"The most important thing for me is who he is and how he is as a person."
There are so many fun, easy and free ways to help your child's development.
Steph talks us through her favourite activities to play with her son, Caben to help build his language skills.
I think a lot of Caben's development is to do with the way me and Caben communicate with each other, because it's always been just me and him, I speak to him like he's a lot older. We are always talking, always having conversations.
He got moved up a year early into pre-school because he needed more stimulation and he was getting quite bored because it wasn't challenging enough for him, so now he's doing really well. I think it's really important to introduce learning into play. That's something that me and Caben do a lot. I think it makes it more fun and it keeps him more stimulated.
A lot of the time, Caben likes to role play so he is mummy and I be Caben and he'll tell me things what to do. Role play is really important for kids to find out who they are and for their imagination. For me, being a parent, it's really important to let Caben be who he wants to be. I listen to him as much as I can.
I think conversation is key for children. Bedtime, we always do reading. I'm very mindful with the stories that I do tell him. If your child's in pre-school or nursery you can always ask the teacher what level they're up to or if you need to push them a little bit more. There's so many different ways to parenting and no one can tell you what is the right way. Kids are kids and unpredictable and you don't know what's going to happen next. All you can do is adapt to that situation.
The most important thing for me is who he is and how he is as a person. For him to have a really good outlook on life, to have good morals and a level head and to be non-judgemental, and for him to be the special little boy he already is, but just develop on that.
