Can children learn more, sooner than our society in general seems to think?
In short, I believe so, yes. And, I suppose, even if I didn’t believe, it wouldn’t matter because my daughter is in the process of proving that the generally accepted development milestones are well, wrong.
I would love to just BRAG AND BRAG about my kid, just like you would about yours, so go ahead!! Send me your comments and tell me all about your little one. :) And here’s my little plug – Lily is learning so much, so fast, that I am struggling to keep up. What are we doing to teach her, to help her learn? What is our brilliant and ingenious technique? Well… scroll down.
Keep scrolling…
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Our brilliant technique follows:
Ready?
Purposely creating an environment full of life, then getting out of the way and letting her explore.
Crazy brilliance, huh.
Seriously, we do our best to keep toys organized and sorted into logical categories/spaces, take her to new environments as often as possible, as well as very familiar ones, and we watch her; she tells us what she is ready to absorb.
Cecily can sign somewhere around 450 signs now, and gains about 10 signs a week now. She can communicate just about whatever she pleases. And if she doesn’t know what the sign for something is, she’ll either say the word, or ask for a word or sign. MY 18 month old ASKS me to TEACH HER.
Frustration? With the exception of fatigue induced meltdowns, she is never frustrated. If she needs help, she says so. If she wants something, she asks for it. Sometimes she asks over and over and over, but eventually she will get your attention or get you to acquiesce and then, she smiles.
Can we tell her no? Well, often we don’t really want to, but yes. We tell her “no” all the time and usually she accepts our answer. What happens when she doesn’t want to be told “no”? Sometimes she simply ignores our response; and usually runs away giggling to prove she did NOT hear us. Often, she will contest: She will continue to sign what she wants, drag us around, or stand there and plead with puppy eyes, signing “please” over and over. Hold fast – stay strong… ERFFF
And occasionally she will really just lose it, most often she’s exhausted when this happens. Distraction or time out an option? Huh, no. We get down on her level, eye to eye, often mom/dad’s mouth to Lil’s ear, and gently, but firmly discuss the issue. We use signs and words that she knows and a lot of the time, she is able to be reasoned with.
What happens when she isn’t reasonable and nothing mentioned above is successful?
Dad hands baby to mom… Mom hands baby to dad…. Mom lays baby down on the floor and walks into the other room for a minute, commences Plug retrieval, and grimaces a lot. Boob comes next, as sleep and comforting has become required.
Fart… she says, while signing “potty”… guess what she just did.
Her other favorite new word is “burb”. Yep.
So, as far as teaching her letters, we started by having a few toys that repeat the letter of chubby finger choice, until your ears are bleeding. A very aggravating but surprisingly excellent method of education for little minds.
From there, we found a wooden alpha-tile flip toy; this is a fav because it’s about 12″ x 12″ and is great for the car, house, table, wherever. Letters on one side, images of objects she recognizes and signs/says on the other.
We have a set or two of flash cards with letters, Leapfrog Fridge Letters, and foam letters a foot tall. Aside from these, shirts, signs, books, tv, mail, license plates, everything!! She sees letters everywhere.
T A R G E T – diaperville. We pull into the parking lot and hear “tuh tuh tuh, Aayyyy, rrraaarrrr, eugh”. We have arrived.
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