Copyright 2006 Elaine Currie
Have you ever considered a career teaching mothers how to use baby sign language? If you haven’t heard about baby signing, it is a system of simple sign language for use with hearing babies. It is not intended to replace speech: it is to help with the problem of communicating with babies while they are too young to be able to speak. Baby sign language has been quite well known in the United States for some time and now that it has spread to the UK it is catching on in a big way.
I had seen articles and advertising on the Internet about baby sign language but didn't think too much about it. To be honest, I dismissed the idea as some nonsensical passing fad for trendy young mothers. After all, mothers and babies have managed without sign language up to now, haven’t they? This logic is not, of course, infallible: we managed without electricity and penicillin etc. but I wouldn't want to go back to those days, so I am open to change. A couple of things have caused me to revise my opinion of baby sign language and I now appreciate how useful it can be.
My little granddaughter, at 17 months, was short on intelligible vocabulary but great on communicating via a system of gestures and noises. Unfortunately the day arrived when our amateur sign language let us down. The baby wanted something but no amount of pointing and squeaking on her part could convey to me exactly what was required. The only way I could hope to find out what she wanted was by offering things to her; I didn't know if she had a pain, wanted a drink or needed her best cuddly bunny. The harder I guessed and offered items, the more distressed she became. The end result was a miserable frustrated crying toddler and an unhappy guilt-ridden grandma. I was so upset, I felt like joining in with the tears.
Just after that unhappy incident, my daughter told me about a little boy who attends the local toddler group. He had developed a habit of cruelly squeezing the family cat. The fact that this little boy had been taught baby sign language meant that he was able to tell his mother he knew he was hurting the cat. This enabled the mother to deal with the situation without delay by teaching the child not to cause pain to other living creatures. This outcome impressed the other mothers (my daughter included) most of whom had never even heard of baby sign language. The poor old cat was probably impressed as well.
Until then I had never given serious thought to baby sign language but I realised that we already teach babies to communicate through an informal system of sign language, so there's no reason why a proper system should seem like a strange idea. One thing that causes great distress to mothers is the inability to know for sure if a baby is in pain but a signing baby has the ability to convey this. That was the point that really convinced me that baby sign language is a useful thing to learn. It looks as if my next grandchild will have the benefit of learning baby signing, that makes me very happy and I'll be taking the lessons too.
Teaching mothers how to sign is a very worthwhile job as well as being fun and I believe there will be an increasing demand for instructors as word spreads about the benefits of being able to communicate in a meaningful way with even tiny tots. From being a complete sceptic, I am now a firm believer and I have found a source of baby sign language teaching to add to my "mom specials" at my website. If you would like a job working with new moms, consider a career as a baby sign language teacher - family pets will bless you for it! |
