Kids should best be kids

Good morning everyone. My busy week was over. It ended last night.

I was so excited in the morning to spend a little time with my baby in the garden.

    The rose buds are blooming, the hibiscus flowers are proudly greeting us in the garden.

I love the fact that our house is on a hill with nature all around it and at the same time we are in the beautiful city of Putrajaya. Putrajaya is one of the most beautiful city in the world. Living here since the opening of this city, I am still amaze that there are many more to be explored.

Away from the busy traffic and pollution, it is a village of modernisation.

My first harvest of the day. The chillies are beckoning me for several days. My rosemary herbs are just delightful.

My little Isabella is in a new phase now. A bubbly, talkative phase. She does baby chat when she plays. It is no longer the heeee, hyeeee but more like blabbybloo baaaaa bruuubruu bruu taaattaa moooo tuuuunaananana. Good luck understanding her.

It is exciting because it is a maturity in speech development and I will make full use of this time by interacting with her.

More games. At this age, a baby imitates you in speech and behavior.

So, it is important that you talk to her in a language that you wish for her to master.

No baby accent but very simple and short words.

A week ago, we were teaching Isabella to play with this block.

Two days ago, she got the concept.

When I say one, she push one block through the loop, when I say two, she pushes another.

It came as a shock but it gives me pleasure.

Now, lesson for this week is..to raise her hand when I say her name.

She has known two words since long ago 4 months old Isabella and baby.

She will turn and see who is calling her.

Now, I want her to raise her hand when I say Isabella.

I am reading this book now.

It is a very interesting book. Many people jump at the title 'flash cards'.

This book is not saying that you should not use flash cards.

So it is not an excuse to be lazy parents.

It is telling us that nowadays parents use the words quality time too often when you should use 'quantity time'. Which means you still have to spend a lot of time with your children.

Play with them. What kind of game?

Hide and seek, cooking game, gardening, doing chores together and let your kids participate.

They are imitating you and that is how they understand new things.

Now, there are brain games which you can play with your kids. The games for example using blocks.

If you want to teach Maths to your kids, it is better to use blocks than cards.

For example, the block that I used to Isabella above and while she pushes the block (coordination) I count for her. Now she is learning instructions and language on top of counting. Later on the same blocks will help her recognize colors.

Let say I want to use flash cards to teach her animals.

I will not have her memorize the animals without understanding what is it in the first place.

Blind memorisation. Instead, when you show her the card, you can take her to the farm and zoo so that she knows 'owh this is zebra and that is an ostrich'.

When I use flash cards, I prefer a real photo instead of drawing or cartoon.

And the main concept about this book is that the children learn through exploration.

As parents you will help and let them explore.

You should not push your child to mature faster.

Enrolling them into different classes too soon is like robbing them of their childhood.

Tuition? Early learning school to teach them to read and count faster before the age of 4 years old or learn several languages before 6 years old.. for what?? Does not make your child a genius. It makes your child have a robotic childhood, no play, no time to build the creative side of her brain.

Now I am not saying this because I don't have a Phd. I am just summarizing for you.

However, you guys can get this book in MPH for RM 54.90, reasonable price for the content.

I realized where my passion lies. Hopefully I will be able to achieve my dream to build my own play school where I will teach my children things about the world through exploration.

So much they can learn by just being a garden, such as the birds, butterfly, worms, grass, flowers, sky, sun. Now, those are the new vocabs while they have fun instead of being stuck in a boring classroom, sitting on a chair and looking at the blackboard.

Since I am a doctor, I will monitor each child development in terms of growth and progress.

For children who has trouble with weight or delayed development, some consultation will be made.

What I worry most about nursery is that my baby will get sick becaus of other kids.

Everytime there is an outbreak of chicken pox in nursery or hand foot and mouth or just flu.

That is because, no proper isolation or early diagnose is carried out. Now my idea is to apply the same principle in medicine to my playschool.

Now master in developmental psychology is very very appealing. InsyaAllah.