Iris, my three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, was making two little characters talk beside a pool made from building bricks when one of them tipped over.
My usual reflex was ready: “We say ‘he fell’.” Then I stopped just before saying it.
Instead, I replied: “Oh yes, he fell into the water! What do you think he’ll do now?”
Iris carried on with her story without missing a beat. Luckily, the man could swim. A crocodile arrived, then a unicorn, which fairly quickly pushed grammar into second place.
And I wondered why I had been so keen to interrupt the scene to correct one sentence.
Should you correct your child’s grammar mistakes?
When a young child makes a grammar mistake, the reflex is understandable. We hear the error, know the right form and worry that if we do not correct it straight away, it might stick.
But correcting every sentence can also interrupt the flow of what they were telling us. They were talking about a crocodile, their day or something they saw in the street, and suddenly the focus shifts to how they said it.
Sometimes we can do something else: respond to what they meant while naturally using the right form in our own sentence.
The model is there. The conversation can carry on.
Respond to what they meant first
Since then, I have mostly tried to notice what is happening in the moment.
If Iris is making up a story or explaining something very seriously, I do not necessarily need to flag every mistake. When the rephrasing comes naturally, I can simply use the right form in my response.
This is not a rule for every sentence. Sometimes Iris asks how to say a word herself. Sometimes I genuinely do not understand what she means and we work it out together. And if something about a child’s language causes ongoing concern, it is of course worth talking to a professional.
But perhaps not every little everyday mistake needs to interrupt what had been a very good conversation.
That day, Iris did not repeat “he fell”.
She had already moved on.
The man had been rescued by the unicorn and, grammatically correct or not, he had a new adventure waiting.
