Declarative Language Handbook: Using a Thoughtful Language Style to Help Kids with Social Learning Challenges Feel Competent, Connected, and Understood

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Models proper pronoun usage for gestalt language processorswho often show pronoun reversals (e.g., "I think it's my turn." instead of "Are you done your turn yet?") Gives kids a chance to discover mistakes they make without shaming or blaming (e.g., "I don't think I heard the toilet flush." instead of "Flush the toilet.") At first, you might not think that making a comment or a statement instead of a question would make all that big of a difference. But declarative language is powerful!

focusing on their many positive qualities as well as trying to support them with areas that they find difficultIt sounds wonderful. And I can imagine listeners being like, oh, my god, how am I going to do all of those things? How am I going to stay present when I’m being triggered and know the right thing to say and respond and be nimble enough to know that the kid I’m talking to today has different things going on than the kid I talked to yesterday? So just as a way to invite parents to be open to this and not putting that pressure on themselves? What would you say to a parent who, who’s curious and wants to kind of play with this or start experimenting with declarative language, but are feeling overwhelmed by the expectations of how they do it? I am a big fan of any parenting advice that seeks to reduce conflict and build/restore trust between parents and their children. Ross Green's work ( Explosive Child, Raising Human Beings, etc.) has been a big hit in our household. Murphy's book works with some similar themes, but with the explicit goal of teaching social observation skills to neurodivergent kids. Re-balance your relationship – a more equal relationship between child and adult, based on collaboration and respect, builds trust. Try to aim for win:win solutions.

How to introduce declarative language communication and how it can support a child’s learning and development It's less likely to trigger fight, flight, or freeze responses because it uses fewer demands than questions (e.g., "Look, grandma and grandpa are leaving. Let's wave goodbye." instead of "Do you want to give grandma and grandpa a hug before they go?") It's flexible since there's often more than one way to respond to a statement or sometimes no response is required (e.g., "I see a rainbow over there." instead of "What do you see in the sky?")Linda describes declarative language as a positive, thoughtful communication style that emphasizes understanding, patience, respect, and kindness, and as you’ll hear, it is an ideal communication style for neurodivergent children and kids whose nervous systems are triggered by demands or imperative communication styles. The author does a nice job putting on display concepts such as episodic memory development for children, situational awareness, patience in light of children slowly attaining concepts, framing language for children in declaratives (perhaps the obvious one) and the associated benefits, and allowing children to explore their environment/ be stewards of their own learning about the world around them. Her writing style is basic, but to the point. As such, it’s a nice light read but nothing to write home about grammatically/ you won’t be swept away by CS Lewis-level “quotables”. The theories and examples are very similar to other strong parenting works I would recommend slightly ahead of this one (although this is a nice supplement); (1) The Whole Brain Child by Siegel and Bryson and (2) Montessori Toddler by Davies.

To the negatives, this isn’t specific to Dr Murphy I suppose, but generic to “gentle parenting” approaches, she puts too much responsibility on the child at points and devalues the importance of active parenting at times, but interestingly she sort of admits that in one chapter so she’s clearly aware of the fallacy. Secondarily, also not totally a critique of “this book” but psychology books such as this one in general, as much as I love them, each one I work through I reflect on how many of these concepts try to prove too much with their argument. Her language tips are amazing, but they work coupled with patience and humility for the parent, etc. which can also come more simply from being a deeply faithful person or a very good human and embody and therefore have the same results for your kids. It goes hand in hand with one of my critiques of Freud, where you read him and think ‘wow, you’re really taking free will away.’ Dr Murphy doesn’t exact do that* she actually goes to the other extreme and offers a more ‘let your kid be whoever and whatever’ and almost too much ‘let them fly by’, but I think what she does do that Freud did is attempt to over-prove. As with many psychological theories, yes you came up with a good thing, but no it doesn’t result in everything you said unless it’s accompanied by other virtues. Agreeing non-negotiable boundaries – these will vary from household to household and from child to child. For some, the barest minimum of non-negotiable boundaries (such as basic health and safety requirements or those relating to their siblings) may be needed when anxiety is very high, but they may be increased over time. Sharing clear reasons for these boundaries, and agreeing on them together as a family, can help our children to adhere to them. Enforcing these boundaries without exacerbating things may require the use of other helpful approaches (please see next section on reducing the perception of demands). Linda brings decades of experience as a speech language pathologist and RDI® consultant who has been working with individuals with social learning differences to our conversation. S pecifically, we discussed the different ways we can communicate with our children, the language we use, and the effects that simple shifts in the way we have conversations can have in our daily interactions with them. We also explored what is declarative language versus imperative language, as well as the relationship between co-regulation and declarative language and why we should use them in tandem. This is a conversation that will truly change the way you think about how you communicate with your children, and leave you with easy ways to start playing with this in your day-to-day life. speaking about them in positive terms to other people e.g. “Millie has an amazing imagination, she always thinks of really good games to play” or “Luke really makes me laugh, he’s such good fun to be with.” Recognising and regulating emotions is something most of our children find very difficult. Whilst our children are young, the adults around them will need to be very vigilant in spotting the signs that anxiety is escalating. As our children grow older and their emotional intelligence develops, they may be able to recognise their emotions and deploy their own coping skills more effectively. Books can be a good way to learn about emotions, and enable our children to develop understanding and skills, in a more indirect way. There are some general book ideas that may be helpful with this in the resources section.Proprioceptive (the sense of ‘position’ of your body in space and the input from muscles and joints to the brain) Yeah, I mean, as you’re explaining that, it’s clear, like an imperative just shuts learning down, it prioritizes our needs over everything else. And I think what you’re seeing, too, there’s a lot of things happening to integrate, to become a more flexible thinker to start noticing, to tuning and more to the environment to problem solving, multi step thing. So there’s a lot involved here, and it’s not necessarily going to be an observable change. Again, it’s not an overnight thing. What would quote unquote, realistic expectations be like? How does this play out over time, what would we hope to see in a child or an adolescent, that we’re really actively focusing on using this communication style with? Want to play a board game?" ➡ "We could play a board game together." or "I'd love to play this game with you"