Teaching feelings

Baby Signs, Inc. recently sent out a poster showing the sign for "happy." You can download it by pasting this link into your web browser: https://www.babysigns.com/pdf/Happy.pdf. I think teaching the signs for feelings is such a great way to teach your child at a young age about their feelings and that other people have feelings too.

I remember that we attended a play class, where there was a set of young twins. One twin was happy and playing with a ball. The other was crying and did not have a ball. My daughter, who was under the age of 2, turned to me and made the sign for "sad" (finger tracing tears on her face). Then she got a ball and she gave it to the crying twin. I was so proud that my daughter noticed that the baby was sad, and then tried to make him happy.

Teaching feelings is also a great for you to learn what is going on inside their heads. We were at the zoo, and as soon as we entered the elephant house, Emma started signing her sign for "afraid". Had she just started crying, I would have run through the gamut of things that could be wrong - is she hungry? is she hot? is she tired? is she wet? Since she was able to tell me that she was afraid, I didn't have to - I knew what was wrong - she was scared of that big, gray elephant.

When Emma was two years old, she used to say to me, "I so bappy." We had used the sign for "happy" with her, and so she was able to label that feeling at a young age. I just loved it when she said that to me - it would just make my heart well up with joy. Many precious memories of my daughter because of the Baby Signs® Program!