Par Atwal

How to Help Your Infant Learn

With a newborn in your arms, there are already so many things you are thinking about: making sure your baby is fed, kept warm enough, getting enough rest, changed and clean. The last thing on your mind at this stage is probably education. Can your baby really learn this early? And if so, how do you “teach” your baby at this age?

The answer is that your baby is learning, and at an incredibly rapid pace. Your baby is constantly learning from the moment they are born. The good news is that there is probably very little you need to do, aside from what you are already doing to facilitate your baby’s brain development in the first few months.

It is important to understand the developmental changes that are taking place and know that you play a fundamental role in your baby’s development, beyond physical care.

Developmental milestones most often discussed with your physician are physical milestones, not cognitive ones. However, there are particularly important developments, especially regarding language, taking place in your child’s brain. Your new baby is learning to communicate and to understand their environment. For this to happen, your baby needs to bond with you emotionally at a very deep level.

Your interaction with your baby, both physical and verbal, your prompt response to their needs, and the environment around your baby will deeply affect your baby’s bond with you and their trust in you. This in turn will affect their relationships with the rest of the family and the outside world, now and for years to come.

During the First Month

During this time, your baby needs to know that you will respond to their needs. Feed them when they are hungry (rather than on a strict schedule), soothe them when they are tired, change them when they are soiled, and most importantly, hold them. Hold your baby often and as close to your body as possible – skin to skin whenever you get the chance. This alone will take care of forming vital connections in your baby’s brain, and also help your baby grow physically. Do not be afraid of “spoiling” your baby because your baby needs you to hold them. This is when the learning happens during the first month. When you are feeding your baby, talk to them, look at them, gently sing to them and focus on them until they are asleep. Leave the TV or cell phone for when you are not with them. Your baby is bonding with you, and learning to recognize your voice, your facial features and your smell. Don’t try to be ultra-productive and reply to your e-mails while baby is busy feeding - baby needs that interaction, and it also fills you with endorphins, and gives you the strength you need during all the sleepless nights.

During the Second and Third Months

By the end of the first month, babies already begin to act less out of reflex and more out of slight expectations they have learned. They expect the same people to hold them, they expect to be picked up when they cry, and they anticipate being fed when they hear the voice of their mother nearby. They also expect being sung to, rocked, or to receive pats on their back after feeding. They are getting used to all the routines you have established, and the little things you have been doing with them – they learned them. All these familiar habits teach your baby to trust you as the person who cares for them.

Learning Through Habits or Routines

During this time, it is recommended that you keep these routines consistent to help your baby learn. For example, if you generally sing to your baby while you rock them, always do it so your baby learns to expect it. This is when your baby is learning to “connect the dots” and begin making sense of their world. It is also what will teach your baby that the world is a place they can trust, which is essential for their emotional development.

To help your baby make sense of the world, here are some routines you can establish:

• Help your baby predict what comes next by gently guiding their schedule to adjust to an established one. For example, rather than going to bed whenever you feel tired each night, or getting up when you wake up, regardless of what time that is, try slowly making the environment more quiet and darker at the same time each night, and you will see that in a few weeks, both your baby and you will come to adjust to that time as your bed time.
• Wake up at the same time each morning. This will be good for your hormonal balance. When you are up, hold your baby even if they are still sleeping and try to feed them. Getting used to this morning feed will gradually establish the habit of waking up at the same time, which in turn will adjust your baby’s feeding times to a more predictable pattern. Please know that I am not suggesting you not feed your baby outside of their strict feeding times. Babies should be fed when they ask to be fed.
  This will take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, but it works. The trick is to choose the start time (early in the morning) even if your baby is not asking to feed and keeping bedtime consistent. Your baby will still feed throughout the night, because they are growing and need to feed constantly. Babies are not biologically equipped to sleep through the night without being fed, and I strongly advise against letting your baby cry, unattended. Your baby needs to eat, and if you ignore their cries, you are breaking the patterns of predictability for your baby. That, according to research, can affect them emotionally, for life.
• Other routines include giving your baby a bath at the same time each day or going for a walk outdoors at the same time, or anything you do on a daily basis. These routines will help your child’s brain development, social development, and emotional development.

Learning Through Hearing

From the time your baby was in the womb, they learned to recognize the voice of their mother, and the voices of those they heard frequently. Listening to every sound around them plays a huge part in your child’s brain development. Your baby’s brain is busy listening, recognizing and classifying every noise and soon enough, every phonetic sound around them. This is how your baby learns to speak. How much you speak to your baby, as well as how you do it, will make a big difference.

The environment will also influence that learning. Observe your baby to see what they are most comfortable with. Do they like an environment with music and busy sounds of pets, children, and plenty of conversation? Or do they like a more relaxing and quiet environment, where the only voices are of those closest to them. Every baby is different, but chances are your child will fall somewhere in between these two extremes most of the time. Even babies who love a more lively environment need some quiet times throughout the day, and vice versa. Learning to understand what your baby needs and when is a large part of your role as a parent. All you need to do is observe. But know this; a baby raised in complete silence and never spoken to will never learn to speak, and a baby who is constantly subjected to constant noise will develop anxiety and stress. Aim for a soothing environment in the first few days, and very gradually introduce your baby to new sounds, as the weeks go by. Remember that every sound is a new experience for your child. The first time they hear a bird chirp, or a dog bark, or a certain kind of music, or a loud laugh – every one of those new sounds is contributing to your child’s development, as long as the level of stimulation is just right.

Learning Through Language

Although language could fall under hearing, it does deserve its own category because this is where a parent can make a big difference. Research shows that how you speak to your baby, as well as how frequently you speak to them, has a great impact on your baby’s development. According to research, babies prefer hearing “motherese”, which is how most adults speak to a baby. It is almost a sing-song, and the vowels are elongated: “hellooooooo! How is baaaabyyyyy todaaaaay”? with a higher pitch.

Speaking to your child like this helps your child maintain their attention on you, recognize the phonetic sounds of the language (or languages) they are hearing, and learning to recognize words. Research shows that by six months of age, babies already begin losing the ability to “hear” certain phonetic sounds that are not used in their own language, which will help them learn to decipher words much faster. Speaking to your baby often (for example, during feeding, or when you go for a walk) and having a conversation – meaning, asking questions, sharing anecdotes, making comments in passing, just as you would with a friend - will affect a child’s IQ and vocabulary for life. This, in turn, affects your child’s success at school and in life.

Many parents, however, try to stick to simple vocabulary, and do not ask their babies questions (they think there’s no point since babies don’t answer), they do not converse. Instead, they tend to give their babies and toddlers simple “orders”, or direction; “pick up please!”, or “dirty”, or “no”.

It is strongly recommended that you speak to your baby from the very first day, just like you would speak to a friend or to your spouse (except for the higher pitch motherese, which I am sure your spouse wouldn’t like). “Good morning to you! How are you today? Did you sleep well? You woke up a few times last night, you must have been very hungry! Are you hungry now? Why don’t we sit outside to feed you, then we can hear the birds sing, and feel warmth of the sun on our skin…”

You can read stories to baby, or comment on a book you are reading yourself, even if your baby has their eyes closed. This will make a tremendous difference in your child’s development. When you talk to your baby, try to have no other distractions around, look at your baby by holding them in front of you and to wait for your baby to respond to what you say. You will see that even in the first month, your child will begin blinking, making facial expressions, making sounds or cooing, listening attentively, or moving in response to your dialogue. By the second month, they will even imitate some of your facial expressions, like blinking, opening your mouth, and sticking your tongue out. Make sure you give your child enough time to respond to you when you talk – it can take a minute or two. This kind of interaction is incredibly stimulating for your child, and an important aspect of their social development.

Learning Through Touch

Research shows that brain development is greatly influenced by the amount of physical touch a baby receives, from holding your baby, to rubbing your baby’s back, caresses and infant massages. Studies have shown that babies born prematurely had an 80% survival rate if they received kangaroo care (meaning their bodies were in constant contact, skin to skin, to that of the mother or even of another person), versus less than 20% if they were cared for in an incubator, and only held during feedings. The same goes for your baby at home; don’t be afraid of holding your baby too much! The closer you are to your baby, and the more physical touch your baby receives, the greater their emotional development and brain development. If you are going for a walk, why not choose a baby carrier instead of a stroller? You can stay close, your bodies together, and burn a few extra calories in the process!

Learning Through Sight

I once saw a movie where a man in his thirties recovered his sight for the first time in his life. Of course, the man was excited about the possibility of finally seeing the world around him, but those first few days where everything was so bright and had so many different shapes and colours were so overwhelming for him that they almost seemed unbearable. That was the first time I could truly understand how much visual stimulus a newborn is subjected to on a daily basis. Not to mention the fact that everything else is new too! Sounds, smells, being held, carried, rocked, everything! Although sight is a beautiful thing, be aware of how much your baby is exposed to at one time. Thankfully, their field of vision is much narrower at birth, and they can only focus on things that are close, but gradually, babies begin to see as well as we can. Although this naturally shields babies from excessive visual stimulus, you still want to be aware of when it gets to be too much. Bright noisy toys with lights should be kept far, far away for now. Remember also that an infant cannot turn their head, and therefore cannot look the other way when the stimulus becomes too intense. Pay particular attention to how intense the stimulus is around your baby’s crib, at least until your baby can turn their head.

Your baby is fascinated by facial features. This is another reason to look at your baby when they are feeding – they are learning from merely observing your face. As your baby gets older, begin associating what they see with what they hear, smell and feel. This will help them make even more connections in their brain!

Again, take your cues from your baby. When they are alert and looking around, talk to them and show them different objects. See if they can track a brightly coloured object held at about 15 cm, from side to side with their eyes while you move it. This is a wonderful learning exercise, and will also help them develop attention skills, which furthers their learning experiences. When your baby loses interest, the lesson is over.

As the parent of your newborn, you have a critical role to play in your baby’s early brain development. You have the responsibility of being responsive to your baby, interacting with them, providing an environment that is at times soothing and at times stimulating, and learning to understand the difference between the two. No two babies are the same, even when they are from the same family. What is stimulating for one child can be irritating for another. By observing and interacting with your baby in the ways described above, you will know exactly what your child prefers. However, one thing remains true; all children need a deep connection with their caregiver from the moment they are born. The more you are distracted, trying to fit everything into one day, the less your child has your attention, and the more you are negatively affecting their development, on a cognitive, social, emotional and physical level.

by Par Atwal

Great Outdoor Activities for the Body and the Brain

With the warm weather finally upon us, there are plenty of fun outdoor activities for our little ones to enjoy! Here are a few ideas that will benefit your child’s physical development, as well as their intellect and their imagination.

Smart Outdoor Activities for Babies

• Playing with sand: Sand play provides your baby with a great sensory experience, which sets the path for learning to write, among other important benefits. If you add toys to scoop and pour (any container from your kitchen will do) it also teaches them S.T.E.M. with mathematical concepts such as measurement, weight, and even addition and subtraction. Sand play also encourages scientific thinking in your baby and is the perfect environment for socializing (once we are finally able to) and imaginative play.
• Playing with water: Similarly to sand play, water provides great stimulation for the senses (they can feel the water with their bodies, if it is cold or warm, or if it changes temperature depending on its depth; they can also hear the noise it makes as it splashes and moves and literally stimulates all of your baby’s senses). Water play offers a number of opportunities for your child to learn S.T.E.M. (science, technology, engineering and math), to reason, to try building dams, or otherwise stopping the flow of the water, to measure, to compare its temperature, to try mixing sand or dirt into the water, to see if objects float or sink, or just to simply manipulate its course with their body. Water is the perfect learning experience for S.T.E.M. Even a small puddle of water provides endless learning opportunities and hours of fun. Always supervise and stay very close to your child while playing with water.
• Exploring the grass with their bodies: Babies love to feel and explore with their entire body. Help your baby walk on the grass with their bare feet, or crawl on it. Invite them to feel the grass and the Earth with their hands and talk to them about what they are feeling. To add more sensory stimulation, go from a soft blanket, to cool grass, or from dirt to mud, and walk over different textures, always commenting on how it feels to the touch. Smell the earth and the grass, the flowers, and all of nature around you. Count the flowers, notice their colours, find the insect and worms on the ground, name them, ask questions, even if your baby can’t talk yet, have a conversation with them. If you look closely, you will know exactly what your child is wondering, and put it into words for them. This is still great for their language and science development.

Smart Outdoor Activities for Toddlers

• Building with mud or sand: Take sand play a step further by introducing your child to tools they can use to build with. Appropriate tools include spoons, pails, shovels, and containers of different shapes and sizes. Your child will learn early mathematical concepts by working with various shapes and weights. They will also learn science, and creative thinking while comparing results and techniques as they discover the best way to build their structures. Building is engineering at its best and using tools in the early years is considered learning technology. You have a complete S.T.E.M. activity just by inviting your child to build a sandcastle, or a fort. As a parent you can enhance their learning by talking about their observations whilst they are playing. Bring a friend (or make a friend) for your child for added social skills.
• Observing insects: For a mere two dollars, you can buy plastic aquariums with perforated lids at a dollar store. One of those will last you until your child is ready to leave for college – they are a really great investment and provide the perfect little house for insects for a few days so your child can learn about them. If you can’t find one at the dollar store, here is one you can buy, or you can make your own. Bring it along with you and help your child carefully and gently collect bugs to observe for the day. Discover with your child what the insects need in their habitat and what they need to eat and drink. Encourage them to take photos and to draw their observations, either outside or later when they get home. This teaches your toddler about nature, and about science. It also teaches them empathy as they are learning to care for a living thing, and they also learn to return it to its natural habitat. It prepares your child for writing when you encourage them to draw their observations, and also when you help them write down what they observed (they can dictate to you). You can further enhance their learning by reading about insects, either outside, where they can see them, or later when you get home. This exercise is twice as much fun when you find tadpoles instead of ants!
• Collecting shells: If you are able to go to the beach this summer, this is a great chance to explore the ocean with your child. From dipping your feet in the water to looking for crabs and for shells. When I was 15, I used to take my little sister (who was 4 at the time) to the beach and look for small crabs hidden in the rocks. We would spend hours doing that, almost every weekend. You can look closely at sand with a magnifying glass (have you ever tried? It is fascinating!), you can collect water from the ocean in a jar to look at it later under the light, or with a flashlight. You can look at the plants that grow in the water and group your treasures by types (this teaches your child mathematics). For added adventure and learning, make a treasure map and follow the clues with your child until you find it together (you would have to bury the treasure when your child is not looking of course). Nothing is more delightful than digging out a buried treasure chest (these can also be purchased at the dollar store and filled with anything you like), and the treasure hunt itself provide added reading, writing and math skills. Bonus!

Smart Outdoor Activities for Young Children

• Building a fort: Use rocks, branches, and other natural elements around you to build a fort together. Here is an activity I created that shows you the learning benefits of building a fort. Figuring out how to build enhances your child’s reasoning, engineering and mathematical skills. Weaving and tying string, leaves and other elements together are wonderful for fine motor skills, which are precursors for writing. Explaining the process out loud adds vocabulary skills and doing it with a friend or a sibling adds another level of complexity and social skills.
• Make a mini habitat for your favourite toys: For example, one day at the age of four, my son spent over six hours outside playing with his dinosaurs. We found a garden of tall grasses and leaves, which was the perfect habitat for twenty of his dinosaurs. He made them a lake, a volcano, a hiding place and even a place to sleep. If your child is not into dinosaurs, try a fairy world, or try making a home for any of your child’s favourite toys – from trains to critters –Days like this are wonderful opportunities for dramatic and imaginative play, which is crucial in any discipline.
• Plant a garden: Gardening teaches your child about science and about life and nature. It teaches your child responsibility by having to tend to their garden daily and it teaches them about food and where it comes from (if you plant vegetables, for instance), this can also lead to good nutritional habits. Start from the very beginning by growing roots on an avocado, a potato or an onion, and plant them in glass jars to allow for better observation of the roots as they grow. Here is how to do it.

There are endless activities that your child can both enjoy and learn from; these are just a few examples. Spending time outside, rain or shine, and discovering the world around you from your child’s perspective is like seeing it again for the first time.

No matter what activity you choose, engage your child in conversation, regardless of their age. This will teach your child essential vocabulary, as well as help them understand how to put their feelings, and all their new discoveries, into words. You and your child can talk about it again once you are inside, and they can even draw their experiences, or journal about them. You can even scan and print those drawings (let’s say, they draw an ant, a ladybug, a worm and a caterpillar) for them to play with later and create stories with them. This is a great extension of their learning and teaches them creativity and imaginative play (dramatic play).

You can talk with your child about their drawings, and about their observations. You can look at the photos they took together, and exchange thoughts and questions, which will expand your child’s learning even further. If your child is interested, start a nature journal where every day, you can either draw or write about your outdoor experiences. This will be something that will not only extend their learning greatly, but also become a treasured keepsake throughout the years.

Have a wonderful time outside!

by Par Atwal

The Importance of Science In the Early Years

Children are natural born scientists. To nurture this type of learning in children, allow them to explore their environment safely and freely and with plenty of time.

Children have this fascinating sense of wonder and curiosity about the world. They build theories, test them, evaluate what worked and what didn’t, then figure out why.

They try to figure out why water and dirt combine to make mud, why some things float in the tub while others sink to the bottom. They try to understand how shadows work, or why caterpillars make cocoons.

Encouraging children to explore their natural curiosity is one of the best ways for them to learn science. It helps them think in an increasingly complex way. Science also allows children to see themselves as contributing individuals, as they are trusted to solve problems. The many benefits of exposing your child to science include:

• Advancement of critical and creative thinking as well as problem-solving
• Increased vocabulary, math and physics skills
• Perseverance and an understanding that failure helps them learn
• Patience as they observe nature around them, and discover some changes take time
• Worldliness as they take an interest in the world around them to discover how things work
• Critical thinking and the ability to form their own opinions and draw conclusions from observations

Are Children Ready to Learn Science?

Almost all young children are already learning science naturally, without any prompting. Most of the time they actively search for new knowledge and experiences in the world around them. They develop theories about what they see and how it works.

As many parents of young children will attest, their child’s favourite question for years is “Why?”. Their favourite activity is taking things apart, and they can spend hours in the park or garden, just observing how the ants transport the crumbs of their muffin into a tiny hole in the ground.

Children are eager to figure out why turning the light on makes everything so bright, or what happens if they plug something into the electrical socket. In an effort to keep them safe (and to keep the house a little cleaner), we as parents often stop them from discovering the world around them. Slowly, over the years, many children sadly lose that inquisitive spark they were born with. As a result, creative thinking is compromised. However, it is those same creative thinking skills that will help them succeed in the future by contributing new ideas or challenging the status quo.

Here’s How it Works

From the time they are born, children form concepts about what they see. As they grow, these concepts evolve and become more complex, as does their ability to make deductions and to problem-solve. As they do that, their knowledge expands, and they become more adept at observing. Children formulate their own hypotheses, and test those in an increasingly complex way. They then organize and classify the newly acquired knowledge, generalize across disciplines, relate it to their own life experiences, compare it to their previous ideas and the ideas of others. The more opportunities they have to do this, the better. They become good at reasoning, problem-solving and thinking. As they discover new ideas, their vocabulary also increases to allow them to describe what they are experiencing. The higher the vocabulary, the higher the IQ, and the better they do at school.

Children are geared to think just like scientists: they observe, predict, hypothesize, experiment, reflect on and communicate their findings.

How Can I Teach Science at Home?

Contrary to what many parents and teachers may think, science in the early years is not a complicated process. For children, science just happens. What you have to ensure as a parent is that your child’s questions are valued and appreciated. Take the time to listen and don’t be too quick to give the answer away. Instead, ask questions like “I wonder how we could find out the answer to your question?”. By doing this, you are modeling for your child how to learn, and where to look for knowledge. Some days you will search in a book, other times you will search on the computer, ask a friend, visit a museum, a science center, or a library. It all depends on the question. Doing this with your child will teach them that there are many ways to find the answer to a question. You can also encourage them to test their own ideas, their hypotheses.

Working together with your child to discover the answer will get them excited about the process. As your child gets in the habit of looking for answers with you, they will eventually do it on their own. Once that is established, they will be a lifelong learner. To get started, here are a few activities you could try:

Cooking

Cooking is a live science experiment in action. Involve your child in the kitchen when you prepare meals. It may take you a little longer, but you are providing the ideal science lab, teaching your child about food and nutrition, helping them feel needed and appreciated at home and equipping them with an excellent skill. Soon, your child will be cooking meals without help, and you will be glad you invested the time in teaching them. Blenders are great if you supervise, as are mixers and plastic knives for little ones. Try to teach them a few simple recipes they can do by themselves, like smoothies (with yogurt and fruit), or salad. Freeze yogurt for healthy ice creams, melt chocolate to re-shape it, mix flavours and colours, and have some fun in the kitchen. Increase the complexity as they grow. Teach them to follow a recipe (measure, mix, etc.) and also let them experiment with different ingredients, without the guidance of a recipe. In the kitchen, your child will learn S.T.E.M. principles like mixing, measuring, and changing matter when you combine ingredients.

Pets

Children love to observe animals to see the differences in how they communicate and behave. If you’re not ready for a pet, consider an aquarium, and if that is too much of a commitment, visit your garden or a pet store. Snails, butterflies, grasshoppers, worms, stick bugs, crickets, or any kind of insect make for great temporary pets, provided you supply leaves sprayed with a little water, dirt, sand, or pebbles. Figuring out what these insects need to eat and how they live is a discovery in itself. If the thought of a critter in your home is enough to give you nightmares, invite your child to observe outside, in the park or in your backyard. At home, you can show your child how to take care of plants instead, and what they need in order to thrive.

Water

If you have the courage, I strongly encourage you to explore water with your child. Remember that you must supervise water play at all times. Provide buckets, spoons and other digging utensils so they can mix in sand and dirt, and don’t forget pouring utensils. No need to buy anything fancy. You will find everything you need in your kitchen cupboards. The bathtub is also a great place to explore the properties of water. There you can explore with empty bottles they can fill and empty, add bubbles, add gears, turkey basters, or anything else they can explore the water with. See what items sink or float in water, and what happens when you freeze juice, or try freezing a toy (or grapes) in water! Don’t limit yourself to tap water, collect and measure the rain and snow, explore puddles, lakes, beaches, and all the natural water sources around us. Look at the different creatures that live in the water, from insects to fish.

A Garden

Invite your child to plant seeds and have an indoor or outdoor garden. You can plant flowers or, better yet, fruits and vegetables. Explore all kinds of seeds and roots: let a potato grow roots, or garlic, or an onion, encourage your child to draw their observations. Put beans in a glass with wet cotton balls, to see the tiny plant begin to grow before you plant it. The possibilities are endless. If you are brave, explore what happens to fruits or vegetables as they decay, and talk about what happens (or draw it) as you observe. This will take several days and is fascinating for children to observe, day after day. See what happens when a plant or flower receives water, good soil and sunshine, as opposed to growing in the shade. Talk about different types of plants, find out why some (like cacti) need less water than others. Taking care of plants will teach children where food comes from and nurture a love of nature. Visit a community garden together and see if you can contribute.

Light and Shadows

Provide flashlights, translucent materials and a white wall. If you can get your hands on an old projector, even better. You can collect different types of materials to see which ones let the light pass through (translucent) and which don’t (opaque). You can also play with window writers and see how those drawings are reflected on the floor when the sun hits them. Encourage your child to figure out why, and especially, just let them explore. Your child will most likely classify materials into different categories to explore playing with shadows. You can introduce puppet shows or shadow puppets at this time too. Experiment with mixing colours if you offer several translucent materials of various colours.

Tadpoles and Butterflies

Observe as a caterpillar builds a cocoon, or a tadpole metamorphoses into a frog, or a caterpillar into a butterfly. It is an incredible experience for a child, and a great way to learn S.T.E.M. by graphing, documenting, drawing, writing, measuring and observing. Provide a camera for your child to take lots of photos they can study later.

As your child becomes an avid scientist, they will satisfy their curiosity and discover that learning is a fun adventure. This will give you plenty of new topics to talk about. Once you see your child blossom through science and develop their ability to think, you will be glad you put up with a few messes here and there.

by Par Atwal