The importance of Sign Language to communicate with your child

When my baby was 8 months old sometimes I found it really difficult to understand what exactly she wanted or what was bothering her. I used to get frustrated and upset. All this time the only way she could communicate was by screaming and crying. And its a real pain to not being able to understand your child's problem.

That was when I learnt about Sign Language. Oh Please no, don't start thinking that Sign Language is only for hearing impaired kids. Sign Language can be used by everyone.

Generally we communicate with our hands and mouth moving together in a synchronised manner and babies learn this GESTURE talking very easily.

So I started using my hands to communicate with my daughter. Though it was not that easy and it took many repititive actions to register in her mind. I used to ask her if she was hungry by pointing my finger in my mouth. It took her awhile but I was really happy when one day she pointed her finger towards her mouth to convey that she was hungry.

So over a period of 2 months I taught her many signs like Stomach Pain, Thank You, Sorry, Drink water, Bird, Flower, Door open, Door close, Sleepy, Please, Lets go out, Butterfly, Give me a hug, I love you and a lot more.

It gave me such an immense pleasure that now I can chat with my daughter and we can share our thoughts about just anything. We used to talk about birds, about flowers and other stuff. That was one of my favorite  moments wth my daughter.

There is this myth that sign language hinders the baby's ability to talk but its all wrong. My baby's Pediatrician clarified that the opposite is true. Instead of hindering the talking ability Sign Language helps in promoting it. Since through Sign Language a baby can easily learn and relate to the meaning of the already known sign. In Sign language not only you sign the word but you also speak the word so baby notices motion of the hands signing the word as well as hears the word.

But it takes a lot of patience and repetition of the sign for your baby to pick up that sign. Once learned you can spend hours chatting with your baby discussing about a bird flying or kids playing.

Sign language has proved to be an effective mode of communication for me and my baby. Now its your time to learn.