Completely agreed, MoT - there’s a refrain of not respecting the personhood of young children in people who doubt their ability to communicate. To communicate and share one’s mind is innately human, but the bias of a one-up relationship to children still persists in many families.
I remember reading some of Patricia Kuhl’s work on second language acquisition when I was pregnant, and it was remarkable to discover how attuned babies are to making phonemic distinctions between languages before 9 months. That’s a *second* language! IMO, children communicate from their earliest days; it’s on us as adults to be attuned and receptive.
Thanks for this post - it warmed my heart.
