Parents always wonder if they have done enough to prepare their children for school, or taught them enough. It’s common to second-guess our efforts at parenting, primarily because there is so much competition – for the “right†preschools and the need to start early to position your child for higher education.
There is so much misinformation in cyberspace as to what is good and not so good for children in order to increase their intelligence and memory. Are we doing enough? What can we do that we haven’t done? It seems each generation has more pressure put on them to be the best, and learn quicker than the previous generations. Children in kindergarten are now required to learn to read, whereas in past generations that was not even begun until first grade, and they didn’t do so badly in their education (But I digress!).
There were indications in the 60s that playing Mozart music while pregnant would increase your child’s IQ. That has been found to be untrue. Flashcards are always a great way of getting children to learn, but they don’t work for small children or toddlers because their attention spans are too short. The cards end up in a pile on the floor.
With new technology come new and innovative gadgets flooding the marketplace. Neuroscientists are finding out how the brain of a child develops. All this only adds to the confusion on the best way to stimulate our children intellectually.
The brain processes sound early, before any other type of learning. They hear the sound of their mother’s voice while they are developing in the womb, and the songs that she sings to them when they are newborns. They hear the soothing sounds of the parents as they calm a colicky child. All of these nurturing sounds do more for brain development than any gadget or learning tools. Â
“What we’ve learned from new brain research is that kids need a lot more interaction than we thought before,” Greenspan tells WebMD. “Flash cards are not very good. Anything that is memory-based is not very good. Things that are learned by doing and interacting are better.â€
Being a sensitive, involved and loving parent is more essential to your child’s development than all the training classes you can give him/her.
“It’s the caring relationship that children have in the early years that builds the brain,†says Diane Trister Dodge, MA, co-author of Building Your Baby’s Brain. “You don’t need videotapes and flash cards to build your baby’s brain.†“Talking, singing, and reading stories to your children involve a tremendous amount of learning,†she says, adding that intellectual learning and emotional growth happen together, not separately.
“Dancing with your baby to Mozart, singing, tapping out rhythmic beats, smiling at each other: That’s real learning,†says Greenspan.
About the author:
Ron White is a two-time U.S.A. Memory Champion and memory training expert. As a memory keynote speaker he travels the world to speak before large groups or small company seminars, demonstrating his memory skills and teaching others how to improve their memory, and how important a good memory is in all phases of your life.
Sources:
WebMD – Making Baby Genius, No More Mozart? http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/features/making-baby-genius