Baby Knows More than You think

Baby Knows More Than You Think

In our "information age," parents and authorities alike seem to put ever more emphasis on "early learning." We have endless educational toys, flash cards, and kindergarten preparatory programs. And parents often feel they must be like the teachers they had in school. But is this really what will create happy, successful, contributing adults?
 

Recent research, as well as the experience of many parents and families I have worked with, says no. Kids are born learners. Even at birth, a child who has not had blinding silver nitrate drops put in their eyes follows the humans around her or him and recognizes the mother almost immediately. From then on they take in everything, and learn through all their senses, imitating everything they see us do. How could they not learn as they go?

Experiments recently described in the New York Times by Alison Gopnik, professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, demonstrated that even very young children like to experiment with tasks they see us doing as well as to imitate what they see seems to work when we do it.

They also respond differently depending on how we talk to them. If we are instructing, they will tend to do what we say, but if we leave the task open ended they will be quite creative but also surprisingly logical as they figure out how to accomplish the task.

We forget sometimes to give credit to the amazing capacity we have as human beings to learn. Babies often act like little scientists says Gopnik. While schools are a recent invention to teach skills like writing and reading and grasping world affairs, humans have always learned by being around their parents and caring adults, imitating, interacting, and playing.

Headlines today often speak of "different learners," "early burnout," even youth suicides from the pressures of today's educational and media assault on our children's natural programming. This is one of many reasons a small but growing group of parents choose to home school their children, in order to let the natural progression of development proceed, and also to let the parents be parents instead of mini-teachers.

As Gopnik notes, in a society which is now begging for more creative, adaptive, and open-ended thinking, we would be wise to move to an attitude which trusts the child to learn. Says Gopnik, "We don't have to make children learn, we just have to let them learn."

To explore further this question of learning and teaching from infancy on, please go to my book You Can Postpone Anything But Love, and for the older child, The Seven Secrets of Successful Parents, http://www.parenthoodtools.com.

Randy Rolfe's Take Home Tips: From an early age, keep your child with you. Let them see what you are doing and hear you talking about it or with others. Talk to them even if they are still non-verbal. You will be amazed how quickly they imitate you and learn to grasp communication cues, tone of voice, and language. They are born to learn and love being stimulated, but you don't need to buy lots of artificial stimulation. YOU are the automatic teacher of your baby and child just by sharing your life with them. Be a model of the kind of acts and words you want them to absorb and you will help them best to become all they can be.

How to help a child struggling in school

Family First | VoiceAmerica™

When a child struggles to learn, it can snowball into a much bigger problem. Parents worry about behavior in school, social skills, math, reading, and writing problems, organizational challenges, how to interact with teachers, whether to consider medications, and more. Especially in a competitive job market, parents feel pressure even in the early childhood years to see that their children succeed at school. My guest Dr. Richard Selznick has many years experience helping families to resolve these problems. He is the author of the new book School Struggles: A Guide to Your Shut-Down Learner's Success, which builds on the well received information in his previous book The Shut-Down Learner: Helping Your Academically Discouraged Child. He offers practical, straightforward advice which has helped educators, school psychologists, and parents. Dr. Selznick shows parents and teachers how to address the problems felt by struggling students and how to help them learn to their full ability.

To hear the program, simply click on this link: http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1916/family-first Friday at 1 pm PT, 2 pm MT, 3 pm CT, 4 pm ET, or any time afterwards online, or on podcast or apps.

Dr. Richard Selznick is a psychologist, nationally certified school psychologist, graduate school professor, and university professor of pediatrics. As the Director of the Cooper Learning Center, he oversees a program that assesses and treats a broad range of learning and school-based behavioral problems in children. The Cooper Learning Center is a Division of the Department of Pediatrics of Cooper University Hospital. A down-to-earth presenter who discusses difficult topics in non-jargon terms, he has presented to educators in Dubai and Abu Dhabi as well as across the United States. He focuses on helping teachers and parents to choose the best options for each individual child. .Dr. Selznick’s books have been chosen by school districts for professional training. He was recently the keynote speaker on help for special needs kids and was featured in Calgary Child's Magazine. A native of New York, Dr. Selznick lives in Haddonfield, New Jersey. His website is www.shutdownlearner.com.

To hear the program, simply click on this link: http://www.voiceamerica.com/show/1916/family-first Friday at 1 pm PT, 2 pm MT, 3 pm CT, 4 pm ET, or any time afterwards online, or on podcast or apps.

 

Randy Rolfe Take Home Tips: Parents are the most able to discover early if their child is struggling with learning. If you suspect that your child isn't catching on to recognizing letters or short common words or knowing the sounds associated with letters, don't assume she or he will have a problem all through school but also don't assume these early signs will go away by themselves. Spending time with your child, reading together, singing together, and playing with words and rhymes will help build their confidence and success.   

Can Parents Get in the Zone?

Family First VoiceAmerica™

Athletes have their zone, writers have their flow, children have their play – are these related? Is there a zone for parents? What if parents could parent from a place of self-less absorption and complete engagement in the moment? Could they tap into an intelligence much deeper than any book, expert, or training could provide? My guest this week on Family First is Michael Mendizza, author of Magical Parent-Magical Child, the Art of Joyful Parenting, with Joseph Chilton Pearce. Michael’s work helps adults rediscover the "playful" and "childlike" genius of their own innate intelligence, as they guide, learn from and mentor children, which results in a radically different learning environment for children, transforming both child and parent and creating what Michael calls the Optimum Learning Relationship. Michael will share valuable insights from his 25 years of personal relationships with scientists, authors, visionary educators and athletes and his more than 100 taped interviews with them, now online.

Family First is broadcast live on Fridays at 4 PM ET, 3 PM CT, 2 PM MT, and 1 PM PT, and then it is also archived for listening any time, or for download, podcast, RSS, MP3, apps, and embedding in any website or social network. Clikc on the link above, or go to the specific show page at: http://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/60192/can-parents-get-in-the-zone.

Michael Mendizza is an author, educator, documentary filmmaker and founder of Touch the Future, a nonprofit learning design center. Michael is preparing two additional books; Kids Are Not The Problem, a series of essays on parenting the next critical generation, and Flowering, a collection of dramatic floral images and quotes by Krishnamurti. Inspiration for his work emerged from his own experience as a father and personal relationships with Pearce, physicist David Bohm, philosopher J. Krishnamurti, and many others. If being in an optimum state is important to professional athletes, imagine what this could mean to parents, childcare providers, educators, coaches and the children they love. Michael writes and speaks internationally on many topics, including the Next Frontier in Education, The Intelligence of Play, Media and the Brain, Corporate Exploitation of Children, The Brave New World of Un-Schooling, The Childlike Mind, Rational Imagination, and Raising Children in a Sport-Crazed Culture.

Listen in to hear Michael Mendizza's valluable insights on parenting. Listen in Friday, at 4 PM ET or 1 PM PT or any time afterwards, at http://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/60192/can-parents-get-in-the-zone.


Randy Rolfe's Take Home Tips: As Plato said, we all know what we need to know already, education is simply the process of bringing our inner intelligence into our consciousness so that we can act on it. it is the same with parenting. Don't let all the would be experts pull you away from your nurturing instincts about how to love and support your child. Parenting is fun and is meant to be rewarding every day. If your child knows you feel that way, he or she will respond accordingly and enjoy being a child and looking forward to growing up to be like you!

Learning Disorders Can Often Be Corrected Without Drugs

One of the most distressing developments in recent years is the amazing increase in the incidence of learning and behavior disorders, rangingfrom mild to severe, including ADHD, dyslexia, autism spectrum disorders, and more. Discussion continues whether to blame educators, parents, TV, video games, environmental toxins, or the family genes. But meanwhile, my guest this week on my net radio show has found solutions. Dr. Albert Forwood has been helping children with learning and behavior rpoblems for many years. Dr Forwood has his board certification in the revered functional neurology program, an elite certification that less than 5% of doctors in his profession achieve. In 2009 he opened the Brain Balance Center in Wayne PA, one of many opening around the country. These Centers have a program which is helping kids in extraordinary ways, often with major progress in a surprisingly short time, because of the customized treatment and the focus on the actual cause of the disorders. Instead of covering symptoms with drug treatment, the Brain Balance Centers get to the real brain imbalance which is causing the problems. The program is described in a book called Disconnected Kidsm written by Dr. Forwood's colleague Dr. Robert Melillo. Do listen in to my show 1 PM PT, or 4 PM ET, llive, or any time after on your PC, MP3 player or as a podcast or download. Just go to: www.voiceamerica.com/episode/56191/real-solutions-for-adhd-and-learning-disorders.

Tell any friends who have who are concerned about their child's developmental rates or school performance and have them listen in. They will thank you.