Jeremy at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris with his Mamie
I’m not sure when it was precisely that I started to freak out about Jeremy’s speech development. I think it was when I noticed that my friends kids at around the same age were saying things like “truck”, “car” and “juice” and singing whole nursery rhymes. Naturally, I questioned why Jeremy wasn’t verbalising his wants and needs. We get so much information and opinions about kids speech development that one can’t help but feel bombarded. Friends say this, grandparents say that, the professionals advise us something else altogether but a parent’s gut instinct is one that is the most ‘informative’. In the case with Jeremy, I felt that his speech development was slower than some other kids but ok on the basis that he comes from a trilingual home. I have a Vietnamese background, married to a French man and we live in an English speaking country. Thus, without doubt we ideally would like Jeremy to grow up speaking all three languages.
Paul and Jeremy at a Parisienne Brasserie
At the moment, he’s 28 months and has about 50 words in total from the three languages and has started to string two and three words together. We are in absolute parent heaven when he answers questions with a word and when he answers with two words, we are in cloud nine high heaven!
So for any of you parents out there who are concerned and anxious with your child’s speech development, use your gut instinct and believe in it.
