"Signs" of Christmas

What the holidays mean for me is the opportunity to get together with family and friends to reminisce about times past and to make good memories for the future. In our family this year, these celebrations are made even sweeter by the addition of our twin grandchildren who still have stars in their eyes when they see holiday sights or hear holiday sounds. Seeing their joy can make even the most reluctant “Scrooge” smile.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if these special little people could tell us more about what they are thinking—what is fascinating them as they gaze at a decorated tree or blazing candle? Well now they can! The secret is one that more and more families are discovering: helping babies and toddlers communicate using simple baby sign language signs. In fact, around this time of year we hear wonderful stories of how children who can’t yet talk are still able to tell their parents what they see, what they hear, and even what they feel as they encounter holiday symbols. Here are just a few examples from our Baby Signs® files:

• 13-month-old Jared was mesmerized when his father first plugged in the string of lights wound around the Christmas tree, immediately opening and closing his fist (his sign for “light”) over and over as he grinned from ear to ear. For the next 3 weeks, as soon as he woke up in the morning, he would eagerly sign “light,” clearly sending the message that he remembered what was in the living room.

• 15-month-old Maddy had been pretty leery of the bearded man in the bright red suit inviting her to sit on his lap in the department store and had cried until her mother sat with her. From then on, whenever she saw a picture of Santa Claus she would rapidly pat her chest (her sign for “afraid”) and then move her open hands up and down her chest (her sign for “clothes”). Why “clothes?” Maddy’s mom quickly figured it out: “Clothes” was as close to “Claus” as Maddy could get!

• And on a personal note, upon walking into our house this past Saturday, my 18-month-old grandson, Nate, saw the eagle sitting atop our tree (a souvenir from a trip to Alaska) and, with his eyes as big as saucers, eagerly signed BIRD + TREE--his first sentence!
  

With simple signs, these babies, and thousands like them, are making sweet, new holiday memories for their families---and the truth is, what better holiday present could parents receive than a priceless window into their baby’s mind and heart?

Merry Christmas--and Happy Signing!

Linda

Linda Acredolo, Ph.D.

Co-Founder, the Baby Signs Program

and

Professor Emeritus, UC Davis

How Signs Help Keep Mom #1

In a recent post I described how young moms often worry about being usurped in their child’s mind and heart by a loving child care provider—be it a nanny or a child care center staff member. I provided some tips for dealing with this worry by creating fun routines that are mommy- or daddy-only routines that the child can look forward to and which other caregivers are unlikely to be able to duplicate. At the end of that posting I promised another tip. Here it is: Sign with your baby!

There are many reasons to sign with your baby, but here’s one that fits working moms and dads especially well. Young children, just like the rest of us, are typically at their most irritable at the end of the day. It’s a time when it’s easy to become frustrated when things don’t go exactly right—for example, like not being understood when one needs or wants something. Unfortunately, dinner times are also some of the main times that moms and dads who work outside the home have to spend with their children. What a shame for these precious hours to be spent trying to deal with frayed nerves.

Such situations are particularly likely to arise for babies and toddlers who lack the words to communicate their needs clearly. That’s where signs come in. By enabling preverbal children to make clear what it is they need, want, or feel, signs decrease everyone’s frustration, thereby making it more likely that the few precious hours a working mom has to spend to with her child will go smoothly and end with love and kisses instead of tears and tantrums.

I’ve seen this up close and personal, as they say, with my 18-month-old twin grandchildren. I filled in for a sick nanny last week and was there when mom and dad returned from work. The twins were very hungry. (I’d not known what snacks they were allowed and so probably was guilty of starving them!). Following the initial hugs and reunion kisses, they both began making the eat sign insistently. Mom knew immediately what they needed and, instead of making them wait until dinner was actually ready, sat them down with some pieces of grapes, pears, and cheese. No tears, no trauma, just smiles all around! That’s the magic of signs!

Happy Signing!

Linda

Linda Acredolo, Ph.D.

Co-Founder, the Baby Signs Program

KEEPING MOM #1

I remember vividly when my daughter-in-law called me in tears, worried that her twins would end up loving their child care provider more than they loved her. I assured her that this anxiety is typical of moms who have to have their children in child care, and I shared some tips with her. Here’s an important one:

Create fun routines that involve activities that are unlikely to be part of child care. Because they are only done at home, they will stick out in the child’s mind. Children find routines of any kind comforting and these home-only routines will become special times with mom and/or dad that your child can look forward to. Here are some possibilities:

· Bath time. Almost all kids love to splash in the bath before bedtime. Instead of thinking of this as one more chore to get through, appreciate it as an opportunity to share a fun experience with your child with which child care can’t compete. Bath time also has the advantage of being a chance to relate to more than one child at a time.

· Singing. Choose specific songs that only you sing to your child—maybe one for first thing in the morning, one for bedtime, and one for riding in the car. It’s not unusual for grown children to speak nostalgically about such songs and even repeat them with their own kids.

· Dancing. I’ve never met a baby or toddler who didn’t like to be held in Mom’s or Dad’s arms and jiggled up, down, and around in time to a favorite CD song. This might be a great routine for when you reunite.

· Watching a DVD together. Many child care providers avoid DVDs and yet, cuddling once a day with a child in front of an appropriate DVD can be an intimate and cozy experience (being sure to talk about what’s on the screen—and, whatever you do, not using DVDs in place of books!). For example, my daughter-in-law uses the Baby Signs My Bedtime Signs DVD to cuddle and wind the twins down at night before book time, each one clutching his or her own Baby BeeBo.

I’ve got one more major tip that I’ll share another time. (By the way, it took only one bad cold during which the twins stuck to her like glue to convince her she had nothing to worry about in the attachment domain!)

Have fun!

Linda

Linda Acredolo, Ph.D.

Co-Founder the Baby Signs Program and

Professor Emeritus, University of California

Keeping Mom No. 1

I remember vividly when my daughter-in-law called me in tears, worried that her twins would end up loving their child care provider more than they loved her. I assured her that this anxiety is typical of moms who have to have their children in child care, and I shared some tips with her. Here’s an important one:

Create fun routines that involve activities that are unlikely to be part of child care. Because they are only done at home, they will stick out in the child’s mind. Children find routines of any kind comforting and these home-only routines will become special times with mom and/or dad that your child can look forward to. Here are some possibilities:

· Bath time. Almost all kids love to splash in the bath before bedtime. Instead of thinking of this as one more chore to get through, appreciate it as an opportunity to share a fun experience with your child with which child care can’t compete. Bath time also has the advantage of being a chance to relate to more than one child at a time.

· Singing. Choose specific songs that only you sing to your child—maybe one for first thing in the morning, one for bedtime, and one for riding in the car. It’s not unusual for grown children to speak nostalgically about such songs and even repeat them with their own kids.

· Dancing. I’ve never met a baby or toddler who didn’t like to be held in Mom’s or Dad’s arms and jiggled up, down, and around in time to a favorite CD song. This might be a great routine for when you reunite.

· Watching a DVD Together. Many child care providers avoid DVDs and yet, cuddling once a day with a child in front of an appropriate DVD can be an intimate and cozy experience (being sure to talk about what’s on the screen—and, whatever you do, not using DVDs in place of books!). For example, my daughter-in-law uses the Baby Signs My Bedtime Signs DVD to cuddle and wind the twins down at night before book time, each one clutching his or her own Baby BeeBo.

I’ve got one more major tip that I’ll share another time. (By the way, it took only one bad cold during which the twins stuck to her like glue to convince her she had nothing to worry about in the attachment domain!)

Have fun!

Linda

Linda Acredolo, Ph.D.

Co-Founder the Baby Signs Program

and

Professor Emeritus, University of California

“But We’re Not Laughing At You!”

Holidays provide more occasions than usual for extended families to get together. If there’s a 2-year-old around, it’s likely that at one time or another everyone will be laughing at something amusing she has done. Maybe she is busily eating chocolate cake, getting more around her mouth than in it, or maybe she is carefully trying to walk in her mother’s high heels. Whatever the behavior, as soon as the child becomes aware that she is the focus of attention she becomes upset. And no matter how many times she is reassured that no one is laughing at her, she remains inconsolable and is too embarrassed to continue.

Where does such embarrassment come from? Has some humiliation in the child’s past created an expectation of punishment or shame? Probably not. According to developmental researcher, Dr. Michael Lewis, such reactions are typical of children starting between 18 and 24 months. It’s at this age that children begin to experience embarrassment when they find they are the center of attention. It’s not that they think they’ve done anything wrong or shameful. It’s just that everyone is looking at them and it makes them extremely uneasy.

Why does such self-consciousness begin between 18 and 24 months? It’s quite simple. This is the age when toddlers first become aware of themselves as separate from other people, knowledge that is obviously critical to feeling embarrassed. In fact, Lewis demonstrated a direct connection between self-awareness and embarrassment in the following way.

First, he tested a group of toddlers to see if they could recognize themselves in a mirror – a classic test of self-awareness. The way to do this is to surreptitiously dab a spot of rouge on a child’s nose, set him in front of a mirror, and watch to see if he touches his nose. If he does, then it’s clear that he recognizes that the red spot on the nose in the mirror is a red spot on his own nose. Some the toddlers in Lewis study did touch their noses, while others did not.

Lewis then tested whether these same children would show embarrassment. He had their mothers urge them to dance in front of the experimenter to the sound of a tambourine. As you might expect, some children did so without hesitation while others refused, showing classic signs of embarrassment. Every one of these latter children, and very few of the former, were among those able to recognize themselves in a mirror, a lovely demonstration that the child’s developing mind and the child’s developing emotions are closely related.

Apparently the novelty of understanding that one is the center of attention is very unnerving. Whether or not there is a judgment involved is irrelevant; the child simply wants the attention itself to stop…now. The more mature understanding that one has done something that has violated some kind of standard of behavior won’t develop for another year or so. In the meantime, realizing that it’s the attention itself that toddlers dislike can help parents be more sympathetic. After all, would you want everyone watching you stuff chocolate cake into your mouth? I thought not.

(For more information about emotional development, check out my book co-authored with Dr. Susan Goodwyn, Baby Hearts: A Guide to Giving Your Child an Emotional Head Start.)

Happy Holidays--and Happy Signing!

Linda Acredolo, Ph.D.

Co-Founder, the Baby Signs Program

Signs Can Make Great Names Too

I’m on a kick about grandparents, probably because I’ve been able to spend lots of time with my 18-month-old twin grandchildren over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Of course, I’m too young to be a grandmother—aren’t we all? Fortunately, the grandmother image I grew up with has slowly given way to a new view. When I was a child, grandmothers, including my own, were typically frail women with white hair drawn up into a bun, solid black laced-up old lady shoes, and flowered dresses about as form fitting as a garage around a car. Nowadays, grandmothers are vibrant women still right in the thick of things, with or without gray hair—but very seldom in a bun!

One thing, however, hasn’t changed and never will. Grandmothers of any era relish the first time a grandchild reaches out with a smile and murmurs some version of her name, be it “gamma,” “mimi,” or “nana.” The wait for this memorable event is often long—sometimes not until a child is over 2 years old—because learning to say words is such a struggle for young children.

Fortunately, there’s a way around this frustration and the need for guessing. The solution is helping babies and toddlers use signs to communicate with those they love. And included in these sign vocabularies for many children are signs for grandpa and grandma that function exactly like names. Here are some fun examples from our files:

• 13-month-old Claire used a rocking motion as her name for Grandma because Grandma frequently rocked her in a rocking chair.

• 12-month-old Kai picked up on the way his Grandpa always threw him up in the air and began raising his arms up high whenever his grandpa arrived—or even when he saw a picture of him.

• 15-month-old Sadie would enthusiastically do her version of the ASL sign for Grandma (thumb of open hand on chin, arched forward two times) when Grandma entered the house.

Being a grandparent is one of the sweetest experiences on earth, and now it’s easy to make it sweeter still. Check out the Baby Signs Program, start signing with your grandbabies today and you'll soon be enjoying the sense of connection and love that being able to communicate brings.