Children and English

As I was coming across a child in the grocery store today, I heard her look at her mom and say "Mom wa wa". The mom then handed her the bottle of water. A light bulb went on in my head because I knew exactly the stage of speaking that this child was in. The early multi-word stage. Learning from my English class, it was interesting being able to distinguish what was actually going through this child's brain when it comes to speaking the English language. Also, when it comes to the child using the word "wa wa" instead of "water", we can distinguish reduplication is playing a role in the child's language. Many children go through this, when they repeat the beginning of the word or double in the syllable. As a job I do in the summer as a Nanny, I realize that many kids who are going through this are in the multi word stage. I feel that the specific child I saw at the store was kind of being given by the parent in the wrong way. Without correcting the child, saying "please" was extremely crazy to me. Of course I am aware of many families being different but manners was emphasized a lot by my family. I would not say that children are also ruining the English Language, but because of our generation with the advancement of technological devices, it has been crazy, expecially with kids and their cell phones how they spell U or R and do not spell it out and it probably carries into the class room. As for now, it will be interesting to see when I have kids later in life, how their friends talk or what kind of technology they are using.