How Convince Mother To Learn ASL?

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BoricuaChevere

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It really bothers me that I'm the only one in my family who signs when others have the opportunity to learn. I sign but I have to rely on lipreading at home and I hate it. My little brother is learn, but no one else cares to learn. I have try to explain how difficult is read lips and how hard to follow conversation, but she tell me I'm making it harder than it is. I know she Hearing, but shouldn't she even try to understand? It's embarrassing when people at school ask me if my mother signs and I say no. I hate it! So someone please just give me some advice and guidance on how to convince her to sign
 
Hi,
well I think this is a very difficult topic. My own experience: I could never convince my Mom to learn sign. I just gave up.
Now my daughter signs a lot, and suddenly she wants to communicate with her and learns to sign. I really can't tell you how I feel about that. I'm happy in a way, in another way just even more disappointed. Yet I think it was a mistake to give up and accept the fact that she didn't want to learn it back when I was a kid. Therefore, my advise: Try to explain again and again, how that makes you feel, and how much she would support you if she learned ASL.
 
Do you know how many deaf people have family that does not sign?? No family member signs!!! Some of them have it worse than you in term of communicating with their family.

Hopefully, your Mom will learn some day. Just focus on the family members who are learning.
 
Wirelessly posted (Blackberry Bold )

I find that it's usually more helpful to have someone else - an audiologist, someone else who's Hoh/deaf explain to family members.

I'd ask her exactly "how" you are making it "harder than is has to be" - to explain what she mens by that to you.
Does she think that all speech is visible on the mouth? Does she know that only 30% of speech is actually visable - the rest is all guess work?

If she claims speechreading is "easy" consider taking her to a speechreading class with you (they're usually free) - this will be eye opening for her!

Unfortunately, you can't force someone to do something they don't want to do.
One of the most challenging thing of being in a hearing family is that all too often our families create unsupportive communication environments. For this reason, having Hoh/deaf/hearig Signing friends is so very important.
 
Sign? LOL! I'd be happy if they all just learned to send text messages.

Seriously, I never would expect my family to make that adjustment.
 
It's hurtful and hard when people you love refuse to take any responsibility in communicating with you. :( The "hearing world" attitude can be pretty unforgiving, that all the responsibility is up to the HOH or Deaf person, to communicate, and they shouldn't have to lift their little finger even to help. Grrr! :mad:

Learning ASL is a huge undertaking, one I've just begun last fall with a free series of classes from our local deaf advocacy agency. This time classes were in the evening, so I took my fully hearing DH (dear husband). He has always been courteous with me as my hearing loss progresses, but he truly didn't understand the extent of effort I have to put out, depending on the environment. Even when I would tell him what I needed (face me, don't try to talk to me from another room, don't have TV/music too loud, be aware of background noise, etc.), until he went to those classes with me, and heard other stories of frustration from others in the class with hearing loss, some of what I'd shared about my frustration just hadn't fully clicked. Now he gets it better than he ever did before. :) I also shared links to articles and blogs and it all helped him become more aware. Now he is my strongest advocate when we are out somewhere! :cool2:

So, taking your mom to lip reading class (we are taking some now) will help her understand how hard speech reading really is! And maybe, like in our class last week, we shared our frustrations and difficulties dealing with the "hearing" people, and some simple respectful things can help. And my DH (husband) spoke up and shared situations, too, that we had endured together. :P It's important that your mom change her outlook to realize that communication is a *two-way* street, including both the fully hearing person and the HOH/Deaf person as well. Maybe being exposed to others, including your audiologist, and maybe going to class with you once or twice, would help. And finding ways to communicate easier *now* like texting when she can't get her thoughts across to you, etc. Work out ways to communicate better with the tools available (pad & paper, texting, etc.). Help her to be creative, rather than just expecting you to do all the effort. Just ideas I'm throwing out... :)

So, keep trying. The hearing world gets lied to all with myths the time, that hearing aids/implants, speech reading, etc., are instant cures and they don't have to do anything. Just expect the Deaf/HOH person to make all the effort. That aids, implants, speech reading are "Star Trek" and they don't have to do anything at all to help. :eek3: And unless we educate people one at a time, sometimes, they just really don't have a clue.
 
When/if you ever get married or live with someone I would certainly expect them to learn sign for you, I think that is a requirement. It would be nice if immediate family did that as well, but that is a long shot, IMO. Your mom may at some point learn it, but keep in mind you will most likely be the only person with whom she will sign. Since there is not an abundance of deaf people out there, you may find that your mom is the only person you sign with as well. It's not like you walk down the street every week and see/meet a deaf person.

Don't get me wrong, I think you should learn sign and your mother should too, but it's not like a magic wand that makes all your communication issues go away. It's another tool that can be used to communicate with people and you should have several to help you in that endeavor.
 
Those are good points. Even though my DH & I are learning together, at this late date in our lives, we will likely never become fluent. But we will learn enough to support what I still continue to be able to hear with my aids. Who knows if I will live long enough that I lose *all* my hearing? :hmm: But even picked up a little bit, supplementing with other means of communication, is helpful. But without nearly daily signing environment, it's going to be difficult to progress. My DH & I understand this, so we try to practice some with each other several times a week, and randomly use sign just in our lives. Like "are you hungry?" "I'm going to feed the dog." Or if he's on the phone, give him brief signing of something I need to tell him. We find ways to use it, but not enough where we could go to a local Deaf event and converse with others. I would like to do that, but see that as not that easy for us to do. We have lived all our lives in the hearing world. Extended family is all hearing. Friends are all hearing. We are making friends with people through our classes, beginning ASL and lip reading, and getting to know more people through the advocacy group. So we'll be "hybrid" in our way. :P I try to use all the tools I can, and hearing friends & family (well most, not all :|) use them too: texting, emailing, relay/caption phones, getting together face to face in small groups so I can follow conversation (vs. huge family gatherings).

We have to be creative. ;)
 
BoricuaChevere said:
It really bothers me that I'm the only one in my family who signs when others have the opportunity to learn. I sign but I have to rely on lipreading at home and I hate it. My little brother is learn, but no one else cares to learn. I have try to explain how difficult is read lips and how hard to follow conversation, but she tell me I'm making it harder than it is. I know she Hearing, but shouldn't she even try to understand? It's embarrassing when people at school ask me if my mother signs and I say no. I hate it! So someone please just give me some advice and guidance on how to convince her to sign
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Have you been clear with her how you feel? I would hope that after you explained how it affects you, and how you feel that she would make the effort.
 
I think one reason hearing people think lip reading is easier than it is is because most of us do some lip reading too, so we think it's easy. But we do not think it through. We don't stop and consider that we can lip read because we *know* how things sound. Instead of thinking about how we hearing people lipread our own native English, we need to think about how we well could learn to lipread another language that we have never heard.

Bring home a foreign movie with no captions, turn down the sound, and tell her that she should learn to lip read that language by watching it without the sound and captions off, and that is what she is asking you to do.

If you could get that idea through to your mother, maybe it would help, but I am not optimistic.
 
I know how you feel. It's sometimes a struggle for me with my own family.

I can communicate orally well if it's just between me and another person. However, if it's a bunch of people talking at the same time... then I have a difficult time following.

Out of my whole family, my brother is the only one who signs best. He isn't fluent in ASL, but he signs well enough for me and my deaf friends to understand (with patience). One sister signs some, but she's almost like my brother. My other sister doesn't sign at all. As for my dad, it's home signs or using the letter of the alphabet to emphasize what he's saying. My mom? Nah, she only signs when she's following the interpreter doing church songs.
 
I can't imagine not wanting to do it. I mean, ignoring that there is a NEED for this, if there was something SO obviously important to my kid, I would want to do it for him/her, even if I didn't have to. Just because it meant a lot to my kid.

One thing I tell my kids in Spanish class is that while they may not be passionate about learning the subject, they will never look back on life and regret that they DID learn from me. They may never use it again after they leave my doors, and they may regret not learning another language, but they will never say "Gosh, I wish I didn't know so much Spanish."

The same thing here. Learning is a good thing. She will never regret knowing how to sign, even a little bit, even if suddenly you could hear perfectly and she never got to use it with you.

Maybe she is afraid you'll expect too much of her, or that she won't be any good at it, and will be embarrassed she can't learn it fast enough? It's a lot easier to say "no" or be the "bad kid" than to try and fail and let everyone know you aren't a star.
 
I'm pretty much in the same boat. I wasn't "allowed" to learn sign language until I reached adulthood, basically. I'm 32 not but still not totally fluent. However I MUCH prefer it over lipreading. My mom and roommate/ex (all that's left of my family now) refuse to sign with me no matter what I do. To them, I've "gotten along fine all these years" with lipreading so why do things have to change? They just don't get it. I've given up, basically. I've thought about faking dizziness so that I "can't read lips and can only read sign" to force them to sign but if they don't want to, what's the point?
 
I know how you feel. Not a single person sign or use other method to communicate in my family! They all either lazy or denying to use them. They don't even get involve in a deaf community. I have been deny for 30 years and and they still continue to deny. They don't even try to help with communications. I can hear and understand better when I am socializing only one person than in a group setting. They would even act like I am hearing especially when I don't have my aids on. Sadly, we can't really do anything about it when family members do not sign or do not get involve in a deaf community. Since it is their own decision, we have to respect them even though it very wrong to do it.
 
I like to understand where people are coming from even when I don't agree.

I can understand the thinking behind a parent who doesn't learn sign because that parent does not want their deaf child to sign- understand, I think that's all kinds of wrong headed thinking- but their goal is still to have communication, they just want the child to do all the work (I suspect they don't think that through). I understand how you can go that route, meaning well, but being confused by 'experts' and frightened by the unknown. Disagree, but don't understand.

But I do not understand letting your kid learn ASL and you refusing to do it. To me, that would be like having a baby and making sure the child could only speak Russian and you only speak English.
I get that it's hard to learn ASL (believe me I get that)
I get that some people will just never been good at.

But I cannot put myself in the mindset of being a parent having a deaf child who learns ASL but the parent refuses to try.

I do not understand at all. That must be so freaking painful from the child's point of view.
 
I told my family if they can't care enough to learn to communicate with me than obviously we have nothing to say to one another. My mother decided to learn, my youngest brother is trying, my Grannie got grandmothered in.
 
Jalestra said:
I told my family if they can't care enough to learn to communicate with me than obviously we have nothing to say to one another. My mother decided to learn, my youngest brother is trying, my Grannie got grandmothered in.
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Sometimes being totally blunt is what gets through to people. Good for you! :aw:
 
I've read quite a bit about behavior change. You may want to try another approach. Start showing your mom that ASL is common. People tend to be more likely to adopt a behavior change if they think its popular/hip.

Invite her to functions where everyone only uses ASL ( but don't tell her, just let her experience the feeling of being a minority). And point out all the hearing people you know who use ASL. Hint that "all the good cool moms know it." Remind her that learning ASL can help her stave off dementia in old age and retain manual dexterity. Give her selfish reasons to learn your language. And help her find a buddy or mentor to practice and learn with.

In other words, my suugestion is to flip the script. Act like the parent here and pretend she's a stubborn teenager. Figure out how to motivate her. Don't give up; people change.
 
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