Things to Watch Out for When Making Baby Sign Language
When you’re teaching your babies how to make the sign language, don’t expect that they will immediately grasp the lessons or that they can always come up with the right sign for everything that they want to impart.
Here are a number of things that you may want to watch out for:
1. Shapes of the hands may appear the same for the baby. It’s highly common that your baby will interpret a particular hand shape—say, for milk—to also mean “hurt,” “ball” or even “more.” When this happens, don’t fret. This is very much common. In fact, you can expect every kid to get through such phase.
As a parent, though, it’s your responsibility to understand what your baby means. All you need to do is to take note of the context. For example, if he has been playing with his toys, or he has been moving a lot of times, perhaps the sign language means “hurt” rather than “eat” or even “more.” Moreover, when you are trying to interpret the sign language, ensure that you can utter the word too. This way, the baby will slowly learn how to associate the sign with a particular word.
2. Watch out for sign explosion. Don’t think that your baby is not intuitive. Actually, if you want to teach your kids the best things in life, do it while they are still young. At first, with the sign language, it will take awhile before they get used to the idea. However, once he realizes that the sign language allows him to get what he wants or needs, you will suddenly discover that he will start to be using the right kind of sign language with you.
Your challenge at this time is to ensure that you can keep up with his sign language explosion. By this time, he may have already mastered most of what you’ve taught him, and you may start giving him more. You can then read more books, lessons, articles, tips, and modules when it comes to sign language.
3. The baby may use a universal sign language. There will also be a time when your baby will associate a sign language to almost everything at all. It can be frustrating at first, but then again, come to think of it. You should be happy because your baby understands that the sign language definitely stands for something. |
