Children don't really become smarter using educational toys such as mobiles, flash cards or computers. True intelligence depends on the quality of a child's early emotional experiences and relationships especially with parents.
Children use their feelings in much the same way they use their vision and hearing as a way to understand and become more familiar with their surroundings and the world at large.
The intelligence levels of children depend on how well they are engaged in relationships and how their feelings are part of ongoing interactions.
LAYING THE FOUNDATION:
Even before children can speak, their feelings help them sort out the sensations they experience and figure out what those sensations mean so that they will be able to draw abstract conclusions later on.
Emotional interactions also contribute to forming the pathways that make complex thought possible.
When parents coo and cuddle with their children, play make-believe or even argue about bedtime, they are laying the foundations for intellectual growth. There's nothing wrong with educational toys?but simple interactions are far more important to the mind's development.
STAGES OF INTELLIGENCE:
The child's mind goes through six basic stages of development during the crucial first few years of life.
Here's how parents can help their kids make the most of each stage?
Stage 1: Making sense of the world. During the first three months of life, babies learn to decipher the countless sensations that surround them, as well as their bodies? responses to these stimuli.
A crucial part of the babies? task is learning to stay calm so they can focus on people, objects and events in order to make sense of them. This ability to pay attention is the foundation for the rest of a child's intellectual development.
What parents can do: Pay attention to babies as they learn to pay attention to the world around them. Notice what kinds of stimulation bring on a look of delighted awareness soft or loud sounds, slow or jerky movements, bright or soothing colors and continue to encourage that awareness by doing things the baby enjoys. Your voice, face and gestures will help babies discover their senses more effectively than leaving them alone for long periods with rattles, mobiles or other objects that have no emotional connection for them.
Stage2: Developing Intimacy. Between birth and six months, babies begin to take pleasure in relating to others. The capacity for attention developed in Stage 1 enables them to notice the people close to them.
As they mimic their parents grins and coos, they experience a joy in intimacy that will later develop into empathy and love. This early ability to form positive relationships is a crucial building block for later learning as well.
What parents can do: Make sure babies spend many hours each day with loving people who can form lasting relationships with them. These relationships can be with parents, grandparents or even a baby-sitter, as long as the people remain in the child's life for years not just months.
No matter who looks after your children during the day, you should always make some unhurried time to cuddle and play with them when you are at home.
Don't assume that your children have received all the stimulation that they require during the day. What your children need most is to have loving interaction with you.
Stage 3: Forming a sense of self. From three to 12 months, babies who have learned to relate to other people learn they can use communication to make things happen.
Example: They smile to get their parents to smile back reach their arms up to signal they want to be picked up or knock food off their plates to show displeasure or playfulness.
These expressions of will are the first signs of babies ability to differentiate between me and you. This emerging sense of self anchors emotional and intellectual development.
What parents can do: Rather than talking at babies or entertaining them with music or videotapes, communicate with them.
Stage 4: Discovering social problem solving. From 12 to 20 months, toddlers discover more complicated patterns in their world. They experiment with problem solving, figuring out the steps involved in getting what they want.
Example: These steps represent early use of logic and reason. They learn they can get a glass of juice by taking your hand, pulling it to the refrigerator and tapping on the door.
What parents can do: Though toddlers propensities to get into everything can be maddening for parents, use their natural inquisitiveness as an opportunity for negotiating and collaborative problem solving.
Example: Instead of simply repeating no, no, no to keep children away from the electric socket words they're likely to ignore anyway act as a traffic cop, directing them away from the forbidden target as they try to dodge you.
Teach children many different ways of understanding no by using hand signals, frowns and different tones of voices. Or playfully make pretend errors, like putting the wrong piece in a puzzle, so that children are encouraged to fix the problem.
Stage 5: Creating emotional ideas. Beginning at 18 months and continuing to two and a half years, children make a profound transition in their cognitive development.
They begin to grasp the concept of symbolic meaning that one thing can stand for another. They are able to imagine doing something before they actually do it, and they can put a name on emotions, such as anger, rather than simply acting on impulses.
At this stage, children learn to enjoy communication for its own sake, rather than as a way to get what they want.
What parents can do: Stimulate engagement with language and ideas by joining in your children's imaginative games. Get them to voice their thoughts by asking lighthearted question about their play, such as What are the trucks doing? or Do you want to play with the turtle or the giraffe?
When you read aloud to children, encourage them to respond to the stories and pictures. Have chats about anything that interests them, from a new toy to a hated food.
Stage 6: Learning to think. Children age 30 months and older continue to put ideas together in increasingly complex ways.
They start to think about what and why questions. They begin to recognize the difference between the past, the present and the future, and they reflect on experiences.
What parents can do: Encourage children to create elaborate scenarios when they play by asking open-ended questions like, Where is the giraffe going? Whom will he see there? What will they do?
When kids make demands, ask what or why questions, so they can translate their goals into words. Try not to be exasperated whey they are stubborn this is one sign of independent thought. Instead of losing your temper, seize the opportunity to enjoy a spirited debate.
=> originated from GWUMS