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.

Introducing Elements to Children: Earth

In this new series, I hope to unearth (pun intended) insights and exercises that help parents to witchlets everywhere explore the elements and their world in an age-appropriate manner. Religious traditions originating from other continents often have similar systems, but are different in their execution- for example: many polytheistic religions from Asia or indigenous religions from the Americas use Wind instead of Air and do not use Spirit as an element.)

Elements, working in conjunction with a witch's will, can create magick (as well as put the practitioner in touch with nature and create balance.) Thus, teaching the elements is foundational to a pagan education.

 I hope to share with all of you things that I think are excellent ways of exploring pagan belief with small children, element by element, concept by concept. And I hope that you will share with me things that you did with your small children, to start them on the Path. And today, we start with the element of Earth.

For my son, who can sit up unattended only for short periods and is starting to crawl but not quite adept at it yet - Earth seems like an appropriate place to start. He is "grounded" so to speak! So getting him out off of the living room rug and into the out-of-doors where he can experience soil, rocks, grass, trees, and plants is important for his early concepts of Earth.

Now that the weather is so gorgeous, it's easy to do. I try and remember when we are hustling about from place to place to literally stop and smell the flowers (and feel the leaves!). I point them out to the baby. Rowan loves flowers and is fascinated by their colors and shapes. He wants to eat them, and who can blame him, really?

While I have been tempted to spread a blanket down wherever I placed him outside in the past, I am going to stop that because of this great article I read. Dirt, quite literally is GOOD for babies. Makes sense to me! I am going to start placing him in the grass and letting him feel those blades and explore that micro-terrain.

I remember, as a small child, spending countless hours on my belly, with my hands propping up my head,  watching with great fascination the plants and insects that are so easy for bigger humans to ignore. There are vast civilizations at our feet that most of us hardly notice- except as children. I spent an entire recess once communing with a praying mantis. I found her fascinating, and perhaps she thought the same of me- a child who could lower her energy and sit still for so long, observing the small world with wonder.

As he gets a little older and can sit up for longer (pretty soon now!), I will be taking him to the beach to show him a different kind of earth, where it meets water. And he can learn by making castles and digging trenches and burying his mommy and toys. And on Labor Day weekend, he is going up to Sacred Land to join mommy and daddy at a magick camp, and will see forested land and land set aside for altars and magick-making and feel how energetically different it is from the everyday land feeling of Oakland which is used by so many for so much.

Once he is even older still, I will talk to him of the properties of Earth (like manifestation and silence) and where we, as Feri Witches, acknowledge the earth in our rites and temples and altars (north). We will do simple spells for him to understand these concepts. We will bake bread and learn where all the ingredients come from and why Earth sustains us all. We will incorporate biological sciences into our lessons- showing how in our tradition, science and religion overlap and do not conflict. (We've got quite a few scientists in our trad, we do!)

I will revisit each element as he grows older in this blog and will share our introductions and lessons and activities each step of the way.

So... what have you done with children to introduce them to Earth- the element, the physical manifestation of it, and its correspondences?

Pagan Playdate!

I have been involved in the beginning stages of a pagan playgroup with local folks here for a few months now. Our group gets together every Wednesday to get our kids together and to give us pagan parents a place to commune.

Sometimes, we just meet a member's home- toys are shared, snacks are eaten, and songs are sung. Other times, we go to free museum days or play cafes or events. We also try and invite one another to kid friendly events that happen at other times during the week.

Although Rowan is just now excited to be with other kids (although he is still a little small to actively play with anyone yet), I started going months ago. Why? To find a community of like-minded parents for support and tribe-building, of course! The playgroup is as much for me as it is for Rowan, and hence, we have a win-win on our hands!

Besides having fun, I have other aspirations for my/Rowan's participation as well:

• I hope to group school Rowan and I hope to meet like-minded pagan parents who wish to do the same. I like the idea of homeschooling, but I worry that I will do a less than adequate job of teaching my son if I am the sole person responsible for curriculum. After all, we all have our weak points, and mine happens to be math. Having a group of parents contributing to the education of our children makes sense and will mean a better education, to my mind. I also want Rowan to have the main advantage of a school environment- that is, exposure to other kids and the ability to learn social skills. So while homeschooling is appealing, group schooling is even more so. So I hope to meet parents that want this for their kids, too.
• I want to start a spiral scouts chapter for my area.
• I want to start a co-op child care group so that we can go on dates, go to adult rituals, and other things without breaking the bank.

 Anyone out there part of a pagan playgroup? A spiral scouts hearth or circle? A co-op childcare group? A group schooler or part of a co-op school? Tell me about it!

Teaching Children the Craft: Etheric Anatomy, Energy Work, and Three Souls

In this new ongoing series, I am sharing insights and making proposals regarding teaching children the Craft. My hope is that you, the readers, will join me by using the comments section. Please make comments, ask questions, and engage is dialogue with me and each other in this section. My hope is that fruitful communication will benefit us all in the form of a Craft curriculum for kids of witches everywhere.


Teaching a baby about Etheric Anatomy, Energy Work, and the Three Souls:
My son is less than a year old, and I am already "teaching" him concepts in the Craft. Given that he doesn't understand very many words yet, the concepts are rudimentary and are mainly shown, not told.  Basically, I am teaching his Fetch through experience. What exactly am I teaching? Energetic work- how to use parts of the etheric anatomy to serve you and your loved ones.

Rowan's Talker is not yet fully developed (visually, it is pretty misty and freeform- it often extends towards things he is interested in, rather than staying around him) and he relies upon mommy and daddy to encompass him in their Talkers to shield him from undesirable situations. His talker has not created hard boundaries yet.

Often, I will use breath or energy to change his auric field and show him that I am doing this intentionally. I'll smile really big when he first notices the energy shift (babies are hilarious and cannot hide anything that they feel) and laugh to show him it is safe and OK. Sometimes, I'll just send a energy band of color his way. Sometimes, I'm a sneaky mommy and use it to get him to (finally!) sleep.

He has started to ask for this kind of shielding when we are in situations that he does not like (sketchy people, people on drugs, etc.). It's amazing to see when a non-verbal lesson pays off so early. More on teaching Rowan and other children Craft lessons soon!

For more information on Etheric Anatomy (and the words Talker and Fetch and what I mean by those) and Feri, I suggest the books linked here (50 Years in the Feri tradition and Etheric Anatomy).

Children Coming Into Their Power

"There is a big difference between providing help and addressing a need."

This sentiment was expressed in one of my classmates a couple semesters ago in seminary (For those that don't know, I am a student at Starr King School for the Ministry, a Unitarian Universalist seminary that specializes in multi-religious education and social justice. I am in their M. Div program.).

They were referring to people who have the best of intentions when embarking on social justice work; but often come into a situation from the outside and take away marginalized people's power in the name of helping. This pattern has been repeated by many (particularly white, middle class activists) in many different movements. I agree with the sentiment, and can see how this sentence also applies to parenting.

My son is almost 6 months old. He is learning to get around, but not accomplished at crawling yet. He is starting solid foods enthusiastically, but gags in his learning curve of how to take in soft smooshy foods (we are doing mainly "Baby Led Weaning"). He has learned that we respond to his cries, and now he "cries" to get our attention even when he's not upset (he just wants something).

The urge to jump in and "help" my son can be overwhelming. Many parents would be freaked out as their child gagged on a chunk of overripe pear. But he's not choking- he's gagging. There is a difference, and that is the difference between learning about his world (and the depth of his own mouth) and being sheltered, only given pureed food and not given that chance. (Yes, mommy is right there in case he actually starts to choke...)

In my religious tradition, Power is one of the five human birthrights. (The others being Sex, Pride, Self, and Passion- and these words encompass far more in Feri than the mainstream culture has assigned them). Power is Rowan's birthright as a human and especially as a witch. I am fighting all the time to allow myself to give him the room to experiment, fail, and possibly get banged up a bit- all in the name of having him claim little bits of his power, as he earns them.

I have to say, the experiment is working. He is thriving and being adventurous in his world. He is strong, happy, and by all accounts well-adjusted. He trusts and loves his mommy and daddy. He takes risks knowing that we will catch him.

I wonder, how often do well-meaning parents take away a child's power- all in the name of "helping"? 


(Oh- and for those of you who think Baby Led Weaning is some new-fangled fad: ever wonder how babies ate before there were blenders and food processors?)