The Power of Sign Language in Strengthening Parent-Child Attachment

What we all want for our kids is for them to feel loved, secure and capable of empathy.

Research has shown that developing a secure emotional bond with our children during infancy lays the foundation for future emotional development, including how they view themselves, trust others, and feel empathy. But what exactly contributes to a "secure" vs. "insecure" attachment with our children?

The most important ingredients are sensitivity and responsiveness on the part of the parent.

This means the ability to read your baby well and the willingness to meet their needs in a timely fashion. But how can we, as parents, ensure that we're doing this?

This is where baby sign language comes in! Signs make the task of "reading" our babies so much easier, helping us provide them with what they need to feel secure.

Here's why:

• Signs help parents "read" their baby better, which leads to better responsiveness.
• Parents who are intently watching for signs are paying closer attention to their baby, increasing the chance of detecting non-sign signals.
• Signs show parents how smart their baby is and the importance of their role in meeting their baby's needs.
• Signs enable babies to share their world with their parents, increasing joy in each other's company.
• Baby sign language increases the probability of a secure attachment between parent and child.

But it's not just about building attachment. Children need baby conversations to learn the language of their community, practice sounds, words, and gestures they know and learn new ones. Baby conversations also help children develop the social skills they need to get along with peers. It's our "job" as parents to keep the conversation going, and introducing baby signs allows us to do this earlier, giving us more time to build a secure attachment and strong emotional bond with our children.

Just as adults have a need for conversations to feel connected to family and friends, so do children. It's a basic human need. By using baby sign language, we're helping to meet this need and promote language development.