I began writing about early learning 9 years ago because I was always searching for credible sources of information to back up the sale of the educational toys that I was involved with. I would be told things like, “Children learn through play, young children need to learn about shape because it is the foundation for handwriting, movement wires the brain”, etc. These facts were dished out to me regularly and I wanted to know where they came from and if they were all true, or whether some were just marketing speak. So I took a whole lot of interesting facts and researched them by interviewing professionals in the field, doing a lot of reading and attending many talks and seminars. Not only was I able to build a speaking and writing career out of this research, but it gave me a good frame of reference as a parent – a lense through which to view the world and make my decisions about what I would and would not purchase for my children, without being overly influenced by the power of marketing and advertising campaigns. With a little bit of knowledge you can see through the claims the advertisers and marketers often make about their products and services. I cannot claim to be so wise when it comes to purchasing computers and printers, that’s not my field of speciality!

It’s easy to seduce parents into purchasing by offering them something that will help them to make their children brighter and more successful. As I reiterate in all my talks and presentations to parents, gen yourself up with some basic knowledge about early childhood learning, then use your common sense when it comes to choosing appropriate toys and games (including video, computer and Playstation games.) Remember that babies and young children were born to move in order to explore and discover the world around them. For learning to have any meaning the child must use his physical body to experience his world. Occupational and physiotherapists tell us that the body is the architect of the brain, so encourage your baby to move rather than leaving him or her sitting in front of the goggle box.

More on this in an opinionated piece from Michael Mendizza from Touch the Future………………….

In the State of the Union address the President took several minutes to applaud the founder of Baby Einstein, a beautiful woman, for her entrepreneurial and philanthropic spirit. No doubt she is all that and much more.

Touch the Future is a public service. Your financial support is needed and appreciated.

Ideally done at the dinner table, when the whole family is together. You get to hear about everyone’s day and how to label feelings.

Round one :

Each person gets a chance to share a ‘sour’ (we say it is “the worst thing that happened in your day”). Mention what it is and how it made you feel. Eg. “By mistake I left my takkies at home so I couldn’t play tennis. I was very cross with myself because I really wanted to play.”

Round two :

Each person gets to share a ‘sweet’ (we say it is “the best thing that happened in your day”). Mention what it is and how it made you feel. Eg. “Robyn came to play with me this afternoon and we had fun. It made me happy.”

During the process, no family member may interrupt another. It is a game about listening and sharing. My youngest son was 3 ½ when we started playing it. I thought he would be too young to participate but I was taken by surprise as he actually led the process from day one, and still does today.

Facilitate : Make easy; create opportunity; promote action/result

Mentor : Experienced and trusted advisor; coach

Coach : Tutor; trainer

While mentoring, coaching and facilitation are words commonly bandied about in business circles, they apply as much to parents as they do to company executives. They are precisely the kind of techniques that parents are being encouraged to use in bringing up their children today!

Does this mean that discipline is going out the door, or that our lives must become totally child-centred? No, on the contrary, says educational psychologist Ilze van der Merwe. “When you facilitate someone’s growth and development (whether they are an adult or a child), you create opportunities to help them learn and discover the lessons for themselves, while you facilitate and manage the process. Because you are the parent, you are an experienced and trusted advisor to your child, perfectly positioned to take on the role of coach.

“As we are all becoming aware, the best form of learning is through personal experience because it creates a meaningful learning experience – one that will be remembered and understood so that it can be used to make important life decisions. Empowering children by allowing them to make their own choices starts early on with things such as:

• choosing to tidy up after playing with toys or not
• saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’
• saving or spending pocket money
• whether to wear the red or white T-shirt

Gaining experience in decision-making as a child, through the experience of having to make choices, will help to develop a more empowered teenager who will be better able to handle more adult choices with confidence, like:

• whether to study or play computer games
• whether or not to try smoking or drugs
• whether to have sex before or after marriage
• what career to choose

Ilze explains that the key to the choices you give your children – and this applies from around the age of three – is that you always offer two choices in any given situation, and both of them must work for you. For example: “It’s time to get dressed for school, do you want to wear the pink dress or the orange one?” This takes the stress off you, as it doesn’t matter which choice your child makes. The child is empowered and he/she must live with the consequences of his/her choice. “So you still provide your child with boundaries and limits, but they have the power of choice within those boundaries which, while providing flexibility, also teaches the following:

• you believe in their ability to make choices (self-esteem)
• empowerment, by letting them make their own choices (self-esteem and self-confidence)
• living with the consequences of their choices (self-responsibility and self-motivation)
• giving the child some positive control over his/her life (self-motivation and self-confidence)

Of course there are many situations in which giving children choice is not an option, however, facilitation is about parents identifying teachable moments during everyday events, making learning meaningful because it takes place in a real life context, like getting dressed in the morning, on journeys in the car, in the supermarket, in friends’ homes, in restaurants, and more.

Coaching your child through facilitation is a much more creative approach to parenting than the autocratic “you will do as I say” style (which takes all control away from the child), or the laissez faire “do as you like” style (which can make children feel less safe and insecure), both of which have characterised various periods in recent parenting history.

Effective facilitation requires thinking parents who are committed to their own growth and development – parents who are on the ball, have their fingers on the pulse of things, who are conscious of where they ‘are at’ personally, and where their child ‘is at’ at any given moment (emotionally, physically and intellectually). They are aware of what’s going on in the environment in which they are parenting right now, and can respond creatively in most situations.

Dr Kobus Neethling and Rache Rutherford, well-known experts in the field of creativity and intelligence, believe mentoring and coaching children by facilitating and not dictating their development is one of the key techniques in assisting parents to start playing their role with creativity, morality and dignity.

They believe that parents of the 21st century should receive special training on an ongoing basis. “If we could become the creative mentors to our children allowing their inherent passion, energy, courage, creativity and endurance to develop dynamically, I believe that man will once gain be able to perform the miracles which are part of his heritage. If you, as parent, do not consider yourself important enough to grow and develop maximally and cannot manage yourself with skill and insight, what chance does your child have, who is completely in your hands?” says Kobus Neethling.

This is the era in which parents and children alike need to constantly be growing, evolving and developing. It is an era characterised by change at a speed never before experienced by mankind, and so one of the most important traits for human beings to develop is inner stability. “If the environment isn’t stable, we need stability within to help us manage ourselves in the environment, and to stop us from literally freaking out. Inner stability will be our compass, our due North, and parents must take responsibility for helping their children to develop this strength.”

“Dealing with choices and being held responsible for decisions is wonderful practice for youngsters. It prepares them for the lifetime of decision-making required of all responsible people,” says Ilze, who trains parents in the art of giving children choices. She insists, though, that parents should not offer choices unless they are willing to make sure the child will have to live with the consequences. “Effective parents know that their children need to learn from their mistakes. Mistakes are often better teachers than parents who lecture.”

Ilze van der Merwe is an educational psychologist and play therapist. She runs the Bella Vida Therapy Centre in Gauteng. Ilze is the mother of two teenage children and she gives regular talks and trainings to groups of teachers and parents. Telephone: (011) 463-4438.

Dr Kobus Neethling and Rache Rutherford run the Neethling Group of companies dedicated to creating personal and organisational breakthroughs by developing whole-brain thinking. Among his 75 published books is the Smart Parents series, a must have for parents today. Kobus Neethling has been honoured with many awards over the past few years and was recently nominated one of the world’s top 25 most creative people. Telephone: (011) 848-0120.

I picked up my six year old son from a playdate this afternoon and he was having the time of his life. His friend’s parents are doing an alteration to their home and the boys had found a plank of wood and a few bricks with which they made a see saw ramp for their bikes. What incredible fun they had for over two hours. The exercise was creative, challenging and very physical. It entailed thinking, planning and problem solving to set it up, and then the gross motor skills of balance, co-ordination and spatial planning (how fast or slow to go and when to accelerate so that you don’t fall off the ramp). This was the perfect balancing act to the hour spent playing a computer game earlier in the day.

That hour of on-screen activity itself was also well spent playing a game called Hugo. This entailed fine motor co-ordination to move the cursor all over the screen, helping the worker ants collect food for the queen. On depositing food in the anthill, my son then had to decide on his reward - select either a worker ant or a soldier ant. This introduced thinking skills and strategy to the game. The anthill was under attack from enemy ants from time to time, so there needed to be a good spread of worker ants and army ants to deal with whatever situation arose. This game involved basic thinking and planning skills in a virtual environment.

It’s amazing how quickly children work out how the game is played and what the rules and consequences are – and all of this without actually reading a rules booklet! Come to think of it, there was no rules book or adult supervision with the bike ramp game either! Aren’t children so naturally resourceful!

It is so important for parents to help their children to develop a balanced approach to on and off screen activities. We must ensure that they are able to switch easily between the real and virtual worlds with which they engage because they do need to master both to survive in today’s hi-tech world. While it is possible to do things and visit places via technology that would never be possible in real life (remember the recent Mweb ADSL TV ad with the grandson and his grandparents?), nothing is a substitute for a real life experiences with real time consequences. A few key points to remember:

• The American Academy of Paediatricians recommends no TV for children under the age of 2.
• The rule of thumb for total time spent doing on-screen activities for children is not more than 2 hours a day (this includes TV, Playstation, computers, Gameboys, cellphone games etc).
• According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, toddlers are already watching an average of 1.5 hours of TV per day and South African children age 7 – 12 are watching 3.75 hours a day. This would be considered bingeing on screen media by the authors of The Media Diet for Kids – a good read if you can get hold of a copy.
• Don’t put a television in your child’s bedroom.
• Make sure your child continues to ask for permission to switch on the TV or play a computer game or Playstation for as long as possible. It will help you to keep control of their media habits.
• Let kids get dirty
• Encourage play dates

Keep striving for balance between high tech and high touch activities. It’s more important than you think!

NIKKI BUSH Presenter of Connecting with Children through the Noise & Clutter www.brightideasoutfit.com brightideas@powerpt.co.za

There’s nothing like a child reaching a developmental milestone to make a parent “ooh” and “aah”! The first time your baby sits, crawls or walks results in a flurry of telephone calls to family and friends who, in turn, pass this groundbreaking news along the grapevine to anyone who’s interested. And who hasn’t been in the position of predicting their baby is about to start walking, and then it takes another three or four months before it really happens in earnest?

Each human being has his or her own genetically encoded developmental timeline. There is a natural progression from one milestone to the next that is driven by the connection between the brain and the body. The communication between the two, and thus the achievement of developmental milestones, is dependent on a magical substance called myelin.

MAGICAL MYELIN

Paediatrician, Dr Gillian de Vos, specialises in neuro-developmentmental issues. She explains that the formation of myelin, the fatty coating of the nerve fibres of the brain, starts in utero, peaking at around one to two years of age and continuing until around the age of five.

“There is a specific progression. Myelination starts at the head and works its way down the body, and from the centre of the body outwards. Parents are usually unaware that physical developmental milestones or phases are all in line with myelination development. In fact they can’t happen until sufficient myelination takes place,” she says. Head and neck control precede rolling, for example.

STIMULATION IS VITAL

“Stimulation speeds up myelination because the more a particular neural pathway in the brain is used, the more of this white, fatty, segmented coating is laid down, making it a more permanent pathway. Myelin increases the speed of nerve impulse transmission, meaning messages can be relayed more efficiently between brain cells.” In highly myelinated neurons, impulses travel at 100 metres per second. 

Brain Gym specialist, Melodie de Jager, stresses the importance of not rushing your child through the important developmental stages of rolling, sitting, crawling, standing and walking. “For good myelination to take place, repetition is essential. A baby should perform in the region of 50 000 crawling movements, for example, wiring the brain in preparation for the fine-motor skills of reading and writing. A child receiving occupational or neuro-developmental physiotherapy is repatterning his or her brain through repeated movements to use more efficient neural pathways. In therapy, up to 2 000 repetitions are required to form a new memory cell in the brain,” she explains.

DON’T RUSH YOUR CHILD

Melodie stresses that the quality of a baby’s physical development forms the basis of all learning and academic achievement later on because it is intrinsically linked to the development of the neural pathways in the brain. It is an incredible feat for a baby to work his way through all the milestones that will eventually enable him to support himself upright against gravity. But she warns that it could be detrimental to a child if he does not complete all the phases in the correct sequence and for long enough. “There is little truth in the myth that the sooner a baby reaches his milestones, the more intelligent he will be. In fact research shows that there is an enormous correlation between incomplete developmental phases in babies and academic underachievement later on. Repetition at every phase is required in order to build a strong cognitive network in the brain,” Melodie explains.

Gillian’s explanation of the sequential nature of myelin formation makes it obvious why a baby would normally sit before crawling and stand before walking. Inadequate myelination may result in messages moving more slowly through the system and could lead to delays in development and even in learning gaps or difficulties. 

In the 21st century, children are spending more time being entertained or educated in front of one screen or another. This conditioning starts from babyhood with the introduction of videos, DVDs and even TV channels especially for babies.  Television should be a supplement to regular stimulation, love and fun and not a substitute.  Toddlers should not be allowed to switch on the television at any time, condition your toddler from early on that the TV only goes on when you switch it on.  If your toddler is given the appropriate stimulation and learns how to entertain himself, he will not get bored.  For a bored child a screen is heaven, but it does nothing for the stimulation and myelination of the brain.  Effective myelination takes place through body movement which is not encouraged when a child spends hours being babysat by a screen. See article: Now babies have their own TV channel.