how do you know your baby’s getting educated fully?
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Q&A: how do you know your baby’s getting educated fully?
I have a 7 month old and I question myself on her level of education. Am I doing everything possible to open her mind wide enough?
The following is the answer:
Answer by duncegirl
You know there are no perfect parents, no perfect lives except for one. Even doing your best, you will make mistakes. Relax and enjoy her. All babies have individual personalities. If you have an open mind she likely will too. But she has a mind of her own and as she grows she will make her own decisions.
Answer by denic_marija
Since I am faced with the problem for the first time, I can’t claim to be an authority or anything… But here goes.
First of all, there is no such thing as ‘education’ in the usual sense as far as babies go. We are talking 7-month-old so it is probably just picking up the basic skills.
Give your baby a ‘rich environment’ so it can absorb stimulae as much as possible.
For example, visual stimulation at an early age is known to enhance its visual perception. Just don’t force it to look at anything in particular. Throw everything you have at it and it will just pick it up. Make sure there are lots and lots of colors. Also, many shades (dark, ligh, contrast, etc). Colorful wallpapers, toys and anything that can be used to furnish its environment is good enough.
The same goes for audio stimulation. Lots of tunes. As for language, exposing the child to many languages will enhance its ability to pick up new languages later. I come from a bilingual family, so I speak two languages fluently without any formal ‘education’. Of course, if you can’t speak more than one language yourself, you won’t be able to teach your kid more than one, so the ability to pick up languages will be lost at some time if it is unused. It is certainly an advantage, though, if you offer (I say offer, not enforce) formal education at some point. It is probably a good idea to make sure you don’t play things that upset a child. The same goes for tone of the languages you let it hear. If it cannot handle it, stop it.
Let the child explore as much as it likes, and if you think something is dangerous, just hide it away. Don’t blame the child for breaking something: it’s your fault if you fail to hide it good enough. Yelling at the child will come back to haunt it later in life (we call it ‘lack of curiosity’ and such children are sometimes labeled as ‘lacking interest and/or courage’)… in other words, don’t feed it your own fears and inhibitions. For example, I hate bugs. I can’t even squish one with newspaper. But my wife has no probs with that. So she will be the ‘bug man’ (well, ‘bug woman’, to be precise) around the house. All bug contact will be handled by her, so my baby girl will learn about bugs from her (and tell her friends her father is a little crybaby 
.
(I guess the following bit will be useful a bit later, when the child learns to speak. but it’s a good way of thinking and I guess it’s never too late to practice it a bit in advance. Besides, the children may not uderstand you, but I’m pretty sure *they can feel it* when you directly or indirectly aprove of their activity.)
If it does something you don’t like, just say that it is something *you* don’t like (yes, I said ‘like’ not ‘approve’), not something she/he shouldn’t do. Every one of us did something that we were not allowed as kids. So, I think it’s fair enough to tell the kid that we just don’t like it, rather than “don’t you ever do it again” or something harsh like that. If you can’t go against yourself on this one (many people can’t) then ‘hire’ someone who will ‘do the job’ for you. Or tell it a story that treats the subject, but doesn’t expose you (fairytales are excellent for that). Of course, I don’t think this approach will always work (actually, I don’t know), so use your best judgment.
That’s about it. Hope this helps…
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