Over Protection is no Protection - The Learning Child
Saturday, September 29, 2007
I know a mom with a 16 month old daughter who just learned to crawl. The mom is an attentive, loving and devoted woman, but she is paralyzed with fear that her daughter will do something dangerous and be injured. Because she is a friend and not a client I don't offer her advice unless she asks for it, but at times I have to bite my tongue.
Children learn by doing. They learn more from their falls than they do from their successes. And when we protect them to the point of preventing them from trying new things we are preventing them from going into and working through some very important developmental stages in their life.
Generally I see this happening more with female children than with male children. Perhaps it is the cultural stereotype of teaching boys to be tough, and training little girls to be quiet and ladylike. Whatever the reason, all children regardless of their gender need to be allowed to experiment, and occasionally fall. When they do they will determine what they need to do differently next time to prevent themselves from falling.
If children aren't allowed to learn by trial and error they will never learn how to walk through life with courage and self confidence. By protecting our children from getting a scrape or two we are crippling them for life.
Children learn by doing. They learn more from their falls than they do from their successes. And when we protect them to the point of preventing them from trying new things we are preventing them from going into and working through some very important developmental stages in their life.
Generally I see this happening more with female children than with male children. Perhaps it is the cultural stereotype of teaching boys to be tough, and training little girls to be quiet and ladylike. Whatever the reason, all children regardless of their gender need to be allowed to experiment, and occasionally fall. When they do they will determine what they need to do differently next time to prevent themselves from falling.
If children aren't allowed to learn by trial and error they will never learn how to walk through life with courage and self confidence. By protecting our children from getting a scrape or two we are crippling them for life.
Labels: children, courage, education, family, kids, learning, overprotective, parenting, protect, safety, self confidence
Baby Einstein, Sesame Street and Baby Education
Sunday, September 16, 2007
In the last few years educational videos, games and books like Baby Einstein, Little Einstein and Dora the Explorer have become parental favorites. Yes Sesame Street still has a huge audience, the the focus on learning everything from classical composers to sign language seems to have taken the top spot with children & babies as young as 2 months old.
Since the 80's there has been an upsurge in the desire to educate our children on a wide variety of topics at earlier stages in their life. On the outset this doesn't seem like such a bad thing. And in fact, if educational stimulation is balanced with all the rest of what life should be offering to children then it can be quite beneficial.
The problems come when a child or baby is watching hours of television and or DVD's per day. The latest research has shown that after about 30 minutes of audio-visual stimulation the child's capacity for learning drops significantly and a dependence on visual stimulation sets in. So instead of creating super genius kids we are creating immobile, couch potatoes who's brains have been numbed. The child's capacity for creative, imaginative play is greatly stunted and their ability to think for themselves is markedly altered.
The real casualty of allowing children to watch more than about 30- 60 minutes of television/video per day lies in what the child is missing out on rather than what they are becoming addicted to. Studies show that these children are less able to deal with social situations, specifically social interactions with family, friends and others they encounter throughout their day.
Their ability to use mental functions such as abstract thinking becomes impaired and they are less likely to learn and develop talents and other interests such as reading for pleasure or playing a musical instrument.
So once again the research has shown that less is more and that too much of a good thing can have very negative effects on your child's future.
Since the 80's there has been an upsurge in the desire to educate our children on a wide variety of topics at earlier stages in their life. On the outset this doesn't seem like such a bad thing. And in fact, if educational stimulation is balanced with all the rest of what life should be offering to children then it can be quite beneficial.
The problems come when a child or baby is watching hours of television and or DVD's per day. The latest research has shown that after about 30 minutes of audio-visual stimulation the child's capacity for learning drops significantly and a dependence on visual stimulation sets in. So instead of creating super genius kids we are creating immobile, couch potatoes who's brains have been numbed. The child's capacity for creative, imaginative play is greatly stunted and their ability to think for themselves is markedly altered.
The real casualty of allowing children to watch more than about 30- 60 minutes of television/video per day lies in what the child is missing out on rather than what they are becoming addicted to. Studies show that these children are less able to deal with social situations, specifically social interactions with family, friends and others they encounter throughout their day.
Their ability to use mental functions such as abstract thinking becomes impaired and they are less likely to learn and develop talents and other interests such as reading for pleasure or playing a musical instrument.
So once again the research has shown that less is more and that too much of a good thing can have very negative effects on your child's future.