Baby and Toddler Body Language

For decades, experts have studies the importance of nonverbal communication in adults. The idea that the body has its own innate language has become so accepted in our society that magazines and newspapers regularly print articles on how to read and interpret those hidden signals we all sent out.

It is universally acknowledged that adults use body languages, both consciously and unconsciously. Studies have shown that up to 60 % of all human interaction is based not on speech but on the subtle movement, gestures, and responses of our bodies. This includes the tiniest reactions, such as the dilation of pupils or a slightly increased rate of breathing, to the more obvious signals like smiling, frowning, and establishing personal space.

Surprisingly, babies are experts on the use and understanding of body language, as they have no other means of communication. Until they learn to talk, children are completely dependent on body languages, and even after they have mastered speaking, their actions still play a massive role in their communication skills. They may not have the words to express themselves, but they always manage to get their points across. Whether summoning attentions through tears or smiles a baby can always make its wants and needs known.

For parents with new babies whether their first child or fourth – life would be much less frustrating if they could understand exactly what their infant is trying to express indeed, a child's cries can become a major source of concern. Although we try our best to comfort small children, sometimes there is just no knowing what a child is trying to tell us and we are left to fun through a checklist of possibilities: is she uncomfortable? Hungry? Tired? Scared? This is when understanding and interpreting your baby's body language can become extremely helpful.

From newborns to toddlers, children use a wide variety of gestures and actions to communicate with adults around them. Indeed, without them, caring for a child would be extremely difficult. As parents many of our responses are completely instinctive, though often correct.

Few mothers can stand still for long once they hear the distinctive cry of distress from their own child. Any parent would find it difficult not to smile back at a young baby when he or she smiles at you. From the moment it enters the world, everything a baby does helps to ensure he or she is looked after and protected by his or her parents. There are powerful biological, hormonal and physical imperatives all urging us on to cherish and care for the small, helpless child in front of us. It is our duty as parents and caregivers to provide a loving, nurturing home to give our children a sense of self-worth and confidence and also to show them the importance of understanding. We expect them to listen to what we say and to do this we show them how gratifying it is when they are listened to and understood.

By learning to interpret your child's body language, you will better understand their motivations and thought processes, and instil in them the idea that you empathise and understand them. Few things are more important to a child.

Studying your baby's body language will not only help you to better know your child, but will help you appreciate how your own actions can encourage or possibly hinder your child's development. For example, when feeding a child solid food for the first time, most people will unconsciously open and close their mouths, make “ num-num” noises and demonstrate the action of swallowing. All these simple gestures teach children more than just actions; they also teach the appropriate reactions.

Children who are taught to understand learn from and respond to the body language of others will become more confident and easy going adults. We learn our social skills from the examples set by others, usually our parents. With this in mind, you should remember to pay close attention to your own body language. Babies learn quickly, and unfortunately, they pick up both good and bad habits. If you can provide a good role model for your child by using positive body language, it will help your child to develop into self-assured and confident adult. A baby not only discovers how to use his or her own body language to interact with the people around him or her, but quickly learns to interpret the gestures of others.

As babies quickly grow into toddlers, they learn to combine their body language with their rudimentary language skills, and should they glean any negative habits from you, these will soon become apparent. Toddlers love to impersonate the behaviour of those closet to them; it is how they learn to be adults, and should any of your less admirable practices come back to haunt you, you have only yourself to blame.

Raising a child is a wonderful, exciting, testing, tiring and joyful pursuit. There are few times in your life that will cause you to laugh quite so often or enjoy life quite so much. By studying the nonverbal communications of your infant, you will not be able to read minds. However, it will give you a better understanding of how your child really feels, and what these actions mean. Anything that helps you to feel closer to and empathise with your child is well worth exploring.

Some Add-Ons for Non-verbal Communications

In the previous post, we mentioned about there are many parts of your body that add to the non-verbal message. This type of non-verbal communication is called kinesic code. It is made up of emblems, illustrators, regulators, affect displays and adapters. These behaviours are each communicated in different behaviours and movements of your body.

Posture

The first important aspect of kinesics is posture. Standing or sitting in a relaxed professional manner is a positive posture non-verbal. Also, being comfortably upright, squarely facing an audience, and evenly distributing your weight are all aspects of posture that communicate professionalism, confidence, attention to detail and organization.

Gesture

Non-verbal communicated by moving the trunk of your body are called body gestures. Several different body gesture strategies are to move to change mood or pace, draw attention, or reinforce and idea. Some examples are stepping aside for a transition or stepping forward to emphasize a point.

Hand gestures are what are most often identified as non-verbal communication. One reason is because they are so obvious to a receiver and seen to be partly conscious. It is important to let your gestures flow naturally as if in conversation with a close friend. You may also use gestures to specifically describe shape and size, emphasize a point, enumerate a list, or picking out a specific item.

Haptics

In conjunction with hand gestures is touching or a more scientific term known as haptics. This is a very powerful communicator especially for establishing a link to a receiver or conveying emotion. However, touching is dangerous because it invades a persons intimate space and may be perceived as unwanted or breaking norms. It is important to pay attention to the other person’s non-verbal cues before deciding to initiate a touch.

Facial Expression

Another area of physical non-verbal communication is facial expression. Facial expression is partly innate and also partly learned. Because of the number of muscles and features, such as mouth, nose, lips, cheeks, in your face, it is extremely expressive. A face can ask questions, show doubt, surprise, sadness, happiness and a wealth of other messages.

Proxemics

Proxemics is the amount of space around or between us and others. How closely people position themselves to a person during a discussion communicates what type of relationship exists between the two people. This space and meaning differs from culture to culture but in American culture the following standards exist.

• 0-18 inches is intimate space reserved for family and close friends

• 18 inches to 4 feet is personal space used in most interpersonal interactions

• 4-12 feet is social-consultative space used in more formal interactions

Appearance

Appearance is a relatively important factor involved with nonverbal communication. In today’s society, the purpose of clothing has changed from fulfilling a need to expressing oneself. Teens use fashion to determine cliques such as prep, jock, punk, or gangster. Clothing communication is continued later in life by identifying someone in a suit as a businessperson, someone wearing a black robe as a judge, doctors wearing lab coats and stethoscopes or various other positions wearing required uniforms of dress. Adornments are another form of appearance. Wearing expensive jewelery communicates one message while wearing ceremonial ornaments communicates a completely different message. Appearance also takes into account personal grooming such as cleanliness, doing one’s hair, nail trimming or wearing make-up. Overall appearance is the non-verbal that people are most aware of and manipulate the most. Appearance communicates how we feel and how we want to be viewed.

Eye Gaze

Many sayings hold that the eye is the window to the mind. This is very true to illustrating the power of eye contact in non-verbal communication. Eye contact can maintain, yield, deny and request communication between people. People who use eye contact are viewed as confident, credible and having nothing to hide.

Some important do’s and do not’s of eye contact are:

• If you have trouble staring someone in the eye, simply focus at something on their face

• When speaking to a group look at everyone

• Look at people who are key decision makers or hold power

• Look at reactive listeners

• Don’t look at the floor, scripts or anything that causes you to tilt your head away form the receiver

• Don’t look at bad listeners that may distract you

Hope you guys picked up a bit more about non-verbal communications. Want to know more about them , you can actually read more on some references such as the followings.

      

Non-verbal Communications

Non-verbal communication is generally the act of giving or exchanging information without using any spoken word. In general, non-verbal communication most often occurs through our sensory systems - sight, sound, smell, touch or taste. This form of communication is more to be presented as part of our behaviour than any other form of communications, sometimes even most of us fail to realise that a great portion of our daily communication is delivered through these non-verbal signals.

Since these signals are often so subtle that we are not consciously aware of them, research has discovered several different ways to classify the types of non-verbal communication and this has also inflicted some confusions among the readers from the information obtained from various different sources. From my point of view, the classifications of non-verbal communication should be based on the process of communication in any form presented by oneself, other than the use of word or language.

The followings are brief explanations of the common types of non-verbal communication that we can identify from our daily life.

• Facial Expression

Facial expressions are one of the most important attributes and the most direct way of non-verbal communication. A smile or a frown on the face can directly 'tell' our counterpart how we feel at a certain moment. Unlike other non-verbal signals, the facial expressions for happiness, sadness, fear and anger are universal, say an Asian and a Caucasian share a similar facial expression for happiness. Therefore, they prove to be very advantageous when it comes to language barriers.

• Gesture

Gesture is deliberate motion of the limbs or body made as an expression of thought or emphasis to improve on communications with or without words. Common gestures that you can find include rubbing chin, waving and waving arms. However, the meaning of gestures can be very different across cultures and regions, so it is important to be careful to avoid misinterpretation.

• Paralanguage

Paralanguage is the use of non-verbal cues of the voice in communication that is separated from the actual language spoken. Paralanguage may change the meaning of the words spoken and it may also the interpretations and perceptions of the person who listen to a different kinds of paralanguage used.

• Posture

Posture is defined as the position of the body or of body parts. In a simple conversation, posture can be used to determine a person's degree of attention or involvement, the difference in status, and the level of fondness a person has for the other person. Posture could be studied during communication through the indicators as direction of lean, body orientation, arm position, and body openness.

• Proxemic

Proxemic is the study of how people use and perceive the physical space around them. The space between two person communicating with each others influences the way the message is interpreted. The amount of distance we need and the amount of space we perceive as belonging to us is influenced by a number of factors including social norms, situational factors, personality characteristics, and level of familiarity. Interestingly, the perception and use of space varies significantly across cultures

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  Eye Gaze

The study of the role of eyes in non-verbal communication is also known as "oculesics". Eye contact can indicate interest, attention, and involvement. Gaze comprises the actions of looking while talking, looking while listening, amount of gaze, and frequency of glances, patterns of fixation, pupil dilation, and blink rate. The different ways of looking at another person can indicate a range of emotions, including hostility, interest, and attraction.

• Haptics

Haptics is the use of touching as non-verbal communication. Touches that can be defined as communication with another person include handshakes, holding hands, kissing, back slapping, high fives, a pat on the shoulder, and brushing an arm. Touching of oneself may include licking, picking, holding, and scratching. The information conveyed from touch is highly dependent upon the context of the situation, the relationship between communicators, and the manner of touch.

• Appearance

Elements such as physique, height, weight, hair, skin colour, gender, odours, and clothing send non-verbal messages during interaction. Our choice of colour, clothing, hairstyles, and other factors affecting appearance are also considered a means of non-verbal communication. Research on colour psychology has demonstrated that different colours can invoke different moods. Appearance can also alter physiological reactions, judgement, and interpretations. 

Of course, there are more of the non-verbal types, other than those classified above, which are not very common to be noticed. We will look further into these communicaton signals as we go along for more upcoming posts.

More books about non-verbal communications

     

Get Started To Learn About Body Language

It would be helpful if we can spare at least 10 minutes a day and learn to pick up some gestures of other people, also developing a conscious awareness of our own gestures. A good place to start with could be somewhere that has plenty of human interactions taking place, for example at the airport. Such a place could allow us to observe many different types of gesture from the people around, expressing their happiness, sadness, eagerness, anger and other emotional reactions.


Another best way to learn non-verbal communication would be nothing simpler than watching TV. We can start with an easy practice by muting the sound of the TV show and try to understand what is happening from the initial watching. Then we can turn the sound up every 5 minutes to check how accurate we can get from the reading. Gradually, we can watch the entire TV show on mute and yet understand what is happening, just like watching a mime show.

Just like watching a mime show!