Teaching our son to sign, and learning to sign myself, has really been a game changer for us, and it wouldn’t have been possible without Tiny Talkers. Our son (about 18 months) is not much of a talker yet, and I was having a hard time seeing his grunting and hollering as anything other than frustration and demands. It was wearing on me and made it hard for me to meet him where he was at. We signed up for Sign, Sing and Play when he was just a few months over a year old. He had just started signing for “milk” based on my haphazard methods of teaching him at home. But Sign, Sing and Play got us both in the habit of signing and taught me a ton about how to teach him to sign, so from he started to sign more and more. Since he has started signing, it feels like our dynamic has changed a lot, especially in the last few weeks as he has added a few signs every week to what he knows.
There’s so much less frustration between us because he has a way to clearly tell me exactly what he wants. There’s so much less yelling from both of us because we have this bridge to communicate now, whether that’s for me to tell him we’re all done with the toys at library story time or him to tell me he wants me to read the same book again. It has really cut down on both of our stress levels. And teaching him new signs has been really fun! It’s given me a go to way to talk to him about what I’m seeing and know that we are seeing the same things and connecting over them.
Seeing him sign pumpkin when we watched the squishing of the squash at the zoo or spider when we stopped on a walk to watch one weave its web has really helped me know that we are sharing experiences. But, perhaps most of all, learning to sign together has taught me to really watch our son as he interacts with the word in a different way than I did before. Because I know he can tell me what he sees — but that he often signs things imperfectly as little ones do — I feel like I am more observant and tuned into him as I watch his movements to see if he is trying to sign. I feel like I am able to listen to him in a way that wasn’t possible before. We have Tiny Talkers thank for these changes in our lives. I can’t overstate how much of a difference it has made. – Rachel