The books are everywhere: Baby's First Signs, Baby Fingers, Sign Language for Baby Flash Cards, and (our favorite) The Complete Idiot's Guide to Baby Sign Language. These are just a few of the hundreds of new titles available to help parents improve their babies' communication skills. Teaching babies to sign before they can talk is the latest fad to grow out of studies of how babies' brains develop. This research has also compelled parents to buy flash cards, do "baby-cise," and make sure their infants listen to Mozart.

Seems like a good idea: help your child's mind develop with a ready-made formula for success. So what's the problem? Well, there is no evidence that these products and exercises support development and relationships any better than parents' own authentic and creative play. Certainly it is good to have guidelines for clever and consistent methods of interacting and encouraging communication with our infants. But baby sign language, flash cards, and "brain-developing toys" also carry an implicit authority that devalues each parent's unique creativity and intuition about how to best play with her baby. Am I doing it right? Is it wrong to play with my child without following the manual? Am I causing damage by being myself?

Babies will make discoveries and explore relationships by interacting with us no matter what books and toys we buy. That is their full-time job. They don't learn from toys and techniques as much as they learn from our being ourselves. When parents get down on the rug, read a story, tickle, and laugh with their infants, they are not only bonding and expanding their babies' minds. They are being playful, intuitive, and unscripted. You just can't buy that interaction and authenticity. Priceless.