19-month-old ds calls himself "mama"

Do you speak in third person to him? As in, "give Mama the block", "Mama wants you to do xyz now", and so on?

If so, he might be substituting "mama" in the place of "I".

In that case, seems pretty normal.

I personally don't talk like that* (I think I'm the only one who doesn't), and DS says "I". However, he calls me "milk". He's 22 months and calls me "milk" more than his version of my name (I also don't insist he use my parent-title, and he's free to use my name or title), which man oh man he's lucky he has ME as a mother rather than some of my friends, they'd be *flipping out* about being called "milk".

Anyway, my guy hears me use "I", and he uses "I". If someone has heard a name or title in the place of "I", it seems normal that, for awhile until he figures it out, he'd use that word instead of "I". Doesn't it?

*I don't say it's wrong to use third person, just don't force ME to use it b/c my brain and ears would implode.

Also, my guy has yet to say his own name in any recognizable form; he might have said it, but I sure didn't hear it.

My son called himself "you" for a long time. I think it is quite normal because you may say Mama to him a lot, or a lot more than you say his name. My son's name was also very hard for him to pronounce. My memory is that he was well past age 2 before he correctly started using his name. He still struggles with pronouns (me, I, you, etc.) and he is almost 3.

I DO call myself mama. I never thought about that before. He probably is using "mama" in the same way--as a personal pronoun. That makes a lot of sense.

Ok, here I thought he was on the verge of some major identity crisis

Thanks for the replies!

I've actually been trying to teach my DS (13mo) to say mamma by pointing at him and calling him by his name and then pointing at myself and saying "mamma". Now he goes around pointing at himself saying "mamma"

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Because you're Bob Dole? : I still do it about half the time, and need to break myself of the habit, as my son is certainly old enough to understand who I'm talking about if I say "I'm..." instead of "mommy is..."

My son uses "you" to describe himself a lot, as a PP mentioned. "You need some help?" means "I need some help." Or sometimes he just omits the pronoun all together -- as in "Want some snuggles!" It's so interesting, isn't it, how they develop and acquire language skills? Once I tried to explain it to him the difference in how we each refer to him: "No, Julian, you say I...I say you..." until I realized how fruitless that was! Also I know he'll figure it out pretty soon, just like he won't always say "frumputer" and "potstickle" for "computer" and "popsicle."

~nick

It sounds cute and normal to me.

My brother (in his 30s now) used to call himself "A" when he was a toddler. So instead of saying "I want milk" he would say "A want milk". Or, "A want potty". He pronuced it like the letter A. His name doesn't sound like "A" at all. We're not sure how he got the idea to call himself "A" but he kept it up for a while but evenutally he started referring to himself as "I". Now, we just have a good laugh over his toddler speech.

My 14-month-old daughter does the same thing. She also calls my husband and her grandmother Mama. She also used to call anyone she was familiar and loving with Mama. I think that has to do with associations.

My understanding is that children are fairly old (at least 2) before they get a sense of self. (My brain won't allow me at this point in my sleep-deprived life to go into the whole Jacques Lacanian theories, etc.) When they see themselves, they don't see themselves--they see some other person. Same with photos. A friend who is a developmental psychologist relayed to me that you can test whether your child understands his separate self by putting something like food on his nose, then showing him to himself in the mirror. His reaction (and now I can't even recall what that reaction should be for indicating the separate self) will tell you. I THINK if the child acts embarassed, he understands. If he thinks it's funny, he doesn't. I'm probably screwing this up completely and I apologize for posting half-assed knowledge.

Regardless, I have read that it takes children much time to recognize pronouns and I believe Sears recommends omitting them altogether when they're young.

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He does????!!!!

Shocked and horrified.

A friend and I were just talking about pronouns. She used to tutor the foreign students at our college, helping them write papers and such. In her experience, the students who hadn't grown up hearing the English pronouns (such as in the countries where they teach English from books, not from a teacher speaking it) have an almost IMPOSSIBLE time learning them later. Even if they ultimately used them, it was never instinctive (instinctual? are either of those words?), never easy.

Kids learn language by hearing it all around them. My husband's mother is Korean and barely spoke English when DH was born. She had an older son but he didn't speak English either, when they moved here. She refused to speak Korean when she knew an English word, but she has NEVER EVER learned pronouns (or verb tenses, making communication, er, interesting), and even though DH did learn English eventually (through Sesame Street, he shared with me after I was talking about the 'can TV help to teach words' thread, and later on at school), he drops pronouns often, and absolutely drops them when he's spent time at his mom's.

If that's really what Dr Sears recommends, I'm going to have to have my husband write him a letter all about the importance of hearing pronouns used properly while learning language. :

Pronouns are tough--I wouldn't worry about it. You may want to model using "I" when referring to yourself, though.

And, even if he does identify himself w/you, I still wouldn't worry. My 3 y.o. still can't wait to grow up to be a Big Mommy and have babies.

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Wow! That is not how I would approach talking to my child at all. I like Dr. Sears, but I'm not going to talk to my child like an idiot just because he might not understand each word that I use. He seems to get the jist of what I'm saying most of the time.

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I love it.

That is a strange recommendation Dr. Sears. I can see speaking simply, but incorrectly???

A friends ds spoke about himself in the third person for almost a year (between 2 and 3). "(his name) would like an apple to eat" for example. I guess he occasionally would say I, but not usually.