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“One night, my 3-year-old asked me if she could sleep in my bed. I told her no. She said, “That’s not fair! Why does Daddy get to sleep in your bed?” READ MORE
First Years (0-2)
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Parenting in the information age means moms and dads have gigabytes of research, expert advice, and hot trends to assist them in raising happy, healthy, primed-for-success children. When you're working hard to give your baby the very best in everything, it's easy to become a little schizophrenic. How do you know when to tune in or tune out the latest fad? I'm a moderate when it comes to jumping on the bandwagon of the next big thing in baby rearing, but occasionally an idea piques my attention, and I decide it's worth hitting the pause button on my life long enough to investigate further. Unbeknownst to me, my toddler began learning sign language when he started a family childcare program at 18 months. “Eat” and “more” were his favorite gestures, which is very telling when you consider my child may not be the happiest, but is most certainly the biggest baby on the block! When Dylan signed these words, he also tried to say them, and it opened up a whole new world of communication between us. We made up our own signs and expressions for things for everything from “elephant” to “hugs.” I never attended a baby signing class or poured over books. It just seemed to come naturally. That's not to say that studying up on the subject isn't a good idea. Research shows that signing with your baby can help prompt verbal development, deepen the parent/child bond, and cut down on temper tantrums by facilitating communication. If you're interested in learning more, check out the two books that prompted the baby signing movement: “Sign with Your Baby,” by Joseph Garcia and “Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk,” by Linda Acredolo, Ph.D., and Susan Goodwyn, Ph.D. The former promotes the use of American Sign Language, the latter encourages parents to take cues from their children and create their own lexicon of signs. The American Academy of Pediatrics weighed in on the baby-signing trend in a recent AAP news article. Dr. Rachel Carlton Abrams of Santa Cruz, who uses sign language with her own children and recommends it to her patients, was quoted as saying, "Everyone uses some signs naturally, like bye-bye, with their kids, and it's really just an extension of that. You can use it as much or as little as you want. You can use five or 10 signs or you can use 50 signs." Though doctors all over the country are beginning to recommend baby signing as a positive form of non-verbal communication, they stop short of suggesting that signing can increase a child's IQ as an unpublished study by “Baby Signs” authors Acredolo and Goodwyn seems to suggest. Dr. Henry Shapiro, chairman of the AAP Section on Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, says, "Signing and gesturing is fine, but kids naturally use all sorts of other communication approaches, whether it's crying, stop crying, eye contact, body posture. I think the most important lesson is that it's important to talk and listen to your child and be aware of all the nonverbal communication that goes on.” Whether you and your child become avid “speakers” of sign language or not, learning to listen and pay attention to his body language is the foundation of a loving relationship. And try as you might, there will be times when no amount of communication, nonverbal or otherwise, can get him to eat his veggies. S. Danyelle Knight is a regular contributor. |
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