I hope we can get a debate going.
I have a 1 year old boy. I have been reading a lot of books about child-rearing. The problem with most of these books is that most of them are very helpful in telling one about keeping children safe and healthy. They are not helpful in telling about other stuff.
For example I often push my baby around on his tricycle through the park. While doing this I talk to my baby. I point out things- those are white birds flying in the sky; that is a cloud ; the blue is the sky. I also say encouraging affirmations to him like ‘Darcy is a good boy’; ‘Darcy is a happy boy’; ‘Darcy is a prosperous boy’; ‘Darcy is an intelligent boy’.
What I want to know is what should I be doing? What is the optimal thing do be doing?
Hopefully this can be a debate rather than just personal opinions.
Tee-hee – have your relatives taken a vow of silence or something?
Try starting with this article: The Power and Peril of Praise and let me know what you think. I, too, used to try to not-so-subtly “program” my kids to think of themselves as smart and capable and…now I’m not so sure that was the right tack. I’ve changed course now with my daughter, and instead of telling her what she is, I emphasize what she can DO, even if that’s only make an effort and fail.
But other than that, I’m not sure what you’re doing is debatable. Yes, talking to them a lot speeds both neurological development and speech acquisition. Yes, spending time outdoors in natural environments is a good thing.
Do you want ideas for other activities? My favorite gift to a 1 year old is a box of Kleenex. Let him pull the tissues out of the box one by one - he learns about cause and effect, the texture and crumpability of tissues, he has a great time, and if you have a camera handy, you can get some great shots of first surprise, then “Am I in trouble?” worry and then relief and glee.
Sandboxes are great at this age. If you don’t have a sandbox handy, try filling a plastic container - anything from a food storage container to one of those big storage boxes - with rice. It doesn’t stick to their skin as badly as sand, so it’s easier to keep indoors and clean up, but he can still have fun plunging his little hands into it and feeling the grains flow under him, pouring it with a cup, and later on scooping with a shovel and filling a smaller container with it.
At this stage, his little neurons are growing amazingly fast, and what you want to do is give him as many different inputs as possible without overwhelming him. Try to do something each day for each of his senses - let him smell, taste, fell, see and hear something new each day. And reviewing old favorites are good, too - repetition causes those new neural networks to become strong and lasting.
Don’t bother with the expensive Lamaze and Baby Einstein toys and books - unless YOU like them. They’re not harmful, but they’re not necessary, either.
Oh, this might be debatable: Television. The APA recommends no screen time (TV, DVD’s or computer) at all before age 2. I will admit I did not succeed in NO screen time, but we did manage very little screen time, and I’m pleased with the results. My daughter likes her “Big Bird”, but when it’s done, it’s done, and we don’t have a whinefest about it. Some of the kids I babysit, who have grown up in TV heavy households, are like addicts - one show is never enough, and they hardly know what to do with themselves when I turn the darn thing off.
I recommend investing in a Skinner box
I thought I was trying to get a serious debate. Already two bad attempts at humour. Is this great debates?
This topic might be better suited to IMHO.
To my way of thinking…
The point of parenting is to get a baby to age 18 as healthy as possible physically (and hopefully emotionally). To have them have a sense of self and some idea of who they are. To have a direction and a plan - even if they find out they were wrong. And to know, without question, they are loved and accepted as a person. Maybe certain actions we have trouble with (hopefully they aren’t pathological liars, etc), but really… isn’t the idea to…
hmmm…
to allow them to discover themselves? I’ve long worried over over-invested moms or dads who seem to never let junior have an authentic moment. Consequences are softened. Emotions smoothed with sweet, kind, well intended salve that keeps a kid unprepared.
My goal is NOT to place any expectations on my kids except for a few - be honest, be decent, learn to try, learn to get back up, and learn to try again. And I affirm their deeds, not their personalities… as pointed out (wisely) above.
I hug on them. Respect them. Solicit advice and try to warn them about the challenges of coming years… at each step along the way. Otherwise… I give them all the responsibility they seem ready for. I’m not trying to kill them. I just don’t want to panic when they hit 16 and realize I need to turn a baby into an adult in 2 short years.
In my opinion… it’s best to not try to have a perfect kid. It just won’t happen and they’ll resent you for it. Just enjoy 'em. Love 'em. Hug on 'em when they scrape a knee. Listen. And having done all that… do it again. It flies.
Well, **what **do you want to debate, exactly? A question is not a debate. You can’t really just offer a topic, you have to take a stand on a controversial issue and defend it. Then we rebut or support it. Then **Liberal **or **Diogenes the Cynic **comes in to post something theoretically sound but completely impractical and/or insensitive and someone links to a thread pitting one or both of them and your poor GD languishes while everyone gets out the pitchforks and torches and marches off to the Pit.
Really, parenting is a hard one to get people up in arms about on this board. While we’re awfully opinionated, there’s a lot more “do what works for you and tell your mother in law/sister/best friend/me to mind her own business” here than on other boards. If you want a debate on anything from the evils of formula to the efficacy of a frozen waffle as a teething device, go to a parenting board. They can debate ANYTHING, and will.
I remember a psych text saying kids in poverty can grow up to be “pseudo-retarded.” They don’t have stimulating colors, shapes, textures, etc. in their environment. And with my nephew (who has Down’s), the therapist said that the best thing was to expose him to as much varied stimulation as possible in the early years. I bet the same holds true for normal kids.
As adults we’re heavily biased toward words and abstract ideas. Kids need to experience things with all senses. Let the child “do” whenever possible.
What WhyNot said, pretty much. Except, read to your bunny! Go to storytime at the library, sing songs and nursery rhymes, and read board books. And, let him have playtime by himself, so he can do what he wants to do without interruption. It’s not good for either of you to be constantly together every minute. Have fun!
Methods are many
Principles are few
Methods often change
Principles rarely do.
As a non-parent and an observer of OPC (other peoples’ children), the best advice I can give you is to never lead you child to believe that he is without fault, not accountable for his actions, or going to have his parents cover for him whenever he makes a mistake.
Give him the freedom to fail.
Ah, now there’s a debate! 
I’m an apostate - I LOVE to read, but my son hated books and reading for years. He didn’t even like to be read to as a tot, so I stopped pushing the issue (I couldn’t figure out how associating books with tears would help improve things). True, he struggled a bit with reading and reading skills until about 7th grade - he also has a language processing learning disability that got in the way - but now he’s just as much a bibliophile as I am. Harry Potter changed his world, if a few years later than most kids.
My daughter likes books a little more than her brother did, but not a whole lot. Unlike some parents, I haven’t set a “read 12 books a day” goal or anything. I rarely offer to read a book, but if she asks me to, most of the time, I’ll oblige her. We probably average two or three board books a day, but honestly there are some weeks we don’t open a book at all. We’ll see how she pans out in a few years - at 2.5, she knew her whole alphabet and could identify any letter picked at random (she’s fond of announcing my Scrabble tiles to my opponent!) and was sight-reading three letter words like Cat and The, so I don’t foresee a big problem for her.
So, read or don’t read, IMHO. I think seeing me read for pleasure made a bigger impression, with less stress, than constantly reading to them. I think people are naturally readers or they’re not (or they may, like my son, seem like non-readers until just the right mix of interest and ability comes along in a perfect book for them), and no good will come of forcing things. Honestly, these days with television news channels, cable, audio tapes, online lectures and educational videos, books are simply becoming optional. They are one way to learn about the world, but not the only way.
Now I *would *recommend forcing a keyboarding/typing class on your kid, but that can wait until grade school.
:eek: I haven’t got time to discuss this, I’m on my way out, but are you serious? I mean, I’m a librarian, I currently have over 80 books checked out on my card, I am the storytime lady sometimes–but it never occurred to me to set a goal of reading 10+ books a day to my kids.
When you have kid number 2, who has a totally different personality from kid #1, you’ll stop worrying about optimal child rearing techniques. Both mine are adults, so I’m an expert. 
We read equally to our kids, but one loves reading and one is okay with it. She probably reads more than most, but not much compared to the fanatic reading of the other 3. So read, but don’t worry.
The best things I can suggest are:
Never say a question is stupid. When he asks, give the answer or help him look it up.
Play with him, at his level. It builds the imagination.
Tell stories. I told my kids made up stories every night for years. You can build a little outline, and construct new stories without even thinking, and customize them for him.
Have a good selection of toys fostering creativity - dolls, without the back story, blocks, stuff like that. Hold off on the ones around TV shows until later.
Did I mention play with him?
But the most important thing is to pay attention to his personality, and do stuff that makes sense. It’s amazing how different kids are - don’t let any book tell you what to do. They are fine for letting you know if they are sick, and for newborns giving the standard developmental stages, but your son is already past the age that I found the books to be very useful.
It seems common. I see people at our library (actually I’m behind them in the self-checkout line) who take out 20 or so kids books. I can only guess is that they grab a bunch hoping some of them will be good, or that they want to rush through them.
Well, that seems completely different to me. 20 books isn’t at all excessive for a batch of kids’ books from the library. We have at least that many around here. But you wouldn’t read them all in one day; you’d have them for a few weeks, read some one day, let the kids read a lot of them by themselves, read another one later on…
I guess what my deal is that stories and reading (and songs, and nursery rhymes and fingerplays) are important. If your kid hates reading, then don’t push it, but most kids are at least receptive to snuggling up with Mom or Dad and a book, and many adore it. Having good, happy feelings about reading is tremendously valuable. You can’t put a price on that! I don’t believe in pushing academics on young kids, drilling the alphabet or whatever, or setting strict goals for reading x number of books because it will get you to Harvard. IMO a parent’s job in the reading area is to show enjoyment of reading and make it a happy thing. School will do more than enough to pressure a kid into reading for work and stressing ‘reading level’ and whatnot, but IME school is very bad at teaching enjoyment of reading, which is far more important. That’s what libraries and parents are for. (Some libraries do not remember this, but I hope yours does.)
And now for the hackneyed poem:
Yeah, actually I think the Dope was the first place I read this - the mom was talking toddler books, so 10-12 a day isn’t undoable, but it’s still a lot. After I read it here, I overheard some moms at play group talking about their “reading goals”, and another at the supermarket - you know how you learn a new word or factoid and suddenly it’s everywhere? It was like that. I wonder if there was something on a morning show or such that I never saw. But yeah, it suddenly seemed like everyone was setting a goal of how many books, chapters or pages to be read in a day.
Mom and I always got either 10 or 20 books from the library - that way we always knew how many we had out, even if we misplaced one, we knew to keep looking until the count came out even! 
My mother has her PhD in child development, and she would say that you are doing the right thing. Talk, talk, talk to the kid about everything. Ask him questions, even though he can’t answer them yet. Observe the world out loud. Explain how things work. Don’t “dumb down” your language too much (but don’t worry if you find yourself using that high-pitched sing-song tone people do with babies…it’s perfectly natural and they respond to it. Personally, I would ditch the affirmations, though…those are rather abstract notions for a kid his age.
I do not want to go to a parenting board. I want intelligent debate.
What I meant was that instead of a thread saying ‘This is my opinion’ or ‘This works for me’ we actually discuss why that is your opinion and/or why that is good for you. I do not have to take a stand on a controversial topic to get a debate started.
Kids go through stages; everybody knows that and there are books about them. What nobody seems to notice is that parents go through stages, too. You are in a very good stage now, the stage in which you want to know what the optimal thing is. Pay no attention to the folks who say “Huh? Optimal? I just want them to live to see tomorrow”. This is also a parenting stage and it passes also.
And in general I think it is useful to note the extent to which parenting is a two way street – it is a relationship, not a job. The optimal thing it seems to me is to pay attention to your child and also to think about your goals for your child but not to confound the two.
My eldest child is a little jock, and not just a jock but a team sport kind of jock which really confounded me. And may I add, I have been stunned to silence by how important being good at sport matters to the social life of boys. I truly had no idea. So be prepared to support things which you absolutely do not value or even understand; it my be more important to the kid than you know.
Around here they say that if you want a reader in your child the best thing you can do is not to read to/with them but just to read yourself. Kids tend to value and want to imitate what their parents do and value (certainly not what we say, snort) so show them, don’t tell them.
However much a child resembles a family member, it is important to remember that they are not the same and this is quadruply true if the person they resemble is you. Sometimes we are unable to see our children for all the ghosts in the nursery from our own childhood and this is not really fair to them. This need not be pathological, it can be good memories, too. But it bears watching.
Get them outside every single day no matter what the weather. A tired child is a happy child. Get them to bed on time, feed them regularly. Sleep deprivation and hunger are behind more bad behavior than possibly any other cause.
Gotta go pick up the kids, more later, lol.