's the thing that you should do right now. Okay. There's a reason why your SLP told him to, like. Oh, I see. So Daniel here kind of says, like, oh, I asked him, what is your name? Right. And he doesn't need to say, my name is Danny. All he has to say is Daniel. Right. So you can write Daniel out on a piece of paper. Okay. Like, on a piece of paper like this. Right. It can be very low tech. Write it out, and then you say, what's your name? And show him Daniel. What's your name? Daniel. And you can put, like, Daniel here and his picture. Right. And then as long as he has been looking at himself in the mirror, he would know that's himself. Right? So he already knows that his name himself is Daniel. Okay? So whenever you give him a question like, what's your name? And then you show the visual cue of Daniel and the face, then he will say Daniel for sure. All right, so to clarify, I don't think it's functional for him to suddenly say out of nowhere that my name is Daniel. First of all, it's too long. If your child is like, Daniel is learning how to say, like, I want tablet. Like, three words. Actually, I want is kind of one word because he wouldn't say like, you want or, you know, dad wants, mom wants. Right? So it's actually one word, if you get what I mean. There's only one meaning within the whole thing. So what I'm trying to say is that he is around two words because he's saying Daniel tablet. He's not saying, like, damn, give me the tablet. Like, he's only saying, Daniel tablet. If you teach him, my name is Daniel, that's four. Like, that means that you're not thinking. And I don't mean this in a bad way, Daniel. I mean that you're not thinking in your child's shoes because that's literally telling him to memorize a sentence for no reason. Okay? So I wouldn't ever do that. And I would never ask you to do that either, as a child to remember that either. Other than the, you know, a special case, like in Hong Kong, where kindergarten interviews. Freaking crazy. And they keep on asking children to, like, ask them, what's your favorite author? Who's your. Who's your favorite author? What's your favorite book? You know, like, what's your, you know, what, what does your parents do? How old are you? What's your favorite hobby? Like, what do you do for a weekend? Asking like two or three year olds. That's crazy. So for me, if your child is speech delayed and, you know, possibly on the spectrum, I wouldn't teach them like, my name is Daniel. That's too long. Just add, just teach him to answer the simple questions like, what's your name? How old are you? You know, where do you live? These are enough. And these are only for, like when he's lost, you know, you need to think about how functional it is. Okay? So I hope that I answered your question, Daniel. All right, so I'm gonna end this live very soon because this, this topic has been too. It's been like this question has been coming up too much, right? So what I would say is that you need to have a mindset about thinking what's functional. Don't think in a way that you know, because your child is already delayed. Therefore you want to catch up. But when you try to catch up and you try to like, keep on repeating something and asking for a child's attention, that actually doesn't push your child's language forward, okay? And I really think that adds stress to the child. So if you don't understand what I'm saying, you can go back, watch the video again, but you can also go to agentsofspeech.com micro the whole micro course is about changing your mindset, about teaching your child because it's difficult, because using what works for typically developing children on speech lay children simply doesn't work. And most of the time it's because, you know, speech lay children, their IQ is totally normal, right? So therefore when you, you treat them abnormally, meaning you keep on repeating and, you know, taking their head and switching them and telling that them to do stuff over and over again that makes them feel like they're not normal and they're stressed out. So, you know, that's why as a whole theme, right. A lot of parents feel like speech delayed children are bullying them. They're not listening to them, they're refusing to answer to their names. These are common themes. So I hope this was this live was good enough for you to understand. I'm summarize one more time. Don't repeat yourself. Have something of value, a reward or anything for them to look at you, right? If you call their name and they do look by chance, reward them with, I don't know, Like a smile. Like, tickle them if they like it, you know, smile at them, make a funny face. It doesn't mean to be like super crazy. It's just like. Like that. That's still okay, right? And don't call a name to make them do something because that's a punishment in their minds. Not in our minds. We just think that, hey, that's what everyone does. So you should do it. So I'm going to answer some questions real quick before I end. So Sin here says my son, 2, doesn't respond to what is your name? But he knows his name because he responds to instructions such as, P, put on your pants. You will do it. He's going to be five, by the way. Okay? So him and he. Him responding to instructions with his name in front doesn't mean that he understands his name. Okay? Just means that he understands. Put on your pants. But I am not sure. But like, what is your name? Is very easy. Just use that thing that I was talking about and make sure you have strong rewards when you're teaching that. Okay? It's very easy to teach a simple, like just memory, right? What's your name? Daniel. What's your name? P. Right. Use visual cues, okay? Don't just leave it to them to remember it. Okay. Nabil. Hey, Nabil. Long time no talk. So she says, how do I help my child to answer questions like why, how? And while narrating. So it's totally off topic, Nabil, but for this, I don't think you should do it whilst narrating a story. You should do it whilst playing a board game so that there's a context, you know, like if he does something. Like if you do something out of the rule and she doesn't like it and you ask why, then she will be able to say that the basic structures of it, right? Like for instance. For instance, if you roll a dice that's five, and you walk only one, then. And you leave it at that, and she's not very comfortable with it, then she's gonna say, hey, no, mom, you're supposed to walk one like that. And when. When she's physically like, you can see that she doesn't like it. And then you can. When you know that she. She knows. When you know that she knows there's a problem with it, with the situation. And then you can see how much language that comes out of her mouth. And then you can help her and teach her how to answer with. Because whatever. Whatever, right? According to her language level. All right? So I think I'M going to stop here for today. It's a question that I get a lot and I hope that I tried my best to answer it and I, I promise you I will make a very substantial training about this inside the micro course because it's been plaguing me as well. It's been like this question has been, has been around for a long time. So it's going to be in the micro course. I'm going to add one more module to it so you can go to agents of Speech.com micro and sign up now and, and if you're on my email broadcast, I will tell you when this is updated. Okay. So join now so that later on and I'll be putting more and more videos in there and you might ask me like why is it that you know, why don't just put it on YouTube, whatever. It's just that if you go through a sequence of videos that I've made after answering a lot of questions and with like PowerPoint slides and video examples, it's much easier for you to understand. And recently inside the Facebook group, parents who have watched the videos are getting very good results because we lay it down very, very in a concrete sense. And if you want to, if you want to, that is after the micro course parents are looking for more of a like step by step approach after like dealing with the mindset issues. Like for instance I'm telling you not to repeat, not to like tell them to punish them. And that's something that you've never heard of before. Right? All you are thinking right now is your goal is to get them to respond to you but you never thought about their motivation or is it too hard or too easy and how you should do it. So micro course and the introduction course kind of covers that. But after that if you want to like for instance Nabil was asking how do you answer questions like like why and how these kind of stuff. It needs a step by step approach. Okay. And then like after you get all these mindset stuff, we're trying an agency speech is to make new training for parents who want to, to make them into a longer step by step introduction course with like not introduction course like a step by step course that is more in depth for parents who are, who want to teach. Right. So yeah, that's the end of the live for today and I hopefully I can see you guys next week. So we do this kind of live every Monday on 9pm Jakarta time, 10pm HK time and what's that? 10am Eastern standard. If you're not in Asia. Okay, so see you guys. Put your comment. Put your questions in the comments, and I'll be sure to answer them if I didn't. If I haven't answered them on the live already. Okay, see ya.