What to Do BEFORE Asking Your Child to Imitate Your Words | www.agentsofspeech.com/micro

Hey, guys, this is ming here from agentsofspeech.com today we're going to talk about what you need to do before you go ahead and teacher and ask your child to actually imitate what you're saying. And I'm speaking a little softly today because I'm actually not at home. But anyways, so a few parents has asked me over email saying, hey, my kid cannot, like, follow what I say, cannot complete sentences, cannot imitate what I say. And every time when they hold their hands, you know, get down to the level and tell the kid, you know, like, okay, listen to mommy say, I want cookie first. Right? That doesn't really help the kid to understand what's going on. Okay? What you need to do before is that you should always, always, always, always, always deal with behavior first. And what I mean by dealing with behavior first is, for example, when your kid is running away from you, right? When you tell them to sit down, they just ignore you, right? If you tell them to copy what you say, they won't look at you, they won't do whatever. Then that is something you have to deal with first, right? And the reason why you want to deal with this first, right? Is because if your child is not under instructional command for at least like 10 seconds in one go, you're not going to be able to see how much your child can actually do, and you won't be able to see the true ability of your kid. Okay? And this is very important. If you don't know your kid's true ability, okay? Let's say that your kid will sing songs or say words or whatever, but by themselves. But when they're with you, they wouldn't, you know, start saying anything. Then you have to think about why is that Is because they won't show their true ability with you. They won't show that they can imitate those stuff with you because they don't see a reason why. And the reason why they don't see, you know, why they should listen to you is because first of all, they're not under instructional command. They don't care about what you say or do or ask for. Right? Right. Secondly is that during of this, of the time that you're interacting with child, right? They have so many successful trials, so many successful times that they are able to get away with whatever that they like doing with you. Right? So they're. They're used to ignoring you. They're used to, you know, pulling your hand. Then everything can. It will go the way that they want to. Okay? And this is actually a routine that will happen over and over again. And that's why a lot of parents, when they come to our clinic, what they will say is that, okay, how come my kid cannot. Like, how come my kid can sit down with you and listen to you and talk to you, but when we go back home, it's just the same thing over and over again. So when you think about that, we think about that. What you need to learn is not really. Not really what you need to teach your child, but how. Okay, so the how part, we've covered a lot inside of the micro course. A lot of you guys have joined. I'm very grateful of that. It's just a bunch of lessons that are frequently asked questions that I help parents go through. And, you know, a lot of parents see splendid results, but only if you're willing to put in the work, right? So obviously, stuff won't work if you're not willing to try, right? If you try, then, you know, you got to continue doing it over and over again. All right, so how you break out of it is, first of all, you cannot allow yourself to think that as long as they talk, then whatever you do, like, you cannot simply. You cannot simply just hear them talk and then just go, okay, I'll let you have it. Right? You need to build a routine of them wanting to talk to you, okay? And before you even begin about that habit, you need to remember, behavior always goes first. No amount of pushing, forcing, you know, pulling your child, you know, turning their child's head with their. With their hands to make them look at you, none of that is going to help you have that sustained relationship. Okay? Have you seen a therapist do that? I mean, hopefully not, you know, hopefully not that you. You've never seen a therapist trying to, like, turn their heads and make them look at. Look at her or him, right? So how you need to start first is start with, like, the lowest amount of effort that your child can and are willing to actually listen to you. All right? So the first thing is always to teach a gesture. We always talk about this over and over and over again. A lot of parents say, oh, my kid can do that, can do that. And then after they have initial consultation with me, what happens is that I still tell them, hey, you got to get them to, like, imitate your gestures first. Because what we're not. What we're working on is the compliance, the behaviors, and not about the speech. So many parents always think about, oh, I need to get them to talk to me first. Get them to Imitate my words, imitate my sounds, imitate my sentences. And a lot of times what happens is that the kid doesn't even use words consistently meaningfully on a daily basis. Right? Yet you are on maybe not you, okay? Your parents will ask them to speak in a full sentence, all right? And when they cannot do it, they keep on hammering it and then asking the child to do it, all right? There are two problems with that. Number one, you're making them do something impossible, all right? Number two is that you're asking for in compliance, all right? It's just like you're at the first day at job. At your job, you don't know anything. Someone tells you to do something that is like super technical. You don't know how to do it. You haven't had enough time to learn it. And you know that that's. That you cannot do that. If you do that, you know, you're asking for a riot. You're asking for, you know, a go slow at the workplace. You're asking for, you know, what's that called? You know, in compliance, right? Yeah. You as the boss, you haven't done a good job managing your kid, all right? You are the boss at home, and it shouldn't be the other way around, okay? And that's why in our clinic, the therapists are the boss, the friend, the teacher, the therapist, you know, the everything of the kid. And the kid's okay with it, okay? So you have to start with compliance. No matter what. I don't care if your child can, you know, speak in full sentences when they imitate you. If they don't use it by themselves, you don't have anything, okay? I've seen children who can speak in multiple word sentences, like three or four word sentences, and still pull their parents hand. Why? Because it's become a habit. Why? Because you haven't started. Like the parents haven't started with behavior first. I'm gonna start with compliance first, all right? And the objection of this, what parents will say, ah, my kid isn't a robot. Why should I treat them like a robot? You're trying to push like ABA kind of style teaching to me and my kid. Why should I listen to you, right? You don't have to. First of all, you know, I'm just another person on the Internet. That's the first thing. Second of all is that, hey, I would challenge that person to do something in a very natural way, in a very, like, non demanding way, in the not very compliance asking way, to have the amount of quick results and to understand the child's true ability. All right? You know, you can do a lot of those, you know, naturalistic things, you know, And. And we do teach that inside of the courses. We do teach it in Agents of speech. Right. And if you're watching this, you must have learned a little bit already about just how we do things around here. Okay, so let me tell you a little story. And then we're probably gonna end it because it's a holiday here. I'm actually at a. At a retreat. Okay. So anyways, there was a parent who talked to me and worked with me for a few months, so I'm not gonna name her name here. Not gonna. I'm just gonna give enough context for you to understand. Okay? So this. This mother has a daughter who's. Who is on the spectrum and around the age of. I'm not going to say around how old she is, right? So it's above the age of seven. Okay. And the thing about her is that her articulation isn't very good. Her language isn't great at all. She pulls her mom's hand all the time, despite that she's already nearly entering a teenager age. Right? And, you know, we. They've tried a lot of things. They've tried a lot of therapists, they tried a lot of naturalistic approaches. They've tried a lot of what's I call biomedical stuff. They think that, you know, one day this little girl will suddenly click and suddenly do something like amount to communicating with at least her family. All right? And this wishful thinking is great. You know, sometimes it does happen, and hallelujah when it does. But, you know, just. Just to tell you what happened is that when we first started working together, I said, hey, we're going to get her behavior in check. Because what happens is that whenever she doesn't want, she will hit the person across of her, right? And the second thing is that if we use a reward, anything slightly more rewarding to help her to understand, hey, if you want to get this, you know, do these things so that I know how to help you, right? At least I can get a diagnosis out of it. At least I know why her tongue wasn't like, was it weak or was it uncoordinated or whatever, right? So what happened was like, we start using rewards. I asked the mom, let's do it, right? And the mom said, hey, we can't do that because whenever we use rewards, she gets violent and she can't take it, right? And if she takes rewards, she will get very hyperactive. And she won't listen to us. And that is, it's like a double edged sword, right? And one second ago I was preaching to you that we should, you know, use rewards to get, get her into a compliant behavior. And then after compliancy, we can teach them more stuff about language and speech and you know, play and social and so on. Right? So what, what am I trying to get here, right? Like thinking ming, what, what the hell, right? So what happened with the, with, with the mother and the daughter? I told them, hey, if we cannot even get her to understand, after you finish this, you get this, then we don't even need to talk about having a therapy, right? Because all we needed, needed her to do was to be compliant for like 15 seconds, to do something very easy. All right? And because of all the years that therapy, like she's gone to, I don't know what she's been to, right? And I don't want to ask. I mean, I did ask, but I don't want to share with you here. All right. What happened was like without the rewards, all the teaching was like trying to be very naturalistic, trying to talk as if, you know, she doesn't need to reply or sometimes the mother would push her to talk. And the responses from the girl, the girl on the spectrum are very lackluster. What I mean by lackluster is like just, it's like, you know, if you say cookie, you go, and then she cannot take it anymore and she wants that thing, okay? So because she was training without any rewards, there is an incentive for her to do something of higher value, like, of higher accuracy or whatever. You know, it's just like if you have someone to come in to help you and let's say that it's a security guard that you're hiring, right? If every month she gets this amount of money, right, he gets this amount of money and all he has to do is to sit at the corner and do nothing. What incentivizes him to actually get his, you know, but up and do some work, like walk around the neighborhood or whatever or you know, like markdown any suspicious people. There are no incentive because no matter how well he does his job, he still gets that amount of money. Okay, but how about a salesperson who gets a commission every time he makes a sale? You better, you better like, you better bet that, you know, that salesperson will do everything in his power to get a better performance. And that's what you want from a kid. I'm not telling you to like think about oh, I'm treating them like an employee. I don't mean it that way. What I mean is I want the kid to improve. I want him to want. I want them to want to keep on increasing their ability because as they increase to talk better, they get more, okay? And that reward doesn't need to be something like food or snacks or drinks or whatever. It could be your reaction, your praise, your interaction with them, you know, your. Your assurance, your love. You know, this all kind of stuff can be a rewarding factor as it doesn't need to be all the robotic stuff around in the. In the therapy space, right? So to get to there, you must deal with the first thing first, right? You must get them to comply. If you don't comply, then you would be. You'd be toast. You'd be like that mother. All right? She's been hiring therapists to help her out during, you know, since day one, right? Because she said she cannot do it. She doesn't have the patience, whatever. I think that's fair enough. You know, some people aren't cannot do it, and I appreciate it. So this is not for you. Agents of speech is obviously not for you because, you know, we help parents. We don't help, you know, professionals. We have, like, continue educational whatever stuff from like speech therapy organizations and whatnot. This stuff is for parents. This is for you if you're watching as a mother or dad. So she. What happened is like during COVID right? She ended up all that. The therapist will leave no matter what, because most of them are women. Let's face it, if they're a man, okay, that's even worse because they will leave asap. This kind of work isn't very financial rewarding, right? Second of all, therapists who are women, well, I'm not being sexist or whatever. They will get married, right? They will leave the country, they will have children, they will want to do something else. All right, let's say for me, I'm a guy, I left my country, right? I left a bunch of students in Hong Kong, okay? And that's just life. All right? So when this happened to the mother, or she was left with the little girl who was around like over seven years old. Let's stick to that, okay? And then now what happened is like, she just ghosted me, you know, she hasn't spoken to me any more because she knows that she cannot deal with the girl. She would get hit, she would get smacked. Whenever she use rewards, it will get snatched away. Whenever she tried to talk to the child, when she's not happy. She won't. She knows she will get attacked and there will be nothing that can be learned. Okay, is there a way to switch it over and have it like, and start afresh? Of course. But already in their minds, there's a story that they're telling themselves over and over again, is that I'm not competent enough. I'm not therapist. I can't do this. The child is already. Mom's never a therapist or dad's never a therapist, whatever, okay? Because the mom believes that the girl is allowed to behave in that way. And therefore we don't even need to talk about teaching speech, language, or, you know, social or play or whatever, because we don't even have a basic compliance, okay? Everything that the mom says is ignored. All right? So we need to start from there. And if you need that help, you can go to agents of Speech.com micro. Okay? If you go through that, it will be much easier if you ask me a question. Because I get so many questions on, like, Facebook or, like, email and say, oh, I need help. Please help me. My son is three years old. He doesn't talk. Okay, so what do you want me to say? Like, I always have to follow up with a bunch of questions. How, like, the best way I can help you is for you to go through the micro course, right? If it fits your profile, go and watch it. Go and look at that page and see if, okay, the do these parents say the same things as I do? Does this make sense with me? Then, you know, go through it, watch all the videos and then ask me the questions, right? And it'll be much easier for me to actually tell you what's going on, or else it's going to be very difficult because it gets so many questions. Just parents who are in a desperate situation, I get it, but all they do is just say, oh, my, my kid is three. Help me. I don't know. I don't know what's the situation? How do I help you? How do I give you any help without knowing more or you knowing more. Right? So don't be that parent who is fueled by hope. And every time she talks to me is like, how she thanks me is like this, thanks for letting me know that there's still hope. I, I, I will do that. I can do that. But at the same time, hope isn't the thing that will pull you or the child out of the situation. It's, you know, courage, it's consistency, it's ruthlessness towards the kids sometimes, right? It's understanding about what to do. And that comes with practice. From your end, from the mother's end, from the dad's end, right? It doesn't matter if you can come. You come to me. You fly all. All the way over. I've got some parents who fly from other cities, from other countries sometimes to come over here and try to ask for my help, Right? And I'm very flattered with that. Right? But that doesn't mean, like, even if your child can listen to me and they can talk with me, doesn't mean at home is any way, shape or form different. I'm going to end with a last story. I'm going to end this, okay? Because I need a shower. I'm incredibly sleepy. So first of all. Not first of all. Sorry. So let's talk about this last story, okay? So this kid comes to me when he was, like, nearly four. And then what happens is that in the first two or three sessions, he keeps on hitting me, all right? Keeps on hitting me. He keeps on pinching me whenever I talk, whenever I sing. I'm not allowed to sing. You know, I bring out a toy. I bring out his favorite, like, phone app. Still get snatched and bitten and whatever. So I asked the mom and the dad, is this the same at home? And then he's like, yeah, of course, right? So around, like, a month or two in, he starts to open up, open up to me, right? He starts to smile whenever he sees me and lets me, like, do whatever he wants, do whatever I want. And he starts to learn words, right? He starts to talk a lot. And he. We're working on, like, building more vocab, okay? Basically, so, like, this is happening, but after a whole year of therapy with me, and we were up to, like, teaching him to speak in sentences and answering questions, and you know what's crazy about it is that at home, it was still the same. He was still hitting the mom. He was still angry at Dag dad. He was still like, like pinching the helpers, you know, it doesn't matter if your child can fly in my clinic. Be honest. And I'm. I'm saying this because I, you know, there are therapists who are much more experienced than I am, much better than I am. I'm saying this in a humble way because I've learned so much in my years as a therapist, right? But no one has solved the. The. The problems at home. You cannot bring a therapist back home. You will only become like that mother who is constantly asking for external therapist to stay and come to the house every single day. I know that it's great for someone to solve your problems for you, do it for you, done for you. But at the same time, there's so much stuff that we cannot do it we cannot do. Can we sleep next to the kid? No, impossible. Can we be potty training your kid? Well, probably, but not all the time. So hopefully with this last story, you'll understand a little bit more about why I'm making these kind of videos. Because I need your help, okay? Your child needs your help. I can't do everything. And this Covid thing has really made all of us understand that, hey, really, things will get replaced, right? Therapists will leave, will go, will get sick. In some cases, you know, God forbid that, you know, they might pass away, right? And I'm saying this, like, rather emotionally, because I. I've known people who have passed away because of this whole pandemic thing, okay? And it's not. Not very nice. So at the end of the day, you need to be that person, okay? You need to help yourself, help your child, and help me out, Help the therapist out. Because with your help a little bit, our jobs will be much easier. Number one, with your help a little bit, your child will learn a lot more. All right, so that's all for tonight. Thank you for tuning in, guys. If you haven't really, you should really join the micro course. And who should join it, right? Who, if your child still pulls your hand, automatically watch those videos. Okay? You don't need to ask me. You don't need to do anything. Just go in and join. Yes. It's paid, it's not free, but, you know, that's that. Okay, go and join and watch. And that's all for tonight. Thank you. And hopefully you guys stay safe. And I'm certainly very happy to see you guys during this little retreat that I'm having. But I'll be back at home next week, and, you know, we can hang out again then. Okay? So see you guys again. I stress the fact that everyone stay safe. So see you guys. Bye. Bye.