This past summer I had a crisis of parenting confidence. It’s not unusual, after all I am a new mom to a little baby girl who hasn’t yet hit her first birthday. Is she sleeping long enough? Am I feeding her the right foods? Will it damage her forever if I don’t give her all organic foods? These were just a few of the concerns I had, and she wasn’t even six months old. But this was different because I am a teacher and education is my forte.
It all started when I had gone out for lunch with a new mommy friend and she began explaining how she educates her son by doing ‘scales’ everyday.
I panicked. I am a certified teacher, having spent six years teaching high school in the public system both in Ontario and Alberta. So as a teacher, I should know this! I should know what scales are, and I should have already started teaching these ‘scales’ to my daughter. The problem was, I had no idea what ‘scales’ were. So I nodded my head, as if this was a good thing to do, and then I noncholontely asked just how she goes about doing these ‘scales.’
Similar to the route method of learning musical scales, she does the same route method of focused learning every morning with her son. With classical music playing softly in the background she takes our her various flash cards (ie: alphabet, number, etc) and goes through each of them speaking them aloud and explaining them to him. She didn’t claim in any way that it would give him an education advantage, but she did said he seemed to enjoy doing it.
Driving home after lunch, with classical music on in the car of course, I thought to myself, am I missing something? Should I have already started teaching my daughter these things? Is she going to go into school and not have the same knowledge and language skills? When is the right time to start structured education?
According to the Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development your child’s brain develops very quickly. From birth to age two, his/her brain increases from 1/4 to 3/4 the weight of an adult brain. Their recommendation for these crucial years of brain development are to:
* Stimulate your child’s senses. Let him experience new sounds, foods and objects. This will help develop his senses and build the structure of his brain.
* Play with your child. Be a caring parent to your child. These are early actions you can take to help your child’s brain to develop in a healthy way.
* Nurture and comfort your child. Interact with him and be responsive. Show your child that he can trust you to be supportive and to take care of him when he needs food or comfort.
So how does that relate to early education? Well, the theories across Canada for best practices for early childhood education vary, based on culture, tradition and family backgrounds. However Judy Arnall of Professional Parenting Canada, says the best thing you can do for your baby is play. Give them a cardboard box to play with, things to build, bang or taste. Help them learn through their five senses (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell) and it’s through this type of education they will get what they need the most which is language.
“Language is the most important thing they need to acquire before school. Everyone starts grade one just requiring to know their name. They don’t need flash cards, they don’t need to learn violin. There’s plenty of time for that later. Too early learning could turn them off. It’s a waste of time. It’s better they chew the flash cards than to learn them.”
I do own alphabet and number flash cards, and at one point I put them in front of my daughter thinking I would go through each of them just like my friend did. But she found more joy in eating them, and throwing them around the room, rather than studying them. I have since put them away, for now. Instead, I am giving her the best educational tool that I could find. Myself. Lots of mom time, unstructured, to just play.
For further information, here are a few helpful resources I mentioned in the above article:
http://www.professionalparenting.ca/
http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/pages/PDF/Brain-StructureANGmcP.pdf
http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/en-ca/key-messages-list.html
http://www.parentlinkalberta.ca/publish/default.htm
http://www.programs.alberta.ca/Living/5252.aspx?Ns=363+6242&N=770
* Every province has their own guidelines and cirriculum built for best practices in early childhood education. It’s worth a read to find yours for the particular province you live in.
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