His mum is teaching him to sign. This seems to be a catch~22. He doesn't need to speak if he can sign. I don't sign so we make do with words. And he is something of a grizzler. I thought, seeing as the whole house was down with some sort of tummy bug, that his grizzles were due to not feeling 100% well but, no. His mum says he is always like that when they are home. What he likes is to be out ~ which is why we have no trouble when I take him out!
I thought about that & the fact is, he doesn't usually grizzle for me because I won't put up with it. Plus I am used to working with a child hanging off me one way or another so I tend to include him in what I'm doing ~ as really only experienced parents can because we have abandoned a *get it done as quick as possible* mentality in order to keep a little one happy & engaged ~ & this really only does come with experience.
The other thing, of course, is they have a urban house & a urban yard & it is dull beyond belief for a curious small child. I can't remember any of mine being grizzlers. They were lots of things: noisy, destructive, competitive, busy but they weren't grizzlers. Grizzlers got put outside & told to entertain themselves but of course we weren't urban & though outside was occasionally hair~raising it was never boring!
So I am thinking what one does @ home to keep a 1yr old busy & occupied. I know I always cooked a lot with mine from as soon as they could stand on a chair & *help* but I don't remember ever struggling to keep mine busy & occupied. Even Jossie, as the 1st & only as firsts tend to be, could occupy himself from early on & that is a skill well worth learning. One is, of course, too young for most art activities & even play~doh needs to be supervised before it goes everywhere. Going armed next time! 😜😜 Have one or 2 things in mind but as they are noisy no~one bar the Little Man is likely to love me!
Actually, I commented about sign language in a later post that I read first. I taught the Princess to sign from the beginning. There are to opposing thoughts on it: One is why would they become verbal when they can just sign? The other is that signing can foster language skills in that they make the connection between the item and the sign AND the word, because usually we say the word as we sign.
ReplyDeleteYou know probably better than anyone that we are not all wired to learn the same way. Remember my daughter and the penny story. The kid could count money, but could not pick out a "penny" when I asked her to do it. She learned money by the person on it, because everything she learned had to have a people connection.
He may not be a strong verbal learner but be a strong visual or kinetic learner, and signing helps with all three. So, I seriously doubt signing with stunt his language skills. In fact, it may help him ease into making that connection with verbal language.
lol I noticed last time TLM is using the sign for drink for anything he wants. *sigh* No, he's not, just now, a verbal, or even visual learner, but that is to be expected as most small children learn by doing. Lots of things will change yet & he is very different in so many ways to the children I raised & worked with ~ due, I suspect, to changes in parenting styles & expectations & the sort of cultural experiences kiddies are exposed to.
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