47 Comments
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James's avatar

Talk talk talk to your baby. Talk in the home, in the car and in the apark and in the store. Most people are dead silent around their babies and toddles, or on the phone. I talk to every baby I see and they all react positively -- their parents are often surprised. It has been a while since my kids were babies but there is somethig like a 10 to 1 difference between Middle class and welfare class parents in terms of talking. Then.... read read read. No TV in the house. Books books books..... (BTW, Babies are the best)

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Paolo Giusti's avatar

And, most important, avoid diminutives, endearing and nonsense: their mirror-neurons works perfectly fine since the beginning, if you play right your son could speak perfect danish at 2 (mine did).

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Aug 18
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Paolo Giusti's avatar

Yes, but not from their deaf parents. You have to give then stimuli, if they are smart they will get them; but if you do not give them stimuli, they cannot get them.

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Seymour Lee's avatar

Great advice. I have 4 young kids and I often forget it. I watched some of my dash cam videos of me driving with the kids and realized how little I talk to them in the car. :(

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Philip Neal's avatar

Yes! Early intervention is crucial. Language development begins sooner than you think and he must be exposed only to the sounds of Danish. The Great Replacement is coming and if he reaches the age of two able to say "th" all is lost.

Or should I say Ooh! Congratulations, doesn't he look sweet?

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Cremieux's avatar

Congratulations!

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Richard Hanania's avatar

Sad to learn my kids’ giant heads don’t predict anything.

Welcome to fatherhood. Congrats.

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ReadingRainbow's avatar

It’s correlated to autism.

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Bazza's avatar

The more kids you have (we had 4) the more you spread your hopes (and expectations) across them, especially when they are young. Also, the more evident it becomes that they are not blank slates. And as they got older (say school age through young adulthood) we had fun tracking back their tastes in food, clothes, friends and hobbies through myself, my spouse and our respective relatives.

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J Scott's avatar

Good to hear. My kids changed my life and improved my academic outlook

As a father, I recommend spend as much time as you can with your kids. The paternal influence is big, long term. Summers off and my kids start to sound like me by the end of it. They learn the most from watching you. A blessing and a curse.

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George Schifini's avatar

A baby at 51, then surrounded by the babies of family and friends, led me to read Pinker’s “The Blank Slate” then all the behavioral genetics literature that I could understand and some I couldn’t, converted me from an environmentalist to hereditarian. As an emotional experience having a child has been the greatest.

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Stonebatoni's avatar

Best thing that can happen in your life. Congrats

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Wes's avatar

congratulations! head measurement circumference measurement error is high, ime. both children has at least one measurement where their head "shrunk" versus previous data point. evidently hard to find the max value

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FlügelderFreiheit's avatar

Wonderful news. Congratulations!

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Zuriel's avatar

Congratulations to you and your wife on the birth of your son. The world will change for you in so many ways, some of which you probably won't realise until sometime afterwards.

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Realist's avatar

He's a cute little guy. You are blessed.

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Anne Frütel's avatar

How wonderful, congratulations!

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Sebastian Jensen's avatar

Grats on the baby!

And not to be a downer, but at birth I weighed 4 kg and turned out to be 171cm tall.

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Emil O. W. Kirkegaard's avatar

We're both north European ancestry, so this is quite unlikely for our son.

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Jonathon's avatar

Congratulations!

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Ansel Vandemeer's avatar

Congratulations, Emil!

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J.D. Haltigan's avatar

Congrats brother!

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