As I handed the baby off to her, I could hear Novalee cooing and she had a big grin on her face. Erica made eye contact and held Novalee close to her while giving her a kiss and hugging her tight. She then proceeded to talk to Novalee (in the soften, higher toned voice) as Nova was smiling and cooing back at her. I believe this interaction between my sister and her daughter let Novalee know that Erica believes her daughter can contribute to an interaction or a relationship (Kovach & Da Ros-Voseles, 2011).
Then, Erica began to ask me how the day went with the girls. As we were talking, I noticed that Novalee was staring right at me the whole time, so I would look at her and smile, sometimes stopping the conversation to acknowledge her sweetness. (I love my nieces!!!) Looking back, I am glad that I did this because "acknowledging and speaking directly to the baby by name tells the baby he or she is respected as an individual (Kovach & Da Ros-Voseles, 2011). As I did this, Erica would stop and smile and look at Novalee too.
Later, my sister's husband Dave came into the room with Sonorah who was crying (mainly because she was tired and hadn't napped for us all afternoon- we assumed she was too excited to spend the day with her Aunts!) Dave told Erica that Sonorah was happy upstairs in Aunt Stephany's room, but got upset when he picked her up to bring her downstairs. So Erica (using the same tone/softness with Novalee) tried to get Sonorah to smile, say "Hi momma!" or give her a hug by asking if she would. Sonorah shook her head no and continued to cry. So Erica replied to her "Okay, then I won't force you." I thought this was so great of my sister not to pursue this and respect her daughter's emotions at the time. Instead, Erica let Sonorah approach her when Sonorah was ready. I believe that because shd did this, Erica let Sonorah know that she is happy to spend time with her, when she was ready (Stephenson, 2009).
I really enjoyed taking a step back and looking at how my sister communicates with her daughters. I was so proud of my little sister who has become such an amazing mom since day 1 of her first pregnancy. Even though she has not had any experience in early childhood studies, she is definitely someone I feel I can go to for advice when working with children just because of her natural abilities after becoming a mother.
The only area that I noticed we both could improve on, was instead of using the endearment "baby" when talking to the girls, use their actual names.
References:
Kovach, B., & Da Ros-Voseles, D. (2011). Communicating with babies. YC: Young Children, 66(2), 48-50.
