'via Blog this'
http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/the-secret-weapon-to-eliminating-poverty-and-weve-had-it-all-along/news-story/59960c46097e9508366a7e298b0950ed?&utm_source=News.com.au&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial
The children in professional families also heard vastly more positive words compared to negative words than those in the working-class group, who in turn heard many times more than in the welfare group. For negative words the results were the reverse.
The child of a professional family would hear six positive “affirmations” in an hour for every one negative “prohibition”. For working class families the ratio was two to one. Yet the children in welfare families heard two negative comments for every one positive one.
And most telling of all, the kids’ language and behaviour mimicked that of their parents and was so well entrenched by the time they started school that the cycle of poverty would go unbroken, just as the affluent kids would learn all the language skills and traits that made their parents affluent.
:
In other words, it effectively costs nothing to give your kids the same advantage that rich kids have. You just have to talk to them early, and a lot.
:
Critically, they don’t just teach the kids — they teach the parents to teach the kids. To talk to them, read to them and engage with them in the same way that more advantaged parents do.
:
The sky is the limit when children have robust oral language and pre-literacy skills. This is an urgent call to action for all parents to get with the agenda on behalf of their children.
