Nonverbal Communication

As a nanny of two-year old twins, I rely on nonverbal communication everyday in order to do my job. Sure they scream and laugh and that gives me a big hint of what they like or want, but when the little girl is in her crib screaming what sounds like DIAPERS (which means she wants her teddy bear), nonverbal communication sure comes in handy.

Although in the past six months or so they have gotten pretty good at trying to verbalize what they want, paying attention to their nonverbal signals is what helps me the most; however, I don't always interpret them correctly. I remember this one day the little boy had his hand up by his head and was opening and closing his hand while making clicking sounds. It looked like he was waving bye to something but was getting frustrated that I didn't know what he wanted. I later learned that his mom had been teaching him baby sign language and that was in fact the sign for 'horse.' He had wanted to sit on his toy horse which his mom had just moved to the other room.

I feel like the best way to be accurate in our readings of nonverbal messages is to pay attention to the context they are in. This includes being aware of your surroundings (such as noticing what toy's got moved where), and trying to match the nonverbal messages to the verbal ones. With these other clues to help, I feel it is much easier to interpret other's nonverbal messages correctly.