Someone said to my 2.5-year-old that her almost 1-year-old sister couldn’t talk yet, and her response was, “Yes, she can!” She responded with a “you’re so silly” kind of attitude.
We’ve told our toddler that her little sister can talk, but that we just can’t understand everything she is saying yet. Our almost 1-year-old expresses her thoughts and feelings through sounds and gestures. In addition to her own language, she is beginning to use sign language, as well.
Related: How I Improved My Baby’s Communication With Sign Language
So, when someone told my toddler that her sister couldn’t talk yet, she thought they were kidding.
My kids are starting to play together and interact more. But they speak different languages. I encourage communication between my girls as much as I can by modeling. We use both sign and verbal language.
We taught my toddler some sign language when she was younger to help her communicate. It took a lot of the guessing out of our day-to-day and reduced frustration on both ends. Now, we’re teaching our baby and including our toddler in the process.
What’s amazing to hear is my toddler asking us what the sign for something is when we find it might be useful for her little sister. We’re always looking up new signs to add to our vocabulary.
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What’s even better is the way my kids are learning to communicate with each other. There are often sibling quarrels because someone wants something the other one has. When this happens, I model how to ask for it. We use the sign for “Can I have?” (while verbally saying it) and wait for the other to respond. The sign allows my baby to understand, and the verbal communication allows my baby to learn the words. These forms of communication also teach my toddler how to communicate her wants and needs, while also teaching her social skills. It’s a learning experience for everyone.
We’re also teaching our kids to communicate through expression. You can tell a lot about what someone is saying just by looking at their facial and body expression. A person’s eyes, mouth, and whole body tell a lot about how a person is feeling. This is something I teach my kids to notice. “Look at their face. How did that make them feel?”
My kids are at different stages of development – most siblings are, no matter their age gap. Encouraging communication between them is key. They won’t always see eye-to-eye, they won’t always agree, and they won’t always be able to work it out on their own, but we have to provide them the opportunity.
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Instead of bringing peace to an argument or debate between them, I try to simply provide the tools for communication. I have to step in very often, and it takes time, but they’ll learn to do it on their own. That’s one important thing I’ve learned as a mom and a teacher – if you take the time to teach it every single time, they’ll eventually do it independently.
It makes me so proud and happy to see my toddler go up to my baby, sit by her side, and verbally say, “Can I have it?” while using the proper sign. If she sees that her sister won’t give it up, she’ll tell me, “She says ‘no'”. While this doesn’t always go smoothly, there are occasionally times when my baby will hand her the object my toddler is asking for – and the look on my toddler’s face is always beautiful, “She said ‘yes’, mama!”
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We can’t always make kids speak the same language. Whether there’s an age gap, a developmental delay, or anything else that impedes them from understanding each other, we find other ways to make it work.
Providing multiple communication tools is a start. We all just want to be heard and understood – even the littlest of us.
