Bad Parent: Use Your Words — Please!
I regret teaching my child sign language.
by Elizabeth Heiselt
October 16, 2008
If I'd known that my thirteen-month-old son would wake me up at 7:00 in the morning by crawling on my head and then looking at me expectantly while putting his two dimpled fists together in the sign for "more," I would have thought twice about teaching him — a normal, hearing baby — sign language.
All I'd heard were the wonderful things signing could do for us: we could communicate as early as seven months. He'd reap the benefits of learning a second language, like having a higher IQ and larger vocabulary. There would be fewer temper tantrums. We'd bond. And most importantly for me, it would, I hoped, stop the agitated groaning, grunting and reaching that had become the soundtrack to my life.
I fell for it hard. From the time he was born, I looked forward to the day when my little guy would start talking to me with his hands. He'd let me know what he needed and I would avoid the "do-you-want-this-or-this-or-this" game altogether. And then he'd scrub the floor and do the dishes.
When he was five months old, I started with the most urgent signs: more, eat, diaper and milk. I dutifully signed them to him at the appropriate times and studied him for hints of understanding. All I got were blank stares. Sometimes he looked away.
Months passed and I grew anxious as I talked to friends whose babies had started signing after only weeks of teaching. I was exasperated when my son lost interest in the Baby Signing Time DVDs my friends raved about. My heart sank when I heard stories of babies picking up new signs in an instant.
Within days his signing vocabulary took off. Milk. Eat. More. Dog. Bird.
But I couldn't stop. By his first birthday, my son wasn't signing, but he also hadn't yet spoken a word. I dreaded another year of his groaning. Something had to be done to stop the noise, I thought, and the only something I knew of was sign language. Yet each time I signed, I was reminded of his lack of interest and plagued with thoughts that maybe my child didn't want to talk to me at all.
Then, after eight months of teaching, he finally did it. He waved "bye-bye" to a stranger in the park. From that moment, the signing seemed virtually unstoppable. He signed bye-bye every chance he got. Bye-bye bed. Bye-bye food. Bye-bye pajamas. Bye-bye train. Within days his signing vocabulary took off. Milk. Eat. More. Dog. Bird. I was elated and encouraged him at every turn.
"Do you want something to eat? Something to eat? Eat! Yes! Good sign!" I would say. "Good sign!" became a refrain at our house. "Yes, I see you want more, but there is no more. No more. Good sign, though, good sign."
"Dog? I don't see a dog. Good sign, though, good sign."
The "good sign"-ing reached ridiculous levels. Both my husband and I worried that without our enthusiasm for every attempted communication, no matter how out of place it may have been, our boy would have second thoughts about trying to talk to us. We felt signing was a thin rope that connected us to our reticent son, a rope he could easily pull away if we didn't constantly hold up our end.
©2008 Elizabeth Heiselt and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Elizabeth Heiselt is a full-time mom, sometime-writer with an MA in Journalism from New York University. She and her husband live, work, play, and run with their two-year-old son in Brooklyn. |
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