I'll Try that Again...

"I want to watch wahm."
"Mom, I want to watch wahm."
"Wahm."
a pause in the request
"Mom, I want to watch snake."

My two and a half year old does great with speaking her needs and wants. As she is still learning the enunciation of various words, she likes to sign too.

But some times I am not watching or insisting on her to sign to help me understand.

This afternoon, my daughter was requesting for a particular children's show. She has watched it numerous times, but again, as I was not watching her, all I could hear was "wahm." As I did not know what that was, I persisted to ask "what, what do you want to watch?"

As the word turned to "snake," I was thinking, Wait a minute, is she now changing her request to a different show.

No, she was not changing the show. Instead, she was changing the way she communicated with me what show she wanted to watch.

She knew I understood her when she said "snake," so with that understanding, the word "wahm" for WORM was changed to "snake."

I turned to her and smiled as I signed "worm" and she followed with her little finger running up her arm. I then quickly went and found the show with "worm" in it.

Signing not only helps our children communicate their needs, it teaches them that communication comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. Instead of requesting "wahm, wahm, wahm" and getting frustrated more and more as her mother kept asking "what, what, what," my daughter related with what her mom would understand and changed the word on her own.

Give your child the power of communication within their own hands, fingertips, and minds!

By Shawna Tran