Dancing Little Girls

My youngest daughter, Veronica, loves to dance. More than that, she loves everyone to be dancing. She loves any movie, cartoon or otherwise, that has dancing in it. Roni loves ballet and will attentively watch an entire performance without fidgeting or getting bored.

When your child shows such high levels of interest in anything, this is such a great opportunity for fathers to make a connection that will last a lifetime, it is crazy not to pursue it. Dance is something that far too many men shy away from. I know I did for forty years. Now, if I could go back, I'd be a dancing fool a lot earlier in life.

Dance is a great bonding connection between a father and daughter. It is something you can do with your daughter from infancy all the way through adulthood. I have never heard of a daughter that is unhappy that her father dances with her. I am sure there are some somewhere, but the vast majority love the closeness and security of dads who dance.

This is something you, fathers, must initiate. The good thing is it's not like the junior high school dances where you had to work up the nerve simply to ask for a dance. Once you begin dancing with your daughter, she will seek you out.

I dance with my two, my nine, and my thirteen-year-old daughters. I now see that the time I have spent learning to dance has paid off far more than being able to take my wife out for a good time on the dance floor. It has opened the door to one of the most special bonds and dad and daughter can share, the love of music, the love of poetic motion, and most of all, the ability to express the love we feel for each other.

Dance with your daughters for the rest of your lives.

Use sign language to bond with your infant

Sign language is a wonderful way to begin tangible communication with your infant. At six months old and infant can understand and begin signing simple signs like milk, food, and even a stinky diaper. The beginning signs are simple because there aren’t a lot of elaborate hand motions.

More important than the actual learning of the signs is the time you spend with your baby. Of all the things you can give your child, time is the most valuable. Why not love? Because without spending the time, you can’t give the love. When the two of you are learning and signing together, you are creating a bond that is powerful and can extend to the lengths of your lives.

Here are just a few of the benefits of signing. When your baby is hungry, sometimes you just think she’s being fussy. Once she learns the sign for milk and food, all the guesswork is taken out of that aspect of your baby’s life. Your baby will come to know the rewards of the empowerment of being able to communicate. Also, when she has a dirty diaper, you can avoid the terrible onset of diaper rash.

Signing is simple, fun and doesn’t take a lot of brain power to do. When I first considered learning, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to assimilate a “new language” into my brain. I quickly found out that babies can learn to sign very young because the signs are simple to perform AND understand.

Yes, you can move on to more complex signing, but the basic stuff you are going to learn with your infant is well within your scope of achievement. Please consider teaching/learning to sign with your baby. There is resource information in my book Fatherhood 101: Bonding Tips for Building Loving Relationships as well as on my website at www.michaelrayking.com.