Communication Skills

Speaking about Ishi's communication skills, I must say they are awsome and way beyond her age. She speaks very good telugu and can communicate any thought of hers without any blabbering. Anyone would comprehend what she said and will not require parents translation of what she said (like how it happens with kids her age). She even has good command over the language(for her age).

Once we were sure that she is confident and perfect in telugu, we consciously made an effort to converse with her in multiple languages at home. Now she speaks broken hindi with the bong kid next door. She speaks better kannada with kannadigas around. And she speaks good english.

But I just realized that she speaks a very good english. This evening after her dad came back from work, as usual, she just ran and hugged him. After an excahnge of kisses and hugs, he just started a normal conversation in english to which she replied without much ado. Initially we thought it was ok. But he went on asking her questions and she went on giving answers without a pause to think. And this without a single grammatical error. S was on a questioning spree till he was exhausted and this girl did not seem to be in a mood to stop. At some point of time we were surprised. Whoa!!! Commendable. She picked most of her english from school. Great job kiddo!!

I am being appreciative of her not because I am her mom, but because a kid of her age is progressing at a commendable rate. All this reminds me of an incident when I was a kid.....
I must be 5 or 6 years old at that time when this incident happened. We (me, mom n sis) went to CCC to attend inter-school competetions being held for teachers. Mom participated in many events and won prizes in chess, carroms, throwball etc (I vaguely remember if its more) It was a break in between the events and all teachers from different schools sat in a place and were chating. The discussion zeroed down to kids and their learning ability. Then mom told them that I was progressing way faster than my age. A telugu pandit challenged mom that he would prove her wrong. All kids were oblivious of the happenings and were just playing. Mom called me suddenly and asked me to write down whatever that telugu pandit said. He gave me a dictation of 10 telugu words and I just wrote them down, all correct. I dont remember what conversation happened between that pandit and mom but what I remember is that I received chocolates from some teachers sitting around.

Thinking of the incident, I am surprised at the confidence mom had in me back then and how well she knew me. I am sure, Ishi will be nothing less than that. Whatever it is, I am not that kind of a parent who would want her kid to come first in everything. I would never want her to be in a race. I just want Ishi to grow up to be a person with a clean personality.