Worried - Intellectual Stimulation for Babies

A

arkcocoon

Registered User
Met up with some friends over the weekend. All of them, with babies aging less than 8 months old, told me that they're already training their babies with flash cards!!!! Could you share with me what intellectual games you're playing with your babies?

My son is nearly 10 months old and all I do with him is sing and playing with his favourite toy... which happens to be a colourful softball... I'm so worried that I'm not doing enough...

thank you all for sharing, A
 
My son (now 2) has had lots of books available to him since birth, but has only really shown any interest in them over the last 6 months or so. He's watched Baby Einsteins, but mainly to give me some peace and quite - I'm not deluding myself that they will help him intellectually. I think he gets quite enough intellectual input from being out and about in the town, meeting new people, seeing what's going on round him, playing with us and our friends and helper, really I have had no concerns about flash cards and stuff like that. I think he's doing ok, he talks pretty well for a 2-year old, greets people in the right language and with the right names (obviously if he knows the names...), can count, recognise colours (sometimes), no, he can't recognise words on flash cards, or Chinese characters, or more than a few letters, but he's 2. I think that's enough for now. Don't worry what your friends are doing!
 
Many mothers seem to spend lots of time in these intellectual activities with their babies. I think this is great – so long as the mother enjoys it. I know that I’d have hated it and so I never did such things with my children.

I did read them books – but only books I liked. Occasionally one of my children would ask for a book I hated and I always seemed to manage to get someone else to read it to them instead (and I wasn’t above losing the book permanently).

I was the same with toys. I never bought my babies or children toys that I wasn’t happy to play with (at least until they were old enough to play by themselves with them). My mother once told me that the toys I’d given to my daughter were all the toys I liked best as a baby.

I don’t think it is necessary to do these intellectual activities as life is an intellectual activity in itself, especially Hong Kong where there is always so much happening. “Look there’s a yellow bus and there’s a red taxi.” etc. My sons knew both their colours and their vehicles very early.

Personally I think the best stimulation for babies is to be taken out and about in a sling. They get to see the world from a very safe place and because they are high up you talk to them a lot too.

I recommend doing the things you enjoy with your baby. He will benefit from a happy interested mother much more than from activities you don’t enjoy but do because you think you should.

Best wishes,
Barb
 
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I guess the flashcards are okay if it an activity that you do for enjoyment, but I laugh to think people actually do this because they think it will make their baby smarter! I play with my baby, sing, my baby laughs the most for my toddler.We "read" books, meaning that he chews on them and open and closes them, I know that real interest in the story will come later. He is 9 months old. I do not like TV for babies and I don't think that the videos you can get are at all necessary, as you are learning by watching, rather than expereincing. I quess that sums it up best. I think babies learn best by doing. They can touch and explore and taste. The very best toy your child will ever have is you.
 
totally agree with the capital, barb & geiboyi. we learn from things that we do happily - games & toys we like. at 8mths, the best thing to do is bring him around town & they get so much stimulation feeling, sensing, hearing & touching plus with you narrating at the background.

in hk, a lot of ppl believe in teaching their children things so that they can be more "advanced" than their peers, which the parent feel is essential to success in life (??). i don't agree with that concept but their are sure a lot of parents who do in this competitive environment. they believe that their children will have these flash cards words & spelling imprinted in their minds when they need it. the "best" kindergarten actually teach their children p.1 or p.2 math so that they get ahead at the primary school interviews!!

i did flashed my then 9 mths old daughter with flash card, but not with words, but with animals photos (i got one of those set of baby einstein flash cards). i thought they were interesting, and she showed interest in animals (of all the baby einstein dvds that i've showed her, she only enjoyed the macdonald farm one & she laughed everytime the animals puppet appeared). i'd go thru the cards whenever i feel like it with her, and i'd stop when she's no longer interested, usually by the 5-8th card. she knows a lot of the animals now. but meanwhile i also made animal sounds with story books & puppets & dolls thru-out her 22 mths of her life. i chose animals cos i thought living in a cosmo city like hk, she doesn't seem to be able to be exposed to a lot of animals. plus whenever i have a chance i bring her to see horses, the farm, and the aquarium. i'm rather not worried that she won't know her numbers, shaped, colors, i think they all learn those things at school in the beginning. and i sure don't think "tetrahydrochlorine" (for e.g.) is sth she needs to learn now. =)

so if there's sth you want her to learn & you like doing it, sure, flash her. if not, don't bother.
 
i see joanne, that your mother obviously didn't give you flashcards if you mixed up chlorine and chloride!...aiya, what are we going to do with you???

LOL! sorry, couldn't resist myself!
 
I never used flash cards with my children (were they around 20 years ago?).

But I did show my babies photograph albums. I’d point out who was each member of the family. I don’t know if this helped when we went to visit relatives in England. But all my children (from being very young) very quickly had a good relationship with their grandparents. It was as if they knew that these were special people in their lives.

SARAH
 
I never used flash cards with my babies.

Instead, I played with them ("This little piggy", "rock a bye baby" "ride a cock horse" etc.) and talked to them and sang to them and took them places with me. Oh, and I read to them a bit too and recited nursery rhymes, etc.

Children will grow and develop their if their environment is *adequate*. So. regular cuddles and kisses and chat are fine.

I once heard a joke that only when Piaget went to the USA did he encounter people who asked him how to hurry the normal stages of cognitive development along. Maybe that sort of attitude has now effected HK? :)

Arkcocoon, it sounds like you're doing just fine. If you are worried about not being an intensive enough mother, may I recommend 3 books that may help you feel better. The first two are by Libby Purves and are a bit UK-oriented. The third is by Wendy Mogel and is a bit LA-oriented and written from a Jewish view point, but others can enjoy it too.

1) How Not to be a Perfect Mother
http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Not-Be-Perfect-Mother/dp/000636988X

2) How not to Raise the Perfect Child http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Not-Raise-Perfect-Child/dp/0340751371/

3) The Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children
http://www.shopinhk.com/product.php?productid=87751

Relax and enjoy your baby.
 
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:tmi hee hee, flash cards probably weren't around in our infant times some 30 yrs ago. plus, i flunked chem at school. maybe i should've flashed myself with all those chemical terms so i wouldn't flunk!!
 
My husband gave me the book How Not to be a Perfect Mother by Libby Purves for Christmas when I was pregnant with my first child. It was the only book I read before having her. Personally I think it prepared me better than any of the books that are so popular today.

SARAH
 
thank you all so much for sharing your experience with me. must admit its difficult not to feel inadequate when everyone else around you is doing something you're not. it is nerve racking when you come to appreciate how competitive hk is ... even when it comes to getting your kids into a good kindergarten - my friend even prepared a slideshow for his son's interview with one of the more well-known kindergartens - and his son is only 2.5 yrs old!!

more often than not though my gut feel tells me that i should leave my son to enjoy his childhood (babyhood) and do things he enjoy. flashcards or not i guess he is who he is and if he has my brain or my husband's he can't be doing too bad :)
 
do what YOU think is best, forget what everyone else is doing...they are doing what THEY think is best. that's fine. i'm sure by the time they are teenagers, you won't be able to tell the difference!
 
i went thru exactly that about feeling inadequate when i'm raising my child differently than my peers. my husband noticed that I kept defending myself when ppl ask me sth about bringing up my child. that's when i realised that I was actually not confident in the path I chose. i realise that I have to believe that this less-academic-freer way is what I feel apropriate for my child, and that my husband is with me all the way. and that i've done enough research to back myself up. since then i feel so much more confident in the way that i've chose to bring her up.
 
I believe the best way to stimulate a baby/child is simply by taking them out in the world.

A child can learn that a bus is a bus by having a flashcard waved in front of their face; or they can learn that a bus is a bus by riding on one, they also then learn how a bus sounds, that it can go fast or slow, that you have to pay to ride on the bus etc. etc.

A child can learn that a dog is a dog by having a flashcard waved in front of their face; or they can watch a dog chase a ball, they can listen to a dog bark, they can pat and touch a dog.

Admitedly children in HK aren't going to be able to learn about a giraffe or a lion (and many other things) by going out and experiencing one. But in that case, a good book or a soft toy is a much better experience than a flashcard which can't be heard, or touched, or smellt!

Flashcards are for much older children- and can be used creatively, for example, using several flashcards to piece together a story- but not for babies!
 
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