Talking, and more Talking

After I wrote the post about Quiet Time, and friend commented that learning to quietly be by herself would certainly be worth it for Hibiscus later in life.  In fact, there are a lot of things that will be worth it for Hibiscus later in life, that are making me go gray and ragged to start working on teaching her right now.

Like talking.  I feel like ALL DAY LONG I am correcting Hibiscus for talking at the wrong time, sometimes with the gentleness of guiding her to greater wisdom, and sometimes with a great deal of exasperation.  But when I stopped to think about it, I am only correcting a few simple guidelines:
-don't talk when someone else is already talking
-don't talk with your mouth full
-don't make "noise," e.g., utter nonsense at a loud volume for no particular reason
-when it is "conversation time," if you have not heard anyone else's voice except your own for a long, long, time, then it is time to stop talking

Of course, there are subgroups to this.  "Don't talk when someone else is talking" includes "guessing what your brother is saying and finishing his sentences loudly," and also "when your mother is giving you instructions, stop talking so you can hear the instructions," which is closely related to "when you ask a question, then stop repeating the question in a louder voice, so that you can hear the answer, instead of then starting to repeat 'WHAT?'."   Not talking with your mouth full goes hand-in-hand with the other lesson, that it is not good manners to put your mouth up to the side of your bowl, shovel in food as fast as possible while spilling it all over the table and floor, and talk through the entire thing.  (How she even manages that without choking herself, I am not sure, but she is a pro!)  The original two statements we have been working on for a while, and the latter two have been added in more recently.  Gradually adding new requirements is either because I have reasonable expectations for her, or my disgust has just grown overwhelming!

However, these are really the only points we are working on.  I am not drilling her on grammar.  I am not expecting her to make sense all the time, I am not working on telling a story in the right order and naming the important people as you go along.  I am not focusing on conversational conventions.  But "don't talk when someone else is already talking" takes up OUR ENTIRE DAY in corrections.

I remind her gently.  I make it into a teasing joke (which she enjoys).  I point it out in the abstract third person.  And shake, rattle, and repeat, over and over.  I wonder why I am even bothering, but she tries to listen and is starting to learn the rules, although she can't follow them yet.  I ask questions like "what is wrong here?" and she answers things like "Emerson is already talking" or points to her mouth and chews faster.  I create Silent Times when no one is supposed to talk (especially at bedtime), except for me, and except to ask necessary things, to make the talking rules simpler.  She forgets about it 15 seconds later.  I give up and walk into another room; Emerson comes in crying that he's trying to say something and Hibiscus keeps interrupting.  I remind gently, I remind in an irritated voice.

And then I yell.  Yes, I do.  I swear, if Hibiscus cannot actually speed up my genetic hair process and make me go gray, she can manage to turn me into a yeller.  I am not proud of it, but it has been months alone in Africa and four weeks of school vacation and SHE HAS NOT STOPPED TALKING THE ENTIRE TIME.

Is it worth it?  That's the real question.  If it doesn't matter, I might as well save ourselves the strife and arguments of me correcting her seventy million times a day.  But I think it does matter.  I have yet to meet someone who really enjoys having someone else finish all their sentences for them, or feels a calm helpful mood descend on them when someone follows them around repeating the same question six times in a row without pausing to hear if there is an answer.  I think this is one of the social skills that Hibiscus NEEDS to learn.  Maybe I'm wrong; maybe it's just a stage or she only acts like this with her mother or something else.

In which case, then it really IS a social skill that she needs to learn.  Because her mother is an introvert and an internal processor, and I actually need a moment of silence in order to decide what I'm going to say and answer the question.  It can be a short moment, but it needs to exist.  I can handle being asked the same question six times in a row.  I'm a mom; it comes with the territory.  But it turns out, I can actually NOT handle four weeks straight of talking.  Loudly.

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I have also discovered one of the difficulties of teaching table manners, which is the one time of day when we try to have a conversation and other subtle things like that.  Table manners are, by definition, an interaction between people.  There is only one person at our table who is fully capable of holding a normal, interactive conversation, with listening to what the other person says, basing your response on what their reaction is, and staying on one topic at a time, until it is mutually enjoyable to all parties to discuss something different.  There is also only one person who is capable of passing dishes, and remembering to not run around without being excused, and for that matter, only one person who has the authority to do the excusing.  Therefore, modelling is not possible, so the only thing I can do is keep saying, "Hibiscus, finish chewing... Emerson, say "please pass" and don't reach over the table... Hibiscus, don't stand on your chair... Buttercup, stay at the table until you're done.... Hibiscus, I hear your brother's voice and your voice starting talking... Hibiscus, how do we sit properly?... Buttercup, that's stuffing your mouth... Emerson, will you please pass me a napkin?  Thank--- Hibiscus, my voice is talking -- thank you... Hibiscus, you are standing on your chair..." and so forth.  I must agree, it is not very scintillating conversation!  I am starting to think that they could pick some of this stuff up smoothly if they had some example to follow than two other little monkeys.

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Have you ever noticed how important pronouns are in the English language?  We can technically explain what they do, and how and when we switch between male and female, but I don't think we can explain how the proper pronoun changes the entire meaning.  When someone starts a sentence with a female name, but in the second or third clause uses "he," our minds immediately jump to insert a logical male into the story.  I can't tell you how many times lately I've said "but what was Emerson doing there?" and Hibiscus gives me a blank look, because she wasn't talking about Emerson at all, which was also why I was confused.  So I have decided that paying attention to the gender of our pronouns is our English Lesson Of The However-Long-It-Takes.

Maybe I shouldn't focus on English grammar, and assume that Hibiscus will just pick it up eventually.  Her English is expanding by leaps and bounds, and it would be logical to assume that her grammar will expand with it.  But this is not taking into account the Hibiscus-ness of Hibiscus, who in her first months here actively corrected both Emerson and I when we spoke English.  Not even corrected us on something that happens to be different to what it is in the African dialect, but just plain corrected things into Totally Random Hibiscus Language.  So when a mistake becomes persistent, I am not sure how quickly she will figure it out, or if she is trying to single-handedly change the entire language into something that makes more sense to her.  Meanwhile, when I'm listening to her with half of my ears while trying to figure something else out with half of my brain, I keep inserting imaginary people into her sentences to match the pronouns, which is confusing both of us.

It turns out she had no idea that "he" and "she" depended on the gender of the person in question, and obviously holds that concept in some disdain.  (She also had "Mister" and "Miss" backwards for several months, or maybe just random.)  Now, when I gently correct her by saying "what he is that?" or "is Buttercup a boy or a girl?" she corrects herself to the right gender, BUT THE WRONG TYPE OF PRONOUN.  Instead of reversing the gender, she reverses she and her, and he and him.  So we get: "Buttercup wanted more water, so I gave him a cup --" (wait, who did you give the cup to? a boy?) "is a girl... Buttercup wanted more water, so I gave SHE the cup..."  Every single time, the direct object and the subject switch places, but only when switched to the correct gender.

I can't think of how to explain that to her, so I'm hoping it goes away on its own!