Really Interesting Experiment

[MummyRoo]

The latest episode of Supernanny has a really interesting experiment regarding how spending time with your kids and their ability to learn.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/jo-frost-extreme-parental-guidance/4od

Unfortunately, I think you can only watch from the UK, so to summarise

A group of kids was given a particular book containing two made-up words. Half were also given the book on tape. For three nights before bed, half the group were to listen to the book on tape and independantly read the story, the other half were to listen to a parent read the story to them. It was designed and tested by a psychologist, and the result was that 80% of the children whose parents read to them had learned what the made-up words referred to in the book. The half that listened to the book on tape did much worse - only 20% learned the words.

It just goes to proove what everyone here already knows - spending time with your kids enhances their learning ability dramatically! 

Too many parents rely on preschool and the tv-babysitter to teach important concepts like shapes, numbers, colours... the same program showed a statistic that the average UK child spends only 49min a day interacting with their parents. That is less than the average UK dog gets walked!!! I'd hazard a guess that this is the same in most of the rest of the 'developed' world.

I now feel much less guilty when, on a 'bad' day, I only manage two or three hours playing with my son 

[andreasro]

Thank you for sharing

[Skylark]

Thank you for sharing! Very important point. I think also part of the reason why my children enjoy LR over a Video, is that interaction-laced learning. So true!

[waterdreamer]

WOW thats very interesting! How sad is it that children only get to spend 49mins a day with there parents. I'm home all day with my son, but I purpose 1-1.5 hours a night to work on reading, math, violin and just spending time together one on one.

[kizudo]

Boy, would I like to send this to a friend of mine!  But she'd have a very hard time reading it. 

Her precious three year old daughter is sent to "school" at 7:30 am and picked up at 6:30 pm every day. Monday to Friday.  This isn't a home daycare where the same caregiver is with her the entire time.  It's at a school.  She's there for eleven hours.  I can't say for certain, but I can't imagine any teacher agreeing to an 11 hour shift Monday to Friday.  That means she has several different caregivers/teachers within those 11 hours...at three years old. 

So...who is learning more?  My three year old at home making cookies, naming coins as he "pays" for a treat, and devouring books with mommy about circumference/three dimensional shapes/place value OR her three year old learning away from the people who truly do love her the most?  So hard not to be judgemental.

[Skylark]

Kizudo, that is heartbreaking. Makes me appreciate all the more precious opportunity to spend days with my little ones.

[MummyRoo]

I know the feeling Kidzudo. My nephew is a couple of weeks younger than my son, and spends three days a week, 8am-6pm in nursery. I understand this term-time, as my sister studies three days at college, but she wants him to stay for the whole summer so that he 'stays in his routine'. The rest of the week he spends a LOT of time with my sister's friend/my other sister/my mum/my dad.. you get the picture. And he sleeps 12 hours at night and 4 in the day      (Jealous, much I haven't ever had one 12-hour night)

I don't know when my sister actually spends time with him - more often than not when I see her it is alone. And she spends 1hr on her hair in the mornings, watches 'her' tv shows, and leaves her son with a select few (not messy!) toys to entertain himself. Yes she loves him and takes good care of him, but she doesn't play with him!

And she says I'm bad for keeping Nikki at home (he's not socalising! Apart from twice a week at playgroup, and when we see Benji, and when we spend time with my mum, brother, brother's friends...) and that my house is a mess (Nikki's books are pulled off the shelves where he was looking at them, or his shapesorters are scattered across his play area).

Sorry, that became a bit of a rant 

[fma001]

This is a very interesting interview with one of the actresses in the Big Bang Theory who is also a neuroscientist with a PhD from UCLA: http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/07/15/mayim.bialik.big.bang.theory/index.html?hpt=hp_c2.

She specializes in parent-child bonding. She says "Breastfeeding, sleeping close to your baby and keeping him or her close to you as much as you can are all part of the natural human process." She doesn't use any childcare at all and homeschools to have more time with her kids.

[MummyRoo]

What an interesting article. I will try to remember it when I am up every couple of hours with my son 

[zephyrfei]

Sadly, as a full time working mother, I cannot spend so much time with my daughter. She'll be in day care from Sep, that's 8am to 6:30pm at least. My mom is now taking care of her. I only get to spend time with her after work. But after dinner, followed by LM, LR, starfall, learning chinese character, I now have to move the story time (in both English and Chinese) after her bath, and at bed time. I cannot find time to play real games with her.  Luckily, she thinks all the early education are games. It's just very stressful for me.

[Kimba15]

Sadly, as a full time working mother, I cannot spend so much time with my daughter. She'll be in day care from Sep, that's 8am to 6:30pm at least. My mom is now taking care of her. I only get to spend time with her after work. But after dinner, followed by LM, LR, starfall, learning chinese character, I now have to move the story time (in both English and Chinese) after her bath, and at bed time. I cannot find time to play real games with her.  Luckily, she thinks all the early education are games. It's just very stressful for me.

Do not feel guilty, you as a mother a doing your very, very best and you are still interacting with her every night and doing early education stuff with her. Guilt is a useless emotion when you have to work because you still have to provide and care for your dd and if that means you have to work then so be it. I think you deserve a pat on the back because even when you get home from work im sure absolutley exhausted you are still making a huge effort to spend time with your daughter when a lot of parents are just too tired or can not be bothered. Your Daughter wll thank you one day and knows in her heart that you love her very much or you would not make the effort that you are.

Also be reassured that all this effort and time you are putting in will pay off in the long run.   

Kimba

[zephyrfei]

Do not feel guilty, you as a mother a doing your very, very best and you are still interacting with her every night and doing early education stuff with her. Guilt is a useless emotion when you have to work because you still have to provide and care for your dd and if that means you have to work then so be it. I think you deserve a pat on the back because even when you get home from work im sure absolutley exhausted you are still making a huge effort to spend time with your daughter when a lot of parents are just too tired or can not be bothered. Your Daughter wll thank you one day and knows in her heart that you love her very much or you would not make the effort that you are.

Also be reassured that all this effort and time you are putting in will pay off in the long run.   

Kimba

Thank you very much for your encouragement. When I talk about early childhood education with my friends, many of them think I'm denying my DD a normal happy childhood. I explain as long as the stress is on me instead of her, and as long as I make the learning process fun, I should expose her to as much knowledge as I can. I'm just glad to find this website. I tried Doman flash card for a few months then stopped. DIY the materials was just tedious. With LM and LR, my life is much easier now. Hehe...

[kizudo]

Zephyrfei,

I, too, commend you for busting your behind to make things work for your family and, on top of it all, for spending the time (and effort) to do early learning activities with your little one.  AND, trying to keep it a joyful experience for all involved!

The thing that I find hard to swallow is when parents send their child to daycare M-F for 11+ hours, have someone else pick them up from the center and feed them and then FINALLY are tucked in with a cuddle and a kiss by their real parent - all because of the "need" to have enough money to vacation in Europe, have a wide-screen tv in every room, drive the best of the best cars, eat at the snazziest of restaurants, buy groceries at fancy import stores, etc. 

...Not that I wouldn't like all those things too.  Really.  I'd love them, but not at the expense of not knowing who my child was.

Zephyrfei, it's nice to hear that even in your busyness you also have a strong commitment to making your child's learning a priority.  Bravo.

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