Maximizing the window of opportunity for learning in your child
- by Anne Paul
Most children are born with the potential to excel intellectually, socially and
emotionally. Just how smart and well adjusted they become later in life depends,
to a large extent, on the type and amount of stimuli and love they receive during
their early childhood years. Parents who take pains to provide their children with
a loving and conducive environment for learning, are likely to be rewarded with
smarter and happier children.
To give you a better understanding of the kind of great beginnings you could give
your child, is Anne Paul, a Program Coordinator from the Department of Child and
Family Studies at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia.
Anne Paul has been involved in many children's services, parenting leadership and
other human service courses. She has managed large projects and joint venture projects
for Swinburne University and with other Australian and overseas organisations. She
has worked at Swinburne for a period of eleven years and is responsible within her
teaching department for operational responsibilities for the delivery of Children's
Services courses over two campuses. Her areas of expertise in teaching include parent
group leadership training, child and adolescent development, managing children's
behaviour, children with additional needs and society, culture and diversity. She
has also managed the development of new courses, customised existing courses to
meet customer needs and has written and edited curriculum for Swinburne and Government
agencies at both State and National level.
Anne has also worked for Swinburne in Singapore for a period each year for the last
five years with a local organisation, the Family Resource and Training Centre, overseeing
parenting group leadership training to social workers, welfare workers, teachers
and others involved in family services. She has also conducted other professional
workshops and parenting seminars for parents both in Australia and overseas. In
Singapore, Anne has been a regular guest on Parenting Today radio program on Newsradio
938. Anne has also published in Australia in the areas of child development, guiding
children's behaviour, parenting and the development of inclusive, anti-bias practices
to support children and families.in books, articles and conference papers.
Q1) According to some experts, children start to learn when they are still in the
womb. Please comment.
A1) It is well documented that infants do hear sounds in the womb, not just the
mother's body sounds and heartbeat but some sounds from outside. This is why it
is very positive for parents to play music especially in the second and third trimester.
They also respond to movement and touch. Massaging the tummy in the third trimester
when baby is moving often calms the baby.
One of the reasons it is thought that infants after birth have an unsettled time
in the evening is because in utero they were used to the mother being very active
at that time. This is often the time of day when mothers may be doing a number of
household chores, especially if they work during the day. For example evening meals
are being prepared, other children are being helped to get ready for bed and it
can be a stressful time of the day for many. A mother's mood is also known to affect
the foetus and stress and depression may cause an imbalance of hormones.
Other research has shown that the foetus responds to the endorphins released when
the mother exercises and will experience the uplifted and relaxed feeling that the
mother experiences. The foetus in the third trimester responds to light and dark.
A light shone on the mother's tummy produces a reaction from the foetus.
The latest brain imaging techniques show that some of the neurons in the brain make
connections to each other before birth in response to stimuli that the foetus experiences
in the womb. This in itself proves that there is some learning happening before
birth and not just reflex reactions.
Q2) A window of opportunity for learning of special skills, such as music, language,
motor skills, etc. exists in the first few years of life when a child's brain is
growing at its fastest rate. Please advise how parents could use this knowledge
to maximize their child's learning capability.
A2) Children should never be rushed with skills that they are not developmentally
ready for. Some programs, which have been used to accelerate children's learning,
have caused a type of burn out in children in later years or caused accelerated
learning in one area to the detriment of other areas of learning considered equally
important. The area of intellectual or cognitive ability is the one that is often
accelerated and this can cause less emphasis on other areas such as physical or
social/emotional development.
The main task of childhood is really to help a child develop in a holistic way so
that they become a well rounded adult who may have special talents in one particular
area but who is able to function well in all areas. For example in the current workforce
the ability to use computers well is paramount and should be encouraged. However
a child who grows up being absolutely brilliant on the computer but who is socially
inept, may never move beyond a certain level of promotion in the workplace because
of their inability to communicate well.
Children need to be developmentally ready for some specific skills and learning
to take place. A child learning to catch a ball or ride a bike will find this a
very difficult and frustrating task if they are not physically ready for this task.
Sensible adults will prepare children for these tasks by introducing a sequence
of learning that will build the skills. For example a child can throw and catch
a beanbag sooner than they can a ball. It's important for children to feel capable
and successful in their physical skills, therefore ways should be found to build
these skills up over a period of time and in a sequence from simple to more complex.
Some motor skills need to be introduced with a lot of support and gradually practised
until less support is needed. This is important when doing something like learning
to ride a bike. As well as needing physical maturity the child also needs the intellectual
maturity to be able to put all the different movements required together in order
to stay on the bike, make the bike move and steer the bike in the correct direction
all at the same time.
Language learning is something that we know through research has a critical period
for learning. In documented instances where children have not had any language experiences
until after the age of about twelve years, it is extremely difficult for them to
catch up. Truly bi lingual children seem to soak up a second language if it is heard
in the home from birth. It seems to come very easily when there is no great teaching
effort made but it is part of the everyday language used. Contrary to belief, the
very young child can cope with this and seems to be more truly bi lingual than when
a second language is introduced later.
In many countries a second language is introduced into school curricula after the
age of twelve. Linguists find this a questionable practice as children are reaching
the end of the critical period for language learning and are bound to find it a
more difficult task.
Verbal language and learning to read and write are best thought of as developmental
tasks because children do these things when they are developmentally ready. That
is not to say that we cannot surround them with language experiences and pre reading
and pre writing experiences to build up their skills and give them a sense of being
capable and successful. Infants and young children should be in a language-rich
environment.
Q3) What do you mean by a language rich environment?
A3) This is one where the infant and young child is talked to frequently, sung to,
read to and responded to in caring positive ways by parents and main caregivers.
It is where there are lots of books read, pictures talked about, walks in the park
where leaves, trees and the natural world are talked about, where children are given
social opportunities to mix with other children and adults, where they have toys
which produce an imaginary world where they will make up conversations and talk
about what they are doing. Even trips to the supermarket can be a language-rich
experience for young children. For example, they can be encouraged to read familiar
packets long before they are formally reading books.
Children love familiar picture books and will often at a young age begin to say
the words along with you. This is their first reading attempt and should be encouraged
through adults reading a lot to them and making it a pleasurable experience which
the child will want to repeat again and again. The bedtime story should happen from
infancy.
Q4) Some household items serve as excellent play materials for children. Please
give some examples of such toys for children aged 0-6 months, 6-12 months, 1-2 years
and 3-5 years.
A4)
0-6 months
• Mobiles - wire coat hangers (safely secured) and hanging materials such as ribbon,
pieces of material, curtain rings or anything bright.
• Hanging curtain netting with bright ribbons or other bright things hanging from
it - above change table or play mat
6-12 months
• Net bags (such as onion bags filled with paper and tied) for a crunchy feely toy
• Coloured cellophane paper on the window - for the sun to catch
• Small and large plastic bottles filled with seeds etc for shakers - note need
to be very safely sealed as well as caps shut tightly
• Mirrors - especially at child height
• Plastic containers for stacking
1-2 years
• As above plus
• Pots and pans/wooden spoons
• Plastic containers for stacking or sorting safe objects into
• Paper for tearing
• Large boxes to crawl into
• Trays with small unbreakable objects
• Very shallow container with a small amount of water - twigs, stones (larger than
mouth size), any interesting wooden small bowls or containers
• Cushions/rugs/materials for soft play spaces
3-5 years
• As above plus
• Safety scissors and cutting out pictures from magazines for four - five year olds,
tearing for younger children
• Cubby houses from cardboard boxes or small tables/material/rugs/cushions/kitchen
utensils
• Puppet theatres from cardboard boxes
• Dress ups using materials or adult clothes, hats etc.
• Washing up plastic dishes at the sink (under supervision)
(children of this age love helping with many household chores - especially if it
involves water)
• Plastic containers to use as building blocks
• Washed out milk or juice plastic cartons to use as building blocks with masking
tape to stick them together - make great cubby houses with walls and windows.
Please note that all items need to be checked for safety for the particular age
group as you would do when buying toys.
Q5) Please suggest some good books for parents who would like to learn more about
effective parenting.
A5) The Family Resource and Training Centre in Singapore may recommend some that
are in tune with the Singapore context or you can visit the website of the Australian
Council for Educational Research (ACER) on
www.acerpress.com.au for parenting
resource information - they publish an excellent catalogue of parenting books and
programs.
Q6) Some children, especially boys, are rather playful and not serious when it comes
to learning. What should parents do to help them to overcome this stage of playfulness
and restlessness so as to concentrate on their studies? Please advise.
A6) Children have different temperaments and needs and some find it more difficult
than others to attend to a task or concentrate. We should look for the special talents
and interests of children and try to match up what we give them to their particular
talents where possible. We should also keep in mind that more active children need
an outlet for their physical needs and should be encouraged as this is also a very
important aspect of the development of the whole child. Some may even be particularly
talented at sport and go on to be Olympic athletes.
We also need to consider that all children develop at different rates and some children
may not be developmentally ready for a particular kind of learning. For example
children in primary school often have trouble with the maths concept of fractions
and it has been shown that some children who are not developmentally ready for this
intellectual shift - can be guided to aquire the concepts through working with something
concrete - such as cutting an orange into eight pieces and using the pieces to add
and subtract fractions.
When interested, children will spend a longer period of time concentrating. Some
bright children are easily bored or distracted so we also have to encourage these
children to extend their skills in some areas before non- attending behaviour becomes
a habit. Other children may struggle with some aspects of learning and become frustrated
and therefore refuse to concentrate because they expect to fail.
We need to find out exactly why a child is not concentrating first and then plan
how to engage the child. Parents and teachers often try to give all children exactly
the same experience when by changing just one thing they may make an experience
more meaningful and fit the needs of one particular child.
To encourage children to attend and concentrate, who are experiencing difficulty
in this area, we should try to do this first with enjoyable activities and games
- listening games, board games, card games etc. Their concentration and attention
can be acknowledged and then they will then be more willing to concentrate at other
tasks with some positive acknowledgement from parents or teachers such as, 'You
really concentrated well on that - look how much of it you have finished.' In this
way they will continue to want to have the positive acknowledgement from the adult
and will keep trying.
Often children who are very restless and distracted feel a sense of discouragement
because they are always being noticed for their more negative behaviour, so it is
important to break this cycle.
To ensure great beginnings in childhood, the following are things and challenges
needed by children in their different stages of growth, that parents can and should
provide:
Infants need
• A fairly predictable routine
• Nurture, love and care
• Gentle rocking, soothing, massaging
• Good health care and nutrition
• Safety, comfort and security
• Trusting and positive relationships
• Reciprocal interactions
• Stimulation but not over stimulation
• Opportunities to experience and explore
• Opportunities to play
• Opportunities to hear language and to practice their own language skills- through
singing, stories, rhymes, voice games.
Toddlers also need
• Challenge but not too much otherwise frustration sets in
• To be given some independence
• Clear simple rules and boundaries
• An adult close by to run to when upset
• Feelings recognized and acknowledged as strong emotions can overwhelm them
• Calm places to calm down as well as interesting places to explore and manipulate
• A language rich environment
• Being given clear simple choices and instructions
• Being given more open ended activities which require no right answer
Pre-school children need
• Freedom with limits
• To be given some responsibility and decision making
• To be encouraged to talk about what they need - how they feel
• Interesting and stimulating things to do
• To be more involved in problem solving activities and situations
• To have efforts and talents recognized and encouraged
• To be helped with areas they are not so good at
Know Your Child
Need to use own instinctive knowledge of your child and what they need
Know Yourself
Are there parts of your parenting that are difficult? If this is the case, do seek
out help and support.
The Foundation for a Healthy Well-Adjusted Child
• Establish patterns of sleeping in infancy
- use controlled comfort if necessary
• Give children your time and energy
- play with them and interact with them right from birth
• Establish eating patterns in infancy
- introduce choice, make expectations clear
• Use the natural environment to give children experiences
- walks in the park
- at the beach
- make collections of natural materials
- use materials around the home - kitchen utensils, cardboard boxes, materials,
old clothes and hats for dress ups
• Provide language experiences such as reading, talking, telling stories, games
• Communicate constantly with young children
- talk about what you and they are doing
- talk about how you are feeling and they are feeling
• Acknowledge what they do in encouraging and positive ways
• Manage their behaviour in positive ways
- have fair and sensible limits
- give choices where appropriate
- use consequences rather than punishment to encourage children to take responsibility
• Use toys and experiences that are open ended
- play dough, clay, art experiences, musical instruments, blocks, natural materials
such as shells, leaves, sand, water
• Use card games and manipulative toys which encourage thinking and problem solving
• Use toys and play materials which create an imaginative world for children
- cubby houses from cardboard boxes,
- teddy bears picnic,
- farm animals