Ugh, my 10-year old came back from a weekend at Grandma's talking like a baby! She says things like "Dat wuz pwetty," basically talking like a 10-year old Tweety Bird. It's accompanied by "sad eyes" and other sorts of baby actions.
At first we laughed at it. That was day 1. Day 2 we asked her to stop, but she kept on so we started ignoring it. Didn't work. I've been acting like I can't understand or hear her when she talks like a baby. It's been a WEEK and I still have to ask her to repeat everything she says so she talks like a 10-year old. She tells us she "can't help it." I'm wondering if it's because she spent a whole weekend with her cousin who is an itty bitty baby and everyone made a big deal about the baby. She's never done it before.
Should I just ignore it and it will go away? I was thinking of taking away her "big girl" privileges if she's going to act and talk like a baby. Am I just making too big off a deal out of it?
Thanks Sharon--and the other mamas! I'm going to try tonight to talk to her about the wonderful things about when she was a baby, and about the wonderful things about her now that she's a "big girl." I feel like it is because she was around her baby cousin who got all of the attention over the weekend. If it continues tomorrow after our talk I'm removing her big-girl privileges that she earned like her phone and iPod. I think if I do that, the baby talk will find a new home!
Gads my daughter does that from time to time, drives me nuts. She is ten as well. I tell her she is cute but that behavior is not, knock it off! She usually stops. For Genna some of the girls in her class do it for attention.
Oh if she continued she knows full well she would lose privileges which is why she stops quickly. I don't tollerate attention seeking very well. :(
Playing with pronunciation can be fun, but even Mel Blanc didn't talk that way all the time unless he was being paid to do it.
Tell her again to knock it off or you'll add extra chores on her until it stops.
It seems to be some annoying fad thing between the ages of 9 to 11 year old. My son did this too and then I heard his friends doing. A few weeks later I heard other parents from other areas complaining about it.
I did not ignore it and we sat him down and explained that when you do not speak proper English and you speak like a baby, adults are not going to listen to you. And he deserved to be heard. That seemed to help.
He would slip up and I would call him out on it. If it happened to often, I would tell if it continued, privileges would be taken away.
I am happy to say it ended very quickly.
Could be the last gasp of wanting to return to babyhood.... She's about to start the tweens and some scary life events are coming up. I ignore it when it comes around, but once when it hung in I put her in my lap like a baby and we went over all of the wonderful things about being a baby and then over all the wonderful things about being a big kid. I told her I sometimes wished she could be my baby again too. It's normal to miss what is passing. We did all of this just before bed and in the morning she was back to being a big kid.
I like your idea of taking her big girl toys away. I think that will knock it out of her. But you really have to take everything away until she stops!
I hope you nip it in the bud now. I have a twenty seven year old sister In Nursing school believe it or not and she still talks like that eeeeick. We cannot figure out why she thinks that is so cute at that age. Good luck!
I went through this phase at that age, and I remember my Mom hating it. I did grow out of it, I don't think it lasted long. Keep reminding her, she will stop.
