Describing Life

By Jennifer Scotton

Until I became a parent, I never understood how much talking the role would involve (for me). I now know how important it is to narrate what I’m doing for my one-year-old because it helps her understand how her world works.

My daughter is just beginning to try sounding out words other than mama and dada, so I’ll tell her what I’m doing as I go along, pointing to objects and trying to entice her to say the word. One of our favorite activities is visiting the plants in our garden to check on how our vegetables are growing. We go out to the garden and she touches the leaves of the plants while I water them. I tell her “Mommy is giving our plants some water so they can grow big and beautiful! Can you say wa-ter?” We pick tomatoes together and I teach her that we leave the green tomatoes until they turn red so they will be nice and juicy, showing her how to gently pluck the fruit from the plant. I love watching her confidence grow with her understanding of the world around her.