Giggle Games Galore

One of the true blessings that come with being human is the ability to laugh. Adults often don’t realize that children begin honing their own comedic skills at impressively early ages. Supporting your child’s attempts at humor really is important because at its core, humor is creative. Even if your child is simply retelling a joke she’s heard elsewhere, she’s had to do a bit of mental gymnastics herself to grasp the humor. And on those occasions when she comes up with her own joke, she is demonstrating both mental flexibility and creativity no matter her age.

Find the particular giggle games that you and your baby both enjoy, and play them often so that your baby has a chance to enjoy predicting what comes next. For some babies and at some ages, these might primarily involve touch and movement, either in mild forms (like being wrapped and tickled in a towel after the bath) or no-so-mild forms (like being tossed in the air). Other babies may find weird noises emanating from your mouth particularly hilarious or absolutely crack up at seeing their big brother make funny faces.

Whatever the routine, remember that babies at all ages are good at learning what to expect. In fact, the giggling usually starts leaking out in anticipation of the event. The opportunity to form expectations like these, apart from the actual tickle or toss, is pleasurable all by itself.

Happy Signing (and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook)!

Linda

Linda Acredolo, Ph.D.
Co-Founder, the Baby Signs® Program
and
Professor Emeritus, UC Davis

Number Sensitivity Begins Early

Here’s another detour from my traditional topic of baby sign language. Human infants come into the world looking for things to count. Mother Nature, it seems, figured out eons ago that if the human species was going to reach its full potential in this domain, she’d better arrange for the process to begin as early in life as possible. Given every human baby’s natural sensitivity to numerosity, it’s ironic that so many adults have grown oblivious to how pervasive numerical information is in everyday life. As a result, many parents overlook easy ways to give babies food for thought in this very important domain.

It’s easy to make numbers an obvious feature in any activity that involves repetition. Take the ever popular tickle game. The tendency for most people is to engage in triplets: “Tickle, tickle, tickle!” Try repeating the tickle triplets five or six times in a row, and then abruptly change to sets of two. Or do the opposite. The idea is to surprise your baby with this sudden change in quantity. You may not get an outward sign that she’s noticed, but trust me, she has. This same strategy can be applied to lots of different activities: blowing raspberries on your baby’s tummy, bouncing him on your knee, shaking rattles, splashing bathtub water. Almost any simple action that makes your baby smile can provide grist for the number mill!

Happy Signing (and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook)!

Linda

Linda Acredolo, Ph.D.
Co-Founder, the Baby Signs® Program
and
Professor Emeritus, UC Davis

Modeling Imagination

Here's a tip I've drawn from Baby Minds: Brain-Building Games Your Baby Will Love, the book Dr. Susan Goodwyn and I wrote following publication of our book about signing, Baby Signs.

The natural inclination of children is to become less rather than more creative as they get older. However, there are ways you can support the development and survival of imagination as you child moves from birth to age 3 and beyond. One way is to model how to play make-believe. Young children naturally imitate what the important people in their lives do, from eating with utensils to dressing up in grown-up clothes. So doesn’t it follow that seeing you use your imagination will inspire them to do the same? At the same time you’ll also be giving them hints about how to go about pretending—that puppets can talk, that “plots “ can be silly, that blocks can be cars, and that even big people think it’s all a great idea.

Your efforts should begin at a very early age. Simply sipping imaginary tea from a cup or taking an imaginary bit of food from your baby’s cookie is a start. Many parents engage in such play intuitively, but our research shows that many who should—particularly parents of boys—do not. This type of play has the extra benefit of promoting language development because, unlike simply manipulating parts of toys, make-believe scenarios naturally involve talking. In fact, we can’t think of a single downside to joining your infant, toddler or preschooler in playing make-believe.

Happy Signing (and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook)!

Linda

Linda Acredolo, Ph.D.
Co-Founder, the Baby Signs® Program
and
Professor Emeritus, UC Davis