[Stacy82]

I babysit my younger cousin, he is 8 yrs old and has a bad speech problem. He has been held back in kindergarten and they have tried to hold him back again in 1 st grade but his parents did not allow it. My 5 yr old can speak 100 times better than he does. I have noticed that no body takes time to work with him which is why I agreed to babysit so I can try but I do not know where to start. Its very difficult because he also lies constantly and needs discipline, how can I get him to staighten up and learn how to speak?

[J_9]

This will be nearly impossible for you if you and the parents are not on the same page. What you do while he is in your care needs to be continued in the home.

[Fr_Chuck]

This is a parents responsibility, if they do not see the problem they will need to get a speech specialist. If the parents are not inforcing rules there is no way you can.

[jjmus1]

Definitely the #1 thing to do is to be on the same page as the parents. But if you want little ways of working on speech, I would suggest using music. What kind of speech problem is it? R? Lisping? It's hard to know what to do without knowing the exact problem. But music may help motivate him to try to make the same sounds as the recording. When babysitting him, always speak clearly and in complete sentences. If he says something incorrectly, you should restate it correctly for him. You don't want to repeat his mistakes, because when he hears the wrong thing it will be programmed into his ear. So repeat what he says but correctly. It's also a good idea to make the learning fun. Try to find little games that practice correct speech. Just make sure that none of the games encourage lying (some kids get confused by Simon Says). As for the discipline, try to have a routine for the time you spend at their house. It often helps to have a schedule so you can say "Now it's time to read books" or something like that. Be consistent with the rules you make. If you are allowed to change the rules, he will think he is allowed to break them. But like the 2 people above me said, it's really hard to get a child to obey rules if their parents are not reinforcing what you say.