Husband won't sign...

That sounds promising. :)
 
I wouldn't stress too much on the hearing aid part. My father doesn't sign that well and because of that, we don't have an excellent relationship. I love him, but we just don't really talk. So, Perhaps, you can instill the idea in your husband's head that if he would like to have a relationship with his child, he will need to learn how to communicate with her. I'm not saying that he has to but, it has to be up to him to want to have a relationship with the child. Give him time and some areas are needed to work out on more than other.
 
My father doesn't sign well. However he did play with me, such as play softball or any other sports or helping him as his handy girl or food shopping. He does sign but his own homemade signs that we can communicate in different ways. My dad speaks broken english though, he speaks mixed english and italian langauge anyway. LOL He tried to learn ASL but He had a hard time grasping . I can't complain because he is always there for me when I was growing up. So i love him. Just let your hubby know that he can be there for little girl then she would know that dad loves her. Pushing him to learn ASL that wont work and will affects his self esteem. Life goes on. :)
 
Sounds like your husband has other underlying issues, which means you really should sit down with a counselor to get to the bottom of it. It may not be your child....there may be things about you that he is frustrated with, which can cause him to rebel against anything you say.

Some spouses can be difficult and not know it, and it takes an outsider to come in to explain what is going on.

Take me, for example. Being the parent of a disabled child, and the sole provider of the family, it is difficult to come home stressed out from work to a spouse that has issues and refuses to deal with them, chooses to blame everyone else for all her issues, and thinks her way is the only way.

Some spouses say "yes, I will try better" but fall back to their old ways.....The only way to get through some people is to have a professional work with them.

It is not easy...good luck.
 
Of course being the older we get the harder & challenging it can be to learn new language. I've had frustration with my dad and sister not that motivated with learning sign language. I also was in relationship with hearing guy and took him to a Deaf event with me.

He understood how Deaf people were feeling with the very lost and cannot keep up with conversations feelings.

As for play groups, maybe if you know of more parents with Deaf child to get together once a month or so in the area at random places or even something simple like shelter at a park so kids can play together and parents too? So that each families can get to know each other and share advice.. Sometimes that works, sometimes not so much.

And yup its always the case that its the mom that signs more than the father. After all, mothers are usually the ones taking care of the home and kids being the housewife. Not so much with "Mr. Mom" these days unless it was single dad taking on both roles as mother and father.

Just keep on trying and not give up. Remember sometimes challenges are in front of us to help us be a stronger person because we never gave up. :)
 
Here a thought for your husband--god forbids it but what if you dies? He has to learn, otherwise it won't be fair to the child. My mom died.

I hope he meant it about makes the effort, that the child deserves to have a family who can communicates with her. It is important both of you shares the same value when it comes to the deaf child.

My father used to say the similar things but as I got older and older, the word was never kept. I am in my 30's now. It is very painful for me to say this, my father's actions mades me feel like I am not loved enough for him to communicate with me, even with paper and pencil.

My father is also very resentful toward me for being deaf among other things. Over the years he kept asked me why I can't be normal? I didn't asked to be deaf.

Perhaps my father doesn't have the ability to empathize. He doesn't even think of how I feel. He doesn't want to see what he is doing to me, and he preferred to keep his head in sands, thinking all is well. I made the efforts, down to paper and pencil. He refused to get professional help, nor go into family therapy. He wanted me to be happy in silence! I will never understand him.

It is too emotional painful for me trying to makes it work and not get any support from him when it comes to my deafness-related issues. As result, I am going to cut him out of my life, he doesn't deserve my time nor love--after all he never shows it in the way I need it.

As for mother being the one who is home most of the time and burden with duty of child care taking--that is NOT excuse for father to not learn sign language.

Perhaps father can take the time to communicate with child the moment he get home from work at the dinner table (likewise in morning before leaving for work), perhaps to do bedtime story telling with mother, signing to the child, and likewise on the weekend, spend time with the child, signing.

Also encourage him to be flexible with writing back and forth with her when she is alot older if needed as extra tool, but not as excuse for him to not try to learn sign language in the first place.

I concurred with one of poster--get professional help. Do go to deaf event/support groups, and it would be nice if you can get male "role model", for instance, a hearie father who signs with his deaf child to help him through the challenge.

Your daughter will appreciates it alot if both of her parents and sibling communicates with her well into her adulthood, and it will make bond stronger,hopefully unlike my case.
 
My father doesn't sign well either as well. I noticed most dads or men are not that good signing. Have you noticed that high percentage of women are sign language interpreters? Of course, there are some men who are interpreters too.
 
I have a profoundly deaf 9 mo dd. a couple things I've noticed are that 1- I am with her 24/7, I saw MUCH earlier than my husband that something wasnt "right" with Abigail. I've had 9 months to cope with her hearing status. My husband, tho, didnt really begin to accept that she is different until after 9 OAEs, an unsedated ABR, an ASSRT, a sedated ABR, and a Bone Conduction Test. I have had 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 9 months, he has had maybe 4 hours a day for about 3 months. So OBVIOUSLY I'm coping better than him! I've had longer to deal with it!
2- As other have said- daddy's want to "fix it" and he can't. And that kills him. Makes him feel inadequate as a husband, father, provider, worthless as a man. Add to that the fact that its probably genetic, which means it could be HIS FAULT....yea.

I would get in touch with your state deaf school and see if they have a family education program. Ours does and we have a lady that comes to our house just to answer questions, make sure everything is ok, gets us in touch with whatever resources we need. They also have a mentor program so a Deaf adult will also come out to teach us about Deaf history and culture.

Look into lifeprint.com. It's an entire ASL course taught online, for free by an HOH professor. Very good and he's really funny. Just be aware that its voices off. I'd tell your husband about it, ask him to check it out and then drop it. Don't nag him about it or I doubt he'll do it!

As far as the Deaf community. While I would recommend looking into getting connected in your area, I would gently suggest that you make your decision about whether you are going to implant (if your audio is talking about that) BEFORE you get involved. We have met some really great people, amazing, love them, but they are extremely opinionated about what we should do with our child and, for us, I think it's making the decision harder.
 
deafbirk said:
Introduce your husband to matt hamill. Might show him that deaf can be thought of as being crippled. Plus most fathers of deaf kids are not so into signing as the mother. May take him longer to get used to the idea. Like others my family never signed to me. But there wa still a famly bond. 6 months old is kind of young to really interact yet. Try getting together with other mothers of deaf babies
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Agreed. I'm such an example. My pop fingerspelled instead of signing. It was not so bad because he can be humorous at times. That was why every time he talked up, I expect his wacky moment, and also, it took courage for him to communicate because he'd savor every minute of it.

MommaC: I have a thought. I know that mothers do tend to be thoughtful of their children, but consider this: I think that your husband probably didnt want to learn signing now. I mean, your mutant baby is only six months old, but perhaps that was what your hubby was thinking- "why bother?" You need not be distressed. Can your hubby actually be uncommunicative with his daughter for the rest of life? The longer baby grows, the more likelihood that your hubby might wonder and learn (getting to know her inner heart..).

I have never heard of residential fathers who communicated less than one single sentence to their children, whether deaf, blind, down syndrome, whatever or not.
 
I am 26 years old now..My dad knows little signs, mostly homemade because hard for him to memorize those ASL, and his hands couldn't do it right so he use different way. He have very short patience, easily to get frustrated quick if he don't understand or get it. Mostly we had deep conversation or normal chat is through facebook inbox message, we used to use AIM but I don't use AIM anymore, he don't have cell phone too so facebook is only one way for us to normal communication. Often time I texted my stepmom to talk to my dad for me if im not there. But in the person, my stepmom can understand my fingerspelling faster than my dad, she interpreter for me sometimes, they only together for 7 years. My dad always been there for me, I love him sooo much, he is very great father ever I could ask for. We spend time together a lot, still do. My dad works at auto mechanic for 32 years now, his hands skin are kinda hard and rough, too big hands.

My mom knows a lot of signs, very good at ASL. They divorced since I was 2. I visit dad every weekends.
 
abigailsmommy said:
As far as the Deaf community. While I would recommend looking into getting connected in your area, I would gently suggest that you make your decision about whether you are going to implant (if your audio is talking about that) BEFORE you get involved. We have met some really great people, amazing, love them, but they are extremely opinionated about what we should do with our child and, for us, I think it's making the decision harder.
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abigailsmommy, I know there are some anti implantees in the community. Ask them if their response would be the same if you got her hearing aids. Stand firm, that you're going to keep on with ASL and that you're not going to turn into a speech therapy mama.(It's time for doing those games from JTC! "No, say "boo be bah....Repeat the Ling Sounds after me....etc)
Just wondering .....is it clear that she's got a profound unaidable loss? I for one, am OK with CI if it's clear that hearing aids do not help at ALL....I do think that there's pressure to implant when the benifits of implantation are kinda ambigious. Remember, there ARE kids with profound and severe-profound who are functionally HOH with aids. My humble opinon...I do think you do need to be very careful with a kid who was born dhh, vs a kid who heard for at least a month or so, before the loss. I actually wonder if that could explain the fact that there are still kids who don't respond well to implants/ don't get to HOH listening levels with implants.....Only about 10% of dhh kids are born dhh, you know! Like doesn't it make sense that a kid who heard normally for at least a month or so would have an advantage over someone who never heard normally? I know they're still babies, but still..... Anyway, I know a family where they "full toolboxed" their son, got him a CI and speech training for early on.....He is glad that he had speech training and CI, but he dropped the CI (hates it) and is mostly expressive ASL now....
 
He have to learn to be more patient, otherwishe he's making things harder than it gets. He wants to communicate with his own child, then learn some signs. Raising a deaf child isn't a walk in the park for every parent, I know but it's all part of learning how to raise a deaf child anyway. I was not raised with sign language but with Cued Speech instead. It's a different communication method than sign language so if you are interested, you can google more about it.
 
MommaC said:
My 6 month old is profoundly deaf. Shes had her hearing aids for 2 months now and we've had early intervention teaching us signs as well as watching an hour a day of signing time with my 3 year old since the baby was born, because she failed the newborn screen and I just knew we needed to learn. I understand people learn at different rates, so I've tried to be patient, but my husband never signs, and gets frustrated very quickly when I ask him to practice. He also can't get her hearing aids in. He struggles for a few minutes and gives up even though I've shown him 200 times how to put them in. I'm seriously considering leaving. I don't want to be married to a man who makes no effort to communicate with or care for his child. Has anyone else been in this situation, or any deaf kids of a parent who won't sign? Please tell me what you think. Sorry if this is posted in the wrong place.
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Sounds like a rough situation :( Have you asked him about it? He might struggling with the situation himself? The turmoil of having a daughter whose deaf? How did he handle it when you found out?
 
MommaC said:
Ack phone again sorry. We've met one other family with a deaf child nearby and it's a single mom. I am going to look into things near the md school for the deaf area and see if we can make a trip once a month or so, it's about 2.5 hours away. Thanks again :)
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I just want to say I really applaud you in all this! Your child is so incredibly lucky to have such a strong support from you (not many of us were even lucky enough to have parents who were willing to sign with us or even concider a deaf school for us) I am learning ASL on my own and I wish I knew it when I was younger because it would of helped me soooo much now.

Anyways just want to thank you for being a awesome parent :aw:
 
<--- have a father that doesn't sign

I'm profoundly deaf and I'm in my late 20's. I grew up oral b/c my parents "thought" that was the BEST method for me and I don't blame them for making that decision b/c they are doing what they thought was best for me. I finally learned how to sign when I was in 3rd grade and it became my primary language. I am SO happy that you are willing to learn how to sign, and not only that, that you are allowing your daughter to use that as a language.. not many hearing parents do that and they don't realized that ASL is VERY important. I did not have a great communication access when I was little b/c of the oral method and I finally became "smarter" when I learn sign language... I don't want to say that your husband is a "bad man" because this whole thing is new to him and it sounds like he's having a hard time to accept the fact that his baby girl is deaf and he probably felt that he will never be fluent in sign language.. he don't realized how much life would be better if he communicates with his daughter in sign language...

so .. my dad knows his alphabets... few signs like school, cookie, mom, dad, .. basic signs.. but more than that, no. I was MAD when I was a teenager... then I was sad... now I'm over it BUT.. whenever i see my friends with their parents (especially fathers) that sign, I get jealous and I envy them. I still do.
 
i think you looking for reason leave marriage....you can't make someone learn sign and putting h/a in can be difficult...myself i would not pressure him he will pick it up as time go by your little one be best teacher
 
I suggest checking out Bob Hiltermann's "Shut up and Sign" videos as they are more for adults and are 'guy friendly'
 
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