Beware: Conformity Starts Early!

I just read an interesting research article in the latest issue of the professional journal, Child Development. Because it has lessons for parents, I’m going to digress from talking about signing with babies and share it with you.

We all know how vulnerable teenagers are to peer pressure, but did you know that preschoolers are too? I don’t mean here the tendency for 3- and 4-year-olds to begin mimicking their playmates during play—one child imitating another child who has started to twirl around or act like a monkey. That’s just fun and has no important implications. The conformity at issue here is more insidious and has to do with agreeing publicly with an opinion expressed by others when the truth is that one’s own opinion is very different--in other words, hiding one’s own beliefs because they clash with one’s peers’ beliefs.

It turns out that 4-year-olds are vulnerable to this kind of peer pressure. How did the researchers discover this truth? In a very clever way. They sat groups of 4 children in cubbies arranged so that they couldn’t see each other but could hear each other answer questions posed by the “teacher.” The questions referred to specially designed picture books the children were given. The left page of each 2-page spread in the book showed three drawings of an animal (say a tiger) that were identical except for size. One was big (the “daddy” tiger), one was middle-sized (the “mommy” tiger) and one was small (the “baby” tiger). The right page of each spread showed one of these three versions and the child’s task was to tell the teacher which one it was: the daddy, mommy, or baby. The trick here was the fact that three of the children held copies of the same book while one child (who was always asked last) had a different book designed so the correct answer would clash with what the other children said. What they found was that the children—not always, but about a third of the time—would agree with what the other three kids had said even though they knew that answer to be wrong for their book.

Reading the results of this study brought back a real life example involving my son when he was about 3 ½ and had just started nursery school (see photo above). Up until that point his playmates of convenience happened to always be girls, a fact which bothered him not at all. Then, one day a month or into the school year, I noticed that he had colored every picture in a coloring book save one: a single girl swinging on a swing. “Kai, why didn’t you color this one?” His answer: “Because boys don’t play with girls.” When I next observed the playground at the school, I saw that this was in fact true there—the girls played with girls and the boys with boys. Interestingly, however, when he was at home and not where his male peers could see (and no doubt judge him), Kai continued to play very happily with the same girls he always had.

Why is this significant? It’s bad enough when it’s a gender issue, but substitute not playing with children of contrasting ethnicities and you can see how easily and at what young ages prejudices get started.

So, fellow parents, as we look forward to a new year, what I’m hoping is that “forewarned is forearmed” as the saying goes. In other words, knowing that even preschoolers are vulnerable to peer pressure can motivate you to begin even earlier to help your child understand the importance of thinking for oneself.

Happy New Year (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

“Signs” of the Holidays!

What the holidays mean for many of us is the opportunity to get together with family and friends to reminisce about times past and to make good memories for the future. In many families these celebrations are made even sweeter by the addition of babies and toddlers 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 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’s a brand new one from staff member, Bonita, about her 19-month-old daughter Julia (see photos).

Julia and Bonita had just returned from a brief visit to Grandma’s house in Virginia. That evening when Dad came home, Julia took his hand and led him over to the Christmas tree and pointed to a new ornament. Dad asked her where it had come from and Julia responded using signs: GRANDMA + TREE + ONE+ HOME. “Oh!” responded Dad. “Grandma let you pick one from her tree to bring home?” to which Julia proudly said loud and clear,“Yup!” Without the signs, Dad would never have understood why the ornament was special!

Here are a few more holiday 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!

• Ever since his first birthday, 16-month-old Jacob had been fascinated with candles and had quickly learned the “candle” sign: blowing on a raised index finger. That’s why his parents weren’t surprised at Jacob’s attraction to menorahs, the 9-branched candelabrum used during the Jewish holiday, Chanukah. What did surprise them, though, was Jacob’s creativity. Instead of raising a single finger when he saw a menorah, Jacob quite deliberately would raise his whole hand with fingers spread, blowing on each in turn!

With simple signs, these babies, and thousands like them, are making sweet, new holiday memories for their families. What’s more, the wonderful thing is that it’s so easy. Just as babies learn to wave bye-bye and shake their heads for no and nod for yes, they can easily learn lots of other signs to help them share what they’re thinking with those they love. And, the truth is, what better holiday present could parents receive then a priceless window into their baby’s mind and heart?

Happy Holidays and Happy Signing (and don't forget to visit us on Facebook)!

Linda

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

Stranger Anxiety: A Holiday Hazard

Some of my most enduring memories of Christmas with my own children were the annual visits with Santa. Born in the fall and still babes-in-arms by Christmas, their first experiences with Santa were uneventful. Things had changed dramatically, however, by Christmas #2--when the kids were about 15 months old. They would have nothing to do with the jolly old man! I was disappointed but hardly surprised. They were both at that second Christmas at the height of what is called “Stranger Anxiety.”

As I reflect back some 25 years to those early experiences with kids and Santa, it got me thinking again about Stranger Anxiety as a developmental phenomenon that kids of any generation go through. It may be easy to deal with Santa by simply avoiding him, but it’s not so easy to deal with the anxiety that arises when new relatives visit during the holidays or when a new caregiver is introduced. To refresh my memory of how to deal with Stranger Anxiety, I got down a copy of the book I co-authored with Dr. Susan Goodwyn, Baby Hearts: A Guide to Giving Your Child an Emotional Head Start, looked the term up in the index and, sure enough, found a list of tips that can help.

Insist that people approach slowly and smoothly. Strangers, no matter how well intentioned, who swoop into a young child’s space end up overwhelming his/her with feelings of vulnerability. Because feeling overwhelmed is the exact opposite of feeling in control, the result is fear.

Provide a prop. Providing the stranger with your child’s favorite toy or an attractive new toy is another helpful ploy because it works to distract the child from the newness of the visitor and defines him or her as having something positive to contribute.

Teach the stranger favorite signs. If your child is using signs from our Baby Signs® Program, as we fervently hope is the case, prepare the stranger ahead of time by teaching him or her a few of your child’s current favorites. We all feel safer with people who share our language!

Enthusiastically introduce the stranger. Get into the habit of introducing people to your child with expressions of sincere delight. This may sound odd if your baby is very young, but even by 4 months babies are sensitive to facial expressions and tone of voice—and by 10 months they are purposefully monitoring these emotional cues to judge what their own reaction should be.

Be patient and understanding! Stranger anxiety is a normal part of development and actually indicates the onset of important advances in intelligence and memory. It means that children are truly thinking about what’s happening, comparing faces with those they remember, and figuring out how to regulate their own emotions—in this case by avoiding the stranger. If you can think of Stranger Anxiety as a manifestation of progress in your child’s development, it will be easier to be patient.

Stranger Anxiety is one of the earliest and most universal forms of fear that young children experience. If you're interested in what some other common fears are and tips for dealing with them, check out Chapter 7 of our book, Baby Hearts, “Monsters and Meanies: Addressing Fear and Anxiety.”

Happy Holidays (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

An Easy “Landscape” for Your Crawler

Most readers of this blog know me from my book Baby Signs with Dr. Susan Goodwyn. Fewer of you may know that the two of us have written two other books for parents, Baby Minds (about how parents can support intellectual development from Birth to 3) and Baby Hearts (the same for emotional development). The following builds on tips from Baby Minds.

It’s usually between 8 and 12 months that babies begin to move themselves around—crawling excitedly from here to there and back again. This is really the stage of “Baby on the move!” Their motivation, though, comes not just from the ability to reach an object or gain a new viewpoint on the world around them. They also really enjoy the process itself—the challenge of making their bodies move the way they want them to—and the challenge of getting better and better and faster and faster at doing so. In adult terms, they take great pleasure in the trip itself, not just the destination.

And here’s an easy and safe way to make crawling even more fun—as well as more challenging. Simply put three or four sofa or chair pillows on the floor for your baby to climb up, down, and around. Make sure they are not too tall and relatively firm (rather than squishy soft) so that your baby can move on them fairly easily. You might even create tunnels by draping light weight fabric across two piles of pillows or over a low table or between two chairs. Of course, it goes without saying that you should always remain close enough to supervise.

What a great way to provide a new “landscape” for your baby to explore—one that’s available even on the rainiest, snowiest days!

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

How One Child Started a World-Wide Movement!

Not too long ago I did an interview with a PARENTS Magazine writer about the origins of the baby sign language movement. She was surprised to hear what a personal story it was. That made me realize that others might be similarly interested in how it all got started. So here goes!

Most everyone reading this blog is familiar with our company, Baby Signs, Inc. and the fact that we produce signing resources for families. Many of you also know that we have a network of instructors who teach our Baby Signs® workshops and classes. (By the way, there’s a rumor going around via social media that we have a “multi-level” sales model. Not true! It’s just the those of us here at the Home Office in Vacaville , CA and our dedicated team of nearly 900 Baby Signs® Independent Certified Instructors, each one only answerable to his/herself.)

What many of you may not know is that the Baby Signs idea started on one specific day in 1982 when one individual baby (my 12-month-old daughter--see photo above) made up a sign for “flower.” We were out in the garden when she pointed across the yard to a rose bush, turned to me, and sniffed repeatedly. Now, as I’m fond of saying, it doesn’t take a nuclear scientist to understand what she was trying to convey! I said, “Oh do you want to see the flowers?” and took her over to smell them. What I then noticed was that she continued to use the same sniffing gesture all day to label flowers wherever she saw them—on the wall paper, her pajamas, the dining table—and that night I wrote in my journal that she had “done the cutest thing today.”

After that I started watching her more closely and noticed her making up other “signs”—like blowing for “hot” and rubbing index fingers together for “spider” (from “Itsy Bitsy Spider”). I told my colleague and best friend Susan Goodwyn about what she was doing and together we began modeling other common sense signs for things and recording both her signing behavior and her verbal development. All this data gathering resulted in our first academic journal article in 1985 (it takes a long time to get things published!): “Symbolic gesturing in language development: A case study. Human Development, 28, 40-49. (This article, as well as many of our other pivotal research reports, is available in its entirety on our website (www.babysigns.com). Just click on PARENTS and then RESEARCH.)

That was the beginning of Susan’s and my 25 years of research on the subject of signing with babies, culminating in a longitudinal study, supported by the National Institutes of Health, of the effects of signing on verbal development. With the positive results of this study in hand, we finally went public in 1996 with the first edition of Baby Signs: How to Talk With Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk and the avalanche of other books and programs began. Believe it or not, if you search amazon.com for “baby sign language books” today, you’ll get 561 entries!

Who said a single child can’t change the world?!

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

Teaching Kids to Say "Thanks"

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time for us to focus on the many things for which we should be grateful—from obvious things like food to eat and a warm bed at night to the little, more subtle things like birds flocking to the bird feeder or a sunny day for a winter outing. The nice thing about Thanksgiving is that the specific focus on gratitude on this particular day makes it more likely that even very young children will “sit up and pay attention.”

However, I think we all can agree that feeling grateful and expressing gratitude shouldn’t be just a one-day-a-year thing. The more difficult challenge, therefore, is how to help children understand that these behaviors are important every day. It’s an important goal because research shows that kids who feel and act grateful tend to be less materialistic, get better grades, set higher goals, complain of fewer headaches and stomach aches and feel more satisfied with their friends, families and schools than those who don't.

That’s why I was so glad to see a list of tips for how to foster gratitude in children included in an article prepared under the banner of the child-advocacy organization, Zero to Three. Here’s link: http://www.zerotothree.org/child-development/social-emotional-development/raising-a-thankful-child.html .

One thing that we here at Baby Signs can add to the list for the littlest ones is teaching the sign for “Thank You” (place fingertips on chin and make arching movement outward). It’s amazing how early and easily signing toddlers pick up this important concept!


Happy Thanksgiving to one and all! (And don't forget to follow us on Facebook!)

Linda

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

Birth of the Green-Eyed Monster

In last week’s blog posting, veering a long way from baby sign language, I talked about why it’s understandable that an older sibling might be jealous of the addition of a new baby to the family. This week I want to turn the tables a bit and ask, “What about the baby?”. Won’t there come a point when the baby begins to resent having to share Mommy with the older child? In other words, when does the traditional green-eyed monster called jealousy appear on the scene?

One answer comes from a clever study by developmental researchers Sybil Hart, Tiffany Field, Claudia Del Valle, and March Letourneau that tested 12-month-old babies under two conditions. In one, moms were asked to ignore their children while looking through a picture book. In the other, still ignoring their babies, moms were given a life-size baby doll to cuddle. If simply being ignored is what annoys babies this age, then both situations should be equally upsetting. But that’s not what happened. Instead, these year-old children were significantly more distressed about the doll than the book, suggesting that they specifically resented seeing another “baby” get the cozy comfort of Mommy’s lap.

Looks like sibling rivalry is a two-way street from pretty early on!

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