Watching My Son Grow: Story and Narrative

A delightful thing has happened in the last few months: Rowan has both become a storyteller and also now appreciates a good story. He is only 17 months old and has a limited vocabulary (of words we understand, anyway!), so his stories consist of dogs, birds, balls, bubbles, houses, food, juice, water, going to sleep, and milk. But what an extraordinary thing! I am blown away by the intellectual connections he is making and the knowledge he is amassing.

Last month, when putting my son to bed, I decided to tell him a story of my own making. Little did I know then that the story would be asked for again and again and become his favorite, one that he also asks his daddy to tell. The story, which has several variations, is called "The House of Balls" and it is all about a special house, just for Rowan, that has unlimited balls of every color, pattern and size. (FYI, balls are Rowan's favorite toy- hands down.)

Each room has a different theme: one is a huge ball pit, another is a dance room with many many disco balls on the ceiling. The green room has green balls, the red room has red and so on. The roof outside has a bubble machine that blows bubbles into the yard 24/7, and has dogs that love to play fetch. He has a book room where someone is always available to tell him a story.

To amuse myself, I placed a bowling alley in the basement, croquet, petanque, and bocci ball courts in the yard.  (He has no idea what these things are- perhaps he will love them later.) His favorite part of the story is where he goes outside to the dog run and throws the ball for the dog, who fetches and drops the ball at his feet, so he can throw it again. At specific words he does sign: "dog", "ball", and he even points to his feet! It is freaking adorable. At bedtime, I'll tell him to lay his head on the pillow so he can have a story, which he does eagerly. Then he signs "please" and "ball"- meaning, "Please tell me about the House of Balls".

He also loves to tell stories, to himself and to us. He narrates what just happened to us. If he pulls out his scooter and it falls over, he comes over and babbles at us, interspersed with actual words and signs until we decipher out loud what he is telling us: "Yes, I saw that your scooter fell over. Can you pick it up? Do you want help?" But usually he is not requesting help at all- he is just sharing his experiences with us the best he can. He is more than pleased when we tell him in full sentences what happened and show him that we understand.

I have also caught him using his toys to act out scenarios (feeding his ball popper toy, making Puck his doll talk, or talking in babble to his worm or fox). He often will "read" books to himself, pointing at the pictures and narrating them with babble. His imagination is firing on all cylinders and I wish I knew what was going on in there!

I am looking forward to him learning new sounds and words and signs so we are better able to communicate and tell stories to one another. Magically, this is super important. I am teaching him that there is no objectivity, no Truth with a capital T. I am teaching that all of life is story, and he has his versions and others have theirs. All have value. No one's story is more important than his, and vice versa. He is a note in the amazing, multi-textured song of creation.

Book Review: Teach Your Baby to Sign by Monica Beyer

I had considered teaching Rowan ASL or a modified version of it even before he was born. I had read articles talking about the benefits and was more than a little intrigued; there are studies that show it boosts IQ, helps with further language acquisition, and alleviates frustration in pre-verbal children (they can make their needs clearer and actually get them met.)

To me, it seemed like the perfect companion to my attachment parenting philosophy: if the child deserves to be listened to and have his cries responded to, then doesn't it make sense to give the child a way to express herself if they are able? Babies reach motor skills long before verbal ones. It just makes sense to teach sign alongside language, so that your child can tell you about his wants and needs.

From the book: "Signing has many benefits. For instance, your child will not only be able to tell you when he is hungry, cold, or suffering from an earache, but when he sees a bird in a tree or needs help getting his favorite toy from a shelf. Signing helped my children feel that they could come to me with their ideas, needs, and wants, and they knew that I would more than likely be able to understand and help them- all without saying a word."

Language is language. You can teach a personal family form for signing, or you can teach ASL, the language used by deaf people in the US. (Other countries deaf populations have signed languages as well.) Recently, there was a study involving two groups of children -- one group that was taught baby signing and another group that was not. The researchers found that eight-year-olds who had learned a simple form of baby sign language using invented signs did better on IQ tests than comparable children who had not learned baby sign language.

The advantages for teaching actual ASL rather than a personal form, though are numerous:  there are so many resources available, many of them free or low cost, for teaching ASL. There are between 500,000 and 2 million people who use ASL in the United States and you are opening a door to communicating with them for your child. And learning languages while the brain is still forming is the best time to learn, and it creates pathways in the brain that assists with further language acquisition later. There are great websites that can assist:

• SigningTime.com, has videos for all ages (and the website offers video samples).
• ASL Pro has an ASL for Babies dictionary online, with video clips of adults signing. 
• SigningBaby.com, the website of this book's author. 

I found the websites very helpful for learning myself, but I am "old school" and like to have a book at my disposal, when I am offline and wanting to learn a new sign to teach my son. So the quest for a good book began! There are a lot of guides, but I quickly became frustrated with many of them. A common complaint I had was that the illustrations, photos, or descriptions of how to make the sign were unclear. Another complaint I had was how the material was organized. Sometimes, I found it very hard to find the sign that I wanted to teach!

That changed when I found this book. It is organized in a way that makes sense for a parent of a small child: Routines and Needs, Animals, Fun and Nature, Let's Eat!, On the Move, People and Places, Advanced Concepts (mostly adjectives like big and small, etc), Teaching the Rainbow (colors), and Signing the Alphabet. The Sign Index was excellent as well, allowing me to find what I needed pretty quickly. The illustrations are the clearest that I've seen, and are accompanied by a paragraph describing how to make the sign as well.

I would recommend this book for anyone interested in the idea of signing with their child (the first chapter is all about the how and why and anyone interested in taking the plunge).

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Formal Rating:

Title: Teach Your Baby to Sign, An Illustrated Guide to Simple Sign Language for Babies
Author: Monica Beyer
Publisher: Fair Winds
Price: $17.95 USD , $22.95 CAN, 10.99 UK
ISBN: 1-59233-273-0

Topics Covered: Non-Verbal Communication, Signing, ASL, Adapted ASL

Target Audience: Parents and Caregivers of Pre-Verbal Children
 
Witch Mom Rating: Three Hats:

 Excellent guide to an often complicated topic. Very handily arranged by topic, with a good index in the back to help you find what you are looking for. Illustrated well, and also photographs of common signs.