As I walk around my neighborhood, minding my own business, yeah right, I notice many, many things, and some are downright scary. Many of you may think I am talking about teenagers, or crime, lol, but no I am talking about something much more serious, and ominous. The dreaded three B’s —– . What are they you might ask, well if you take a hint from up above they are binky’s (pacifiers), bottles, and blankets. You might be saying to yourself those are all items that are perfectly fine, however when used in two’s or evens three’s they definitely become scary. Let’s start by walking around a mall for instance; you will see children of walking and talking age with a bottle in a hand, pacifier in the mouth, and a blanket in the other hand.
Now that we have that picture in mind, let’s start with communication, you cannot communicate if a pacifier is always present in your mouth, you will point usually, grunt, and cry, which all can be done with the pacifier tucked safely in your mouth. Another problem with pacifier’s is that they were made to pacify infants, yes infants, not toddlers and/or preschoolers, and might I add some school age children use them as well. OH MY!!! Due to the increasing age of the children using the pacifiers they not only stunt speech development, they push against the upper palate and shift teeth making a tongue thrust evident as well as problems with dentition. There are also social issues as well, which I will discuss later on.
Now on to the dreaded bottle, which many think are perfectly acceptable up to age 4 or more, OH MY! This also causes complications with speech and with communication, especially if the bottle is always used. A child should be off a bottle by the age of one, and should be drinking from a cup. Unfortunately, the bottle makers have disguised bottles in the form of yes that’s right, sippy cups! What’s that you say, yes sippy cups now resemble bottles at least the top does, which is what many children are drinking out of. Due to these factors, children are not properly using their oral cavities and speech may be impacted as well as social issues.
Okay, here is the last one, and many of you will say, I am a mean horrible shrew, (I’ve heard it before, although it may be true, please listen anyway)
Blankets, or blankie’s as many call them, they are held on to, carried everywhere, and cannot under any circumstances be pulled from the children’s hands, unless they are sleeping. These blankets, you may say cannot possibly aide in speech and language difficulties, well I disagree, this is where we will discuss social implications for this as well as binky’s and bottles.
CHILDREN DO NOT LEARN HOW TO SOOTH THEMSELVES WITHOUT ALL THE ABOVE AIDES.
When I see children with one or more of these items, adhered to an appendage, I notice many things. One of the biggest ones is delays in speech and language which we spoke about above. However, another one is being able to calm themselves when things do not go their way. Children within and outside of my practice, always are holding on to something, they cannot calm down without these items, they actually become quite hysterical. Also I have watched children on playgrounds, hit other children when these items are taken away from them. Which brings me to the biggest point, which is these children do not know how to interact socially within their peer groups. Children being raised with all these external items to aide in soothing them are having a great deal of trouble interacting in social situations with their peers.
Today’s children are finding it quite difficult to calm down, take criticism, and oh my here is the BIG ONE—–LOSE! Which will be my blog for next time.
I hope this blog helped to bring up subjects which you may have been thinking about, and helped to answer some questions you may have had in regard to this topic.
Till next time
Marci