When to Push Your Child to Speak and Communicate?

Hello. Good evening, everybody. Hi. Hi, hi, hi, hi. There should be, there should be audio. All right, let me know if there is or is there not just a real quick live tonight. To supplement on what I was talking about, an email that I sent this morning to my subscribers on the email list. And I just wanted to start off by saying that thank you so much for joining me. And also that as a parent, if you're watching this, it means good, you want to learn more about how to teach your child and that's great. So let's dive into the meat of this. Oh, great. Thank you, Ashley. So let's dive into the meat of this whole life. Okay, so what we want to talk about today is when to push your child to speak. Okay. If you are on my email newsletter, which you should, you should go to agentsofspeech.com and sign up there. And what I was talking about was basically that a lot of parents, they try to push their children to speak better, talk in a way that we want them to talk. Right. And speak that. That is actually what therapy is about. So the reason why I'm doing this is because one of my clients who came over, obviously we just started off therapy again and it's been quite eventful because, you know, I have to, you know, put on a face mask and everything and be very careful. The thing that we had to, the thing that the parent told me about was that, hey, hey, Ming, there isn't enough progress. You know, should we push the child a little bit more so that she listens to us and so that she catches up to the peers? And I was like, hey, there's a lot of progress already. There's huge progress in terms of, you know, she looking at you, she doing the things that you want her to do. She's copying, right? So when should we push them? When should we decide that it's not enough? Okay. And the truth is, is that it's never enough. It's never enough. Parents will always think that there's room for improvement. And I have, I can say this because I have a client who has a 13 year old son. I have a client who has a 29 year old daughter. I have clients who are also 20 something, 18. The moms are always trying to push, always trying to push the child to get to the next level. And they believe that by trying, by and trying different types of therapy and putting them in difficult situations, they will become a better person or, I don't know, a better student of like communicating. Right. But the thing is, you have to remember all the agendas, all the goals, who, who set it. Right. I'm sorry about my, my phone holder thing is like going down by itself for no reason. So anyways, I was saying the agendas, the goals, who made it up? You and I did. Right? The therapist and the parent did. We came up with a certain, a certain thing, a certain thing we want to work with and it became something that we, we put on, we push onto our children. Right. So children will do they get to choose? No, they never get to choose. Right. So should we push them to do things that we want them to do? Absolutely, yes. But when should we push them? All right, these are the criteria. Number one, when there's a clear objective, there's a clear why they should do it. Okay, so let me give you example. So I have a 13. Hi Lali. Sorry if I get it wrong. Okay, so there's a client who is 13 years old and if I didn't tell him what the reason is behind the therapy, right? What, what was the reason behind it then? A lot of times it's very hard push for him to do something. So sometimes I take a whole lesson, take a whole hour to describe and tell him or her why the therapy needs to be done. Okay. Similarly to another client, I use a lot of time to explain and for her to understand why I want certain things to be done. Okay. There are secondary resources, results from therapy and what I mean by that is that your child would know that, hey, actually by listening and doing therapy, I will be able to communicate better, therefore have more friends and therefore I'm going to be more successful or you know, going to have me have more fun or something like that. So your child needs to understand that because we know best, right? We know that, you know, if you listen to us and we push them to talk and push them to learn those new things, they will be better off in life. Right? That's what we're trying to do. Right? But your child needs to know why or at least incentivized. Right? So what I mean by that is like some children do not yet, do not have yet the mind to be able to have a conversation with us yet. Right? If we tell a two year old like, hey, you got to listen to me, you got to imitate me, because later on you need to start speaking, you need to learn how to imitate and then speak and then, you know, make friends and then get a job and then live a happy life, right? That is actually not describing anything because they don't understand at all. So how do you make them care? How do you make them care? Number one is to have rewards. Make sure that they understand by listening to us, they get rewarded. Okay? If you don't have anything, then it's asking someone to do volunteer work. All right? And why does volunteer work? Why do we do volunteer work? Because we have a cause. We have something we want to be done in the world, right? We have a why. But children who are below three or even below four, I would say, do not understand exactly why they have to communicate with anyone. All right? It's a hard push. If you're pushing your child to do things you want them to, it's selfish because. Because, you know, it's what I want, not the child's want. So similarly, I want to let you know that if you're watching this and you think that, oh, I have to push more so that my child will learn more, that's, like, counterintuitive because the more you push, the harder the child will push back. And, you know, when you teach or the therapy, whatever, it ends in tears. Okay? How many times have you seen, like, if you've been throwing your child? Not throwing, but, you know, getting your child to go to therapy, and then just for the whole 30 or 45 minutes, the kid just cries and tries to get out. You never want that. That's pushing too hard. Okay? And there must be a reason behind pushing. The majority of the reason why about children, why they talk to us is because it's fun. If it's not fun, then there's no point. There really isn't a point for him or her to talk to us. Right? They're much better in their own world. I mean, if you leave a child maybe on the spectrum, maybe not, maybe speech delayed or whatever, if you leave them alone for a bit, they're pretty. Okay. They don't really care if you, you know, you're there or not. Right? They really don't care. They really do not care. They can go on themselves for a very long time without much, without anyone actually, like. Like interfering. Right? There's a lot of things you have to understand, all right? And number one is, have you made it clear why your child has to talk to you? The number one reason, as always, is always to make them, like, want something from us, they should come to us. That's the whole point of communication. They should come to us with a request. And at that request, it might be something we want, but might be something they want to play with. Might be, you know, might be Your attention. But if we always try to get to the child, it becomes needy. Okay? We don't want to be needy. All right? You have seen, and I've said this many times before, right? You know, if you go up to a child and you get too playful and you're trying to push your agenda real hard, it's not going to work. All right? Recently, a parent sent me a video of her playing with a kid. And she just really wanted the kid to, like, say the verbs, you know, just wanted. Really wanted to, like, push that kid to talk. But around like a minute after, there was a click, right? The kid. I wish I could show you the video right here. I'll ask the parent maybe if I can or not. So basically what happened was she was having fun with the kid, but she pushed too far. But. And what happened was the kids started to think it wasn't fun. There's nothing in for him, so he left. Right? So if this happens many times, it leaves a bitter taste in the child's mouth, right? It leaves them unable to. It will, like, decrease the interest in playing with you. Okay? And this is what happens, especially when we're too pushy or needy about what we want. So many of you guys who are watching are mothers, so therefore you're female. So think about this, okay? Think about this. Don't take this, like, example to heart. I'm just saying it as, like, a way to illustrate it. So you guys must have been. Must have had a lot of guys trying to, like, chase after you, right? And a lot of times, what happens when a guy becomes more too, like, too upfront with his needs, right? Too upfront with what he wants from you. And too much, just too much. Too much coming up to you too strongly. What does that have? What. How's that happen? Like, if the guy isn't handsome, it's creepy, right? So you think about it. Your child doesn't care if you're beautiful or handsome or whatever. Yes, Leena, Yes. You are a pusher too. So this. This video is for you as well. So they don't care. They don't care whether you are, like, you're really beautiful or anything. Because this isn't like a male and female dating situation. It's a situation where it's a mother and a child or like a father and a child. So if you push too hard, they're gonna try to leave because that's not on their agenda, right? They didn't ask for it. So you need to make sure that they're on the Same page, right? Sometimes you have to take a very long time to describe exactly why you're doing therapy. Especially for mature students, mature children, I'm talking about 10 plus years old, when they start to have a brain where they start to compare themselves to other people, when things are too hard, it will try to shy away. Okay, but what if we're talking about preschoolers, right? Kindergarten kids or whatever, Is that the case that you should talk to them a lot? Well, yes and no. It depends on what kind of like situation we're dealing with. If we're dealing with like a language case, then most of all you have to make sure that every time you communicate with your child, number one, it's easy, there's no way in failing. And number two, it's very rewarding. Okay, These are the two things that you should always do. As we always say on this channel, on this Facebook page, in my email, that, you know, there's only two reasons why human beings don't do certain things. Number one, they cannot physically do it. It's too hard, right? Number two is they don't want to. They're not motivated, right? So if anything is super easy or what if, whatever and it's super motivating for all of us, then we would all be in like top bikini shape for you guys and for me, like six pack abs and millionaires, right? But that's not the case right now, right? So you, even the most motivated people need that incentive. So think about your child. Think about your child being so comfortable in their own shell, playing without caring about like, like what you do in the room, in the house, whatever. Now we're all in quarantine. But from what parents have been reporting to me is that the social distancing is literal. A social distance. The distance is growing between inside the household, right? Less talking, less interaction, less fun, less laughter. And because of the change in routines, they would much rather be at the same corner in the house if they wanted to. Right? So at the end of the day, what kind of message am I trying to say to you, right, I'm trying to say is like push, but only when your child knows why and they're on the same page. Okay? If you try to push your child whilst they have some reservations towards your methods or you in general, maybe that's heartbreaking, then it's going to result in a really bad taste in their mouth and you will have to undo those kind of things and try to get back to where it was before. All right, so you might ask me, hey, Ming So what should I do now? If you're watching this and you're thinking, dude, maybe I'm pushing too hard, right? Well, first of all, you have to evaluate does your child listen to you? Does your child, how does your child respond to you pushing your agenda on him or her? Okay? If every time it becomes like tantrums, angry, and then you know, you have to like give them some kind of reward afterwards, it becomes a routine, okay? It becomes a rather toxic relationship. And the reason why I say this is because behaviors which repeat will find itself to repeat itself, okay? It's just the natural human being kind of nature, right? So try to break that habit. Try to start off with having a reward already, right? Getting them in the routine of listening to you, make sure that every step of the way they feel like taken care of. They know that you will help them no matter what happens, okay? Then they will do anything you want because number one, they cannot fail. Number two, you're great person, they know that you won't force them to do anything. And number three, there's rewards at the end of the day, right? So you might ask me, hey, how about like am I going to use rewards till the very end? And my answer is yes. But rewards come in different forms, right? When we just start, it might be really, really, we're using food, really primitive reinforcements. Rewards like drinks, food, iPads, whatever. As we progress further and further, it becomes social, right? Become acceptance of me, like acknowledging you, that is already a reward. That's why we try to do better for ourselves, because we want acknowledgement from other people, right? So slowly we're pairing those toward those primitive rewards, towards more social. That's what makes us human, okay? And if your child isn't communicating at this level, then the rewards, they need a match up, right? If your child doesn't even isn't even talking much, right? It's social distance because. Not because of corona, but you know, then it needs to match up with their ability, right? If they are already talking, then, you know, use more social praise, use more social reinforcements. But if they are more on the side where they're still very thinking about what's in it for them, very selfishly, then use things that you can control like food, like toys, like iPad time or you know, drinks, taking them out for sushi or something. These things do work, all right? We use it every day. I use it. That's what monthly salary does to you. It keeps you rewarded and keeps you working. Okay, so let me summarize this short live. I wanted to make for you for so many times that. Because I'm in Asia, right. A lot of parents are like, oh, so what should I do? Why is it like that? And the last thing they say, how do we make it happen? How do we. Should we push her or him a little bit more? The answer is always not to push, right? The answer is always to think about what they want. Why is it that they cannot do it. And then make sure that you take care of why they cannot do it. You take care of that and you give them a reward. It means, you know that there's no way that it's going to fail. Okay. As long as you know what they cannot and can do and then make sure that they can do the things they cannot. It's a mouthful. That means, you know, using cues that you will learn on my Facebook page and this channel is to use more of these and then pair it with rewards that are age appropriate and according to the level, then you won't lose at all. All right. People are gonna listen to you, not only your children. Okay. You have to do that. Yeah. So Lena says in my case, does she really know how or understand if we push? Well, if she knows that we are pushing her, why does she seem like clueless? Kind of big question on my mind. Yeah. So Leena, the reason why I actually spent a whole lot of time trying to explain to her about why we're doing this, about why you shouldn't reject our help. Right. Is basically what I'm trying to like take care of at that part, the motivation behind it. Right. So why does she seem clueless is because she really is clueless. She doesn't even understand why things are like that. She's rigid and she doesn't understand that there's a hierarchy of people. Right. And people can have different roles. That's just the nature of her. And we're talking about like a student of mine here. And. And how do we do this? Is going to take some time. Right. Because we're dealing with right now. What we're dealing with, me and Lena are dealing with are problems that are behavioral based. Right. Not social, not anything behavioral. Okay. So sometimes when it comes down to that kind of level of problem, which is very basic, we will use very basic solutions, which means that were rewarding with like food, drinks, whatever I've had just to make sure that they do not do those things. Okay. So for her, when we push her, if she doesn't understand why, she's going to push back and seem clueless. And most of the time she doesn't understand why. So that's why you really. We really need to tell her slowly. We need to talk to her all the time and, you know, keep on, you know, telling her why we're doing this and make sure that she understands and slowly. Maybe it will work. Okay? I'm not sure, but sometimes she doesn't need to know. Okay? Like, for instance, what we were dealing with before, that's purely on the behavioral level. Those things you just tell her, all right, and reward her and hope that she understands. And if she doesn't, you know, give her more reward or, you know, tell her exactly what to do, then it's fine. As long as we work around her rigidity, it should be good. Okay? So this time I haven't, and that's my fault as well. So slowly we are learning more about this client of mine. And if you have any questions, do put it in the comment section right now, because I'm going to end it very soon. From now on, it's going to be more of at night because these lives, I believe more people are actually watching at night. Okay? And numbers do show a lot more people. And really, guys, if you really push your child too much, right, it's going to make it harder and harder for you to come back. Especially if you push so hard that your child runs away from you, has. You know, whenever you try something, they know then it's very difficult because when you try to prompt or cue your child to speak and then they know what's going to happen next, then they will. Whatever you prompt or cue, it becomes the cue for them to leave or the cues of them to, like, ignore you. So be careful about that, all right? We will push when. Okay, so I'm going to go a little deeper, right? So we're going to push when the number one, there's a history of successful. Of successful trials where, you know, successful results, right? Where we use this method where we can then keep on using it, right? But if we're trying stuff, do not push. If it doesn't work, like a lot, then don't push. Because once your child knows that, you know, it's just a matter of time and practice, then they are much more willing to actually listen to you. If you. There's a lot of unsuccessful, failed trials and you keep on doing it. And let me ask you what, let me tell you what I mean by that, right? I haven't really defined what I mean by pushing. So if you're the kind of parent I don't know if you are or not, this is over the Internet. Please don't take this to heart. I'm just trying to help here. So if you're the kind of parent who asks a question over and over, over and over and over again and expecting a response, then you know that's pushing, right? You're not helping, first of all, because you haven't provided any extra help. You just kept on doing the same thing over and over. And the child's mind was like, you're actually in the therapy sense, you're like going into a wall and, like, banging into a wall a hundred times, hoping that the wall will break, right? But it's not like that. Whenever you want your child to give you an response, you should keep on making it easier for him or her. So let me give you an example. Recently, I've got this client who, you know, keeps on. I've been teaching, like, who and the where questions, who and what doing? Like, what's he doing? And who is it? Right? And the mother kept on asking, kept on asking, like, what is it? What is it? What is it? What? What is. Hey, I know you know it. Come on. What's. What is it? Yeah, maybe your child does know it. But if you keep on repeating the question, if you keep on repeating the question, it's not going to help the child at all, right? Let me ask you. If I asked a question to you in Chinese and Cantonese, I kept on repeating it like, right, you wouldn't know what it is, what I'm talking about, right? So stop repeating something over and over again, hoping that your child will understand. That's pushing your child towards failure, right? What you should do is to provide help, right? So. So that your child is responsive to your cues and prompts. So for instance, if I say, what is this? Your child doesn't know, I would give a prompt, say this one, right? Always use my cup because it's always here. It was this. And then the child doesn't respond. I would give a feedback. I'll tell her a hint or whatever and say, hey, you didn't answer me. Maybe you don't know, right? That's fine. What's this? Maybe then she will respond. If she still doesn't respond with, like, the first sound, then I would go on and tell exactly what it is, right? So that the child knows, right? Instead of keep on repeating, okay? You shouldn't repeat and hope that they will somehow know. It's impossible. Okay? So that's actually what I mean by pushing. All right? And this is not Only at like a question level. It also means like when you see a child who doesn't understand something, for instance, Leena's child, right? Who's watching right now, you keep on repeating the same thing over and over again and then saying, how come you don't understand? Right. You should never do that. Right. If they don't understand, there must be a reason behind it. And if you're not finding the reason behind it, you're not helping. When you're not helping, the child's angry because you're not helping. You just keep on repeating the same thing over and over again, hoping that he would understand. Right? So if a child could understand through repetition, don't need speech therapy, don't need any type of therapy, right? Because by repetition they will learn themselves already. So stop forcing your agenda onto them without helping anything at all and without rewards. Okay? Remember that. That's probably all I have to say about this. This was something I was discussing over email to parents who are on my email newsletter. You can sign up@agentsofspeech.com there's like a little box thing that you can put your email in. You also get like a little gift, a little PDF with instructions that I tell you about, like teaching first words. So even if your child isn't at the phase where, you know, they're learning first words or whatever, it's nice that you will be on my email list and you will get more updates there. And that's how I actually get most of my topics here is by, you know, getting emails from parents, them sending me questions, videos, asking me about certain topics and I make it into a live and go on a rant like I have right now. Okay, so more details@agentsofspeech.com my email is actually main@agents of speech.com very easy to guess. You can email me about anything. To be honest, I love answering emails and that's probably it for now. Thank you so much for tuning in and I will see you next Monday night or Monday morning if you're in the U.S. right. Have a good night or good morning and stay safe everyone.