Your children will speak the way you speak. If you want your children to use good grammar, than you need to use good grammar. However, when there are a variety of influences in your children’s lives (such as ours), it is not always that easy. I certainly cannot control how all the influential adults speak around my children, nor do I have any desire to. I can however control the way I speak, and make an effort to correct my littles without nagging them.
So here is my current pet peeve regarding the children’s grammar usage.
SEEN… As in, “I seen a spider the size of my head,” or “I seen that guy turn in to a zombie.” I know a lot of adults that use “seen” like this, and while I really don’t care one way or another when it comes to them, I really want my kidlets to know the difference between “seen” and “saw.” Lindsay is a writer and has a journalism degree… the amount of “seen” that goes on in our house is going to give her a hernia.
Every time I hear someone say “I seen” when they should have said “I saw”, this is what I picture:
No, I don’t think that when children say it, but I do with adults…. mostly joking.