Yeah, I honestly don't remember what it was like when I was young, whether my brothers and I would sign with each other, communicate with each other.
But my brothers are able to sign well.
We use a lot of visual signs, that went well.
It's also that foreign thing, to have more visual signs and gesticulation naturally.
My parents and I could already communicate and sign really well together, perfect.
But back when we were still young and just arrived in the Netherlands my parents just talked. My brothers also only talked.
We weren't aware of that yet.
My parents did notice that we were frustrated often.
We'd be angry and go upstairs, shut our bedroom door and I could communicate with my brother there.
My parents worried about that and didn't like that.
Because they like to eat together and talk together, they think that's important.
So my parents started to involve us more like: 'Now we're going to talk together, come here, come.'
'Don't go up to your room now to talk together, because that way we won't know what you're saying'.
'What you do and go through at school, I don't know those things'.
I thought: 'Alright, alright' and we came back more and more.
We didn't feel like that at all at the time, to put effort in.
Looking back I think that was a good thing, that they know what we were going through.