Wednesday, July 18, 2007
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By Matt Daigle
By Banjo
Elaine Ernst Schneider (lessontutor.com)
About Me
- Cy
- Educated by SimCom generation. Deaf parents. Deaf husband. Two hearing KODAs.
My Canine Children
Gay, 16, a Yorkshire Terrier. She is showing her age now. Slowing down, sleeping a lot.
Lexi, 5, a White Boxer. No, she is not albino. She has brown eyes. She is a distinct member of the Boxer family that has excessive white skin pigmentation.
My Human Children
Wes, 15. First time he ever dressed up!
Garth, 16. A rebel without a cause.
One more child...
My spouse of 17 years.
Blog Archive
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2007
(71)
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June
(10)
- Should Gallaudet Drop University Status?
- Why Are Deaf Organizations Crumbling?
- Idioms: Does ASL Have Idioms?
- Is CI Surgery Immortal And Non-Consensual?
- Do Hearing People Lack In Common Sense?
- Der Sankt's Challege: ASL Translation Of His Story...
- Mike McConnell, AKA, Kokonut Pundits: Here's A Foo...
- DODs, DOHs and the System: The Bigger Picture
- Color ASL Sign Origin: SEE, Unmarked, Or ???
- SEE-Like Signs in ASL; Y-System or S-System?
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June
(10)
Deafread - Best of Deaf Blogs
Best Reading: My Literacy Circle
- The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time by Mark Haddon
- Snowflower and The Secret Fan by Lisa See
- Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- The Darwin Awards Series by Wendy Northcutt
Comic Of The Day
13 comments:
150% Agree with you. I have trouble to deal with my own hearing daughter control us because of ASL is not fitting their lifes. I told my husband to make them improve ASL. My husband and I are make a poor judgement because they act deaf. I have to walk get straight to talk with my girl. They are often say " Shut up!"
... As long I told the girls that It is not acceptable to call us a mental retarted or shut up. It is cruel comment front of hearing people heard them. I let them to hear what my girl saying to me most of time than my husband. I told him that It is not acceptable because they dont feel accept to be CODA.
Margaret
Very insightful follow up post, Cy. I am inspired by your gentle encouragement to continue signing with our KODA children. Each family is a little different though. But your words carry wisdom for all.
Thank you.
~ LaRonda
I have a thought I would like you to comment on, if you have any - you obviously have more experience with, and exposure to, codas and their parents, so I may be way off base. Could it be that some of those parents grew up without an idea of what true communication is, and still don't know what it is like? They are used to what little they were able to eke out of their parents, etc. Couple that kind of experience with their dysconscious audism, and the pressures of parenting, and one ends up with some parents who unconsciously do not think they and their children are deserving of full and unfettered communication access?
Parents have to put their feet down and insist that children NOT be embarrassed or ashamed to the point where they won't sign. They ARE the parents, meaning they are the ones who need to set some guidelines and standards -within reason, of course - for children to learn, not the other way around.
Yeah, each family is different - I remember LaRonda's example and I understand it. I am thinking in general terms here, and like I said, I do not have much experience with CODAs and their parents. My comment is where my head is at the moment I wrote that.
Belle,
I agree. Some parents did not put much value on full communication with their deaf children and they never incorporated that value growing up and are at loss as how to instill that in their own children.
I am thankful my children are never embarrassed about my signing in public with them - they sign to me in public all the time. I think my husband's mom is a good model - she signs in public with us and our boys see that all the time growing up. And they have friends who are quite unfazed that they have deaf parents - it is no biggie to them.
Embarrassed and ashamed CODAs become problematic. Whose fault? Most likely the extended family members of the CODAs such as grandparents who have pathological views of deafness and ASL.
Margaret,
Sounds like your children needs discipline and learn to respect. It doesnt sound like they respect you as their parents. Where did they pick up that attitude? You need to find where they get that from and fix it.
My partner was deaf from birth, her 3 children by a previous marriage, are very poor signers, they used basics to get what they wanted from their parent, and that was it. I was staggered when I first met them, they kept asking me what their mum was saying, and I had only met her a few months !
Today the situation is still the same, their mum signs to them, I re-translate. When she went shopping with them, they wouldn't let her sign outside the house, in case people 'stared' at them.
There was just no system to train these kids properly to communicate with their mother. It was assumed as they lived in a deaf household, then they can understand deaf people, but they barely understood or wanted to, their own mother and father. (Their father was born deaf too).
The deaf parent sometimes assumed the stance hearing teach hearing, so services and family did it all, as a result the children got the assumption deaf people were pretty useless, and having to depend on others.
A number of CODA's I met via my partner hated sign language, and were very frustrated at parents having perhaps poor speech or signing all the time, I fear, a number of deaf parents accepted this as a norm too, instead of doing something about it.
Only recently her eldest daughter has decided to attend sign language classes, aged 35!
The idea being she now sees it as a job with a wage. She has already found out, how difficult it really is to learn sign language and have to communicate to other deaf besides her mother, and is struggling, as she thought it would be easy !
It has shown her, that the very limited sign she used, just wasn't good enough for a proper conversation, not surprising given when she was younger she had no interest in it. I rather fear she hasn't the right attitude to do such a job.. there are more difficult people to 'talk' to, than her mother !
A lot of coda's are poor signers.
Interesting what you shared, Cy.
I agree with you, I see most CODAs in their pre-teens barely able to sign, and speaking to their deaf parents, and their parents have difficulty understanding them. Why? the parents don't sign to them, as their first language, simple as that.
SusanA
Hearing parents try to encourage their deaf child to speak like a hearing person.
Deaf parents try to encourage their hearing child to sign like a deaf person...
Children, in general, don't like to be forced to do things they don't want to do. They are just kids. For example, my father was forced to go to church every Sunday till he graduated from high school. Afterwards, he stopped going to church. Not once since. He still doesn't today.
His son was not forced to go to church during his growing years. As a teenager, he eventually became interested and today is a strong Christian.
Moral? Let the kids communicate the way they feel comfortable with. If they use voice, fine. Some will eventually show interest in sign language while others don't. Every one is different. I have met a few who are fluent while others are not.
~Just Deaf
Hi,
I have 4 KODAS. My husband and I made a rule that they must sign when we eat together. At first, it was hard on them. We remind them that we want to be part of their talks. They got better and improved their ASL.
My kids would tell us if they saw deaf people. They would ask us if we knew them. Sometimes, we don't know them. My second son Alex has several his own ASL signs. Cute! We often to correct him into right signs. He would say Thanks and keeps on forgetting. He wants to learn. My kids tell friends that their parents are deaf. Their friends would say cool. They prefer to come to our house instead of theirs. My kids admitted us that we are deaf parents. So we made rules and their friends got caught. Some of them learned and respected us better. Some of them did not. My kids now know who are their true friends. Funny!
Anonyous,
Good anaolgy about hearing parents wanting child to speak and deaf parents wanting hearing children to sign...but does not fly. It is tough for deaf to learn to speak because they can't hear normally and it is immoral to force them to speak. Hearing children still have their hearing...ASL is just another language which is to their ADVANTAGE...bilingual.
ASL should not be forced...which is why I said not to speak to your children - sign to them when they are infants. They WILL acquire speaking as this is a speaking world. They will acquire from TV, your family members, out in the public, etc., the same way my kids had, and thousands of other CODAs who are type A and B. Types A and B tend to learn ASL first and speak later but don't develop speech impediments because speaking is natural language and ASL become ANOTHER natural language as well therefore bilingualism.
If you speak to them from beginning, and not sign to them, of course they would refuse to learn ASL because it WILL seem foreign to them if you try to get them to learn at older age. At that point, yes, it is wrong to try to force them.
It is not immoral to promote ASL on CODAs...it is not something that they can't do like a deaf child trying to speak. If you dont sign to them from beginning, then it become a CHOICE. A choice most CODAs refuse to make.
Many of them DO come to regret when they become adults when they realize the significance of their choices not to sign when they realize their relationships with their parents are lacking due to their choices not to sign.
Many of them take ASL classes as adults. It is much simplier just to sign to them as infants and enjoy strong parent-child relationship throughout their childhoods! Don't wait until they are grown.
Susan,
Yes, I am truly surprised so many CODAs are types C and D in modern day. They were typical when I was little because many of my parents' friends were oral or had speaking skills. I expected CODAs of today to be at least type B.
I just don't understand why so many deaf parents don't sign to their children as infants and keep up with it?? It is really beyond my comprehension.
connie,
4 KODAs. WOW. Many kids. LOL. Rule about signing at dinner table is excellent. I must admit this is a rule I have trouble enforcing with my boys when they talk to each other. I think it is because when we have an extended family gathering, their grandmother speak to them without signing in front of us. While she has been a good model of signing to us in public, interpreting for us, signing to us all the time, but when it comes to a family gathering, she slips up. Well, she can't be perfect....
But this vlog makes me realize how I should be grateful both my kids are types B, not C or D. This makes me sad for other families and spark a desire in me to promote others to sign to their CODAs.
Anonymous @ 1:14 AM
Wow about your partner's children. I presume you are an older couple with grown children when you met?
It is mind boggling that so many deaf parents allow this lack of communication to occur.
Yes, interpreting pays well, and I agree that the eldest is going into it for all the wrong reasons. That is disheartening. Learning to sign at 35 is pretty much too late. Can that undo all these years?
You can tell her adult children you are not their interpreter and if they want to communicate with their mother, do it themselves.
It is also disheartening that they think its embarrassing to sign in public. Where do you think they picked this up from?
Yes, it is hard to remember to use ASL in large gathering. My kids do better with us only on dinner table. My oldest son Zach thought that he was deaf when he was little. He did not like the idea that he was different. He finally learned to speak at age 2. People today sometimes have hard time understanding him because he speaks low and soft voice.
"Five Percent Theory"
In everyday world, any parent like you and me and all others, HAS TO enforce somewhat anything setting up rules on "passing on" from a parent to kid, from a spouse to another spouse, from co-worker to another co-worker, whoever the two people have to come into THE LINK. You know that is called "Five Percent Theory" ... that means systemicially "control" or "manage" or "help". You see those three clearly similarily words are strikely into the common cause. So that's why a spouse must "control" on other spouse, if given 5 percent of times to control on other, but in trade from other spouse has to control the other way around the same way. That's how the marriage will really work out the best. Its like same thing if you own the company, you have to "manage" the people. So that way the people will be "in check" the right way as much as possible, in order to have your company be running very good. So its same thing to the special relationship from a parent to a kid. In a way, its same thing, if you control 5 percent theory on a kid, then in return (in trade off) he-she will get reward, or something free condition one day or something whatever the parent will set up with a child. It same thing.
Now, looking at what you talk about SIGN LANGUAGE. It is same thing, have to compromise (oh that's another word -- control or manage in both ways) ... it will help that way.
I agree with you, I am former Oralist when i was little, but nevertheless, I am into ASL world (or range-off to mix talk-ASL sway off, depends on my efforts). I am not that great "natural or native ASL signer" to give something special skills in very unique way to have communicate with my kids. I had BAD HABIT to talk (orally with voice) with kids before, but I kept telling my kids keep up signing more and more. Then kids seem felt so "hard pressed" sometimes, but that's tough, however trade off to give rewards (to have my talk back in "joke way") making them say ohhhh could do that through both ways. So you know.
I believe sign language is very important and very vital regardless for parent-to-kid relationship. I am glad my kids are just beginning to understand "not that force, but compromise" to sign sometimes and like to sign funny or unique way.
Just TWO CENTS for everyone. "Five Percent Theory" is good one.
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