The first time my son really paid attention to thunder he was just shy of 2 years old. We were outside taking a walk and the storm was really close so the booming sound was pretty intense. I told my son to watch for the light flicker first and following that would be THUNDER. Since it was daytime, the lightning wasn’t very bright but it did give me a chance to tell him to listen for the THUNDER.
Once he heard it the second time, he signed ROCK and did his sign for FALL DOWN, which was head tilted to the side with an “Ohhhh” sound. He thought the sound was ROCKS FALLING DOWN! That’s an interesting take for sure! No matter how many times I tried to explain that it was THUNDER and not rocks falling down, I couldn’t convince him. He just reassured me that it was ROCKS FALLING DOWN – even the next day!
Signing is such a wonderful way to share experiences together. Since he didn’t have the vocabulary to express himself any other way, signing allowed him to put in his input. At the same time, his signs told me that he understood the sound so much differently than I did. While I didn’t convince my toddler that there weren’t any rocks falling in the sky I knew where he was coming from and shared an experience with him that we couldn’t otherwise have had. This experience proves that signing is worthwhile as it helps connect children very early to others through language. Without signing, I would never have known what exactly he figured the sound was coming from.