Communicating with your child
on 09.27.04, 02:16pm in life • comments (7)
Over the last few weeks, Tyler who is now almost 8 months old, started doing something that I thought was pretty weird. Whenever he was eating (and occasionally while we were playing), he would stop whatever activity we were doing, start opening and closing his fist for 20-30 seconds, then go back to his activity. This would happen 3 or 4 times in a row.
Not thinking much of it (except ‘wow, that’s strange’), I just thought it was another habit he had picked up someplace, or was just playing around.
Yesterday we had some folks from our daycare over, and I mentioned this to one of the dad’s when discussing strange habits kids get into. He told me “Oh, that’s the baby sign for thirsty (or milk) - they teach the kids that at daycare”.
What!?!?! Apparently, my son has been communicating with us for weeks and we had no idea. So, the next time he did that, we gave him some formula, and he was as happy as could be.
Now, I have no idea if Tyler is really communicating that he’s thirsty, or just imitating other kids. Regardless it’s pretty cool, and I have to read up more about this baby-sign stuff.
JD (September 27, 2004 @ 3:14 pm)
That is very interesting! I did a Google search to see if I could find similar happenings, but most of the results were regarding general baby signing…
Very exciting that you may have figured out the communication
JeffD (September 27, 2004 @ 3:58 pm)
That’s very cool. We started doing ‘baby signs’ with our daughter (now 4 1/2) when she was about 9-10 months old. My wife got a book [1] as a shower gift and we thought it made sense — the motor skills for simple signs are far easier for a tot than the motor skills to say the equivalent word. The books and online research eased our fears that doing the signs would lead to slower speech development (because they’re communicating without it). So we looked pretty silly for about 6-8 weeks while we made the signs for eat and drink (say the word, do the sign, do the action).
Then she started doing the signs back to us when she wanted something. It was very cool and I think it helps a lot in terms of having a ‘happy baby’ — When they have a need, they can communicate it to you and aren’t as easily frustrated. Once she started doing a few signs, we added a few more until we had eventually worked a couple dozen into the repertoire. Over the last 18 months, we haven’t done the signs as much… though we’ve talked recently about ramping it back up and then enrolling her in a kids sign-language class. It never hurts to have another language under your belt, right?
It looks like it’s working for your son, so run with it!
(Note: the only word of caution is that you’ll occasionally have a stranger see you and your son signing in public and ask if he has a hearing problem — it happened to us a number of times)
[1] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0071387765/qid=1096300678/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-2080948-2600752?v=glances=booksn=507846
Jason (September 28, 2004 @ 2:15 am)
It works! I have three kids, and I know sign-language… so we’ve taught them simple signs like up, down, drink, hungry, more, come, etc… and they actually use them. It’s fun and amazing that kids can actually communicate so young.
Thanks for your blog,
Later dude,
Jason
Kevin (September 28, 2004 @ 3:01 pm)
I had heard about this when our daughter was quite small and thought maybe we’ed try it when the time came around (8-9 months). However time passed and we never quite got around to doing it… Now that our daughter is just two i have no regrets about this. She’s perfectly capable of commuicating her needs to us now and has been for able to communicate basic needs to us for quite some time … also you get a magic parent-sense about interpreting the sounds and gestures they make.
I just wonder if it’s not just really a very short time that signing is useful for.
There is also a school of thought that signing slows the development of the vocal skills (there is also arguments that claim the opposite).
However since your daycare are doing in to in makes sense to run with it.
By far the most important thing is to show your infant child the signs that you love him/her.
- Just wait until Tyler learns to say no
(Enjoy your blog - only one I make time to read)
beth (October 3, 2004 @ 4:26 am)
Baby signs are great! My oldest child used them frequently, especially ‘milk’ and ‘help’, until she started to talk. At age 4 now, her communication skills are fine–in fact she has been reading for a year already. Not necessarily because of the signs, but the signs didn’t slow her down. My youngest doesn’t use the signs as much because she is more interested in talking–she is 18mo. I think the usefulness of sign depends on the child, but since your son is using them, you might as well run with it.
beth (October 5, 2004 @ 4:53 pm)
The other night I was tapping on a pda so even though I wanted to say more, it was too tough to do it. Babies can handle many situations merely by pointing and saying da! (a universal sign, lol). But sometimes signs have an advantage. Once, after I changed my 2yo diaper, she stood on the floor and signed music. So I started her music box playing. Then she signed sleep and walked over to the crib, so I put her in and she took a nap. (This only happened ONE time that I can remember, that she voluntarily requested a nap, but what a shame if I had missed this rare moment b/c it was too hard for her to tell me what she wanted!) Another time, she received one of those books that plays music when you push a button. The book’s cover pictured an owl, apparently a somewhat scary owl. She signed music and then ran over to me, hid her face from the book, and started to cry. So I tried to put the book away, and she signed more, then hid her face and started to cry again. She kept asking for more music and eventually became braver, creeping towards the book and finally pushing the button herself; after that, she was fine with it. I would have hidden that book away the first time she started to cry, not wanting to torture her with it, if she hadn’t been able to tell me she wanted to keep hearing the music. And the help sign has averted numerous toddler melt-downs in our house . . . it’s awful when you try to help and they DON’T want help, or you don’t help and they DO want help. So if you don’t want to learn much ASL, the signs for milk (which your son already knows) and help and more will be plenty to tide you over until your son starts to talk.
KC Lemson (October 31, 2004 @ 8:12 pm)
Daycare taught my son signs as well, it’s been fantastic. I recently had the same experience with ‘please’, which is a motion where you kind of curl your fingers and pass your hand across your chest, palm inward. A couple of weekends ago, a friend of mine told me about that sign, and I said gee, that’s such an abstract concept to teach, how do the kids pick it up? She said they just say it before they give them any food, so the kids get used to the idea of saying please in order to get food - later, they can learn about being polite, for now it’s just a step they know they have to do.
After that discussion, I realized that my son has been signing please for quite a while and I just never knew