In my region, most of people lived in countryside 100 years ago. Children started with pig shepherding when they were 4, and later continued with cattle and other animals. There is a lot of literature about children as shepherds because almost all our ancient writers started as shepherds when they were little. 
There is a popular quote of writer Janis Greste - "if you did not shepherd pigs when you were kid than nothing good will come out of you" 

Shepherding is a good job - some but limited responsibility, some problem solving, and a lot of free play with nature materials (I also did shepherding for some summers, I know). Maria Montessori says - "follow your child".  I think, also in our modern society there are many possibilities to give children some responsibility and some problem solving but we should know the limits of every child. There is also a quote "everything that does not kill us makes us stronger". Well, people differ, and full responsibility is good for some 13 year old but can break the personalities of some other.

With this discussion, I found that there are a lot of things my children can do but I do for them. I changed my attitude during the last weeks and gave more responsibility to my kids Thank you all for this discussion

You do not have to say sorry. I said that it is interesting but unverified. By this I meant that I also do not believe to this as a practical approach. From other side, psychological factors are involved in very many diseases; more or LESS. They do not cause a disease directly but they can add some %. Some people think that they see the link between the disease and environment but they do not have resources to describe it properly so they write strange things

In my book list 3 years ago I had also "Perfect sight without glasses" by W.H.Bates, about miraculous treatments with simple methods. There are many selfhelp books and schools based on this book. But here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_method I found that nobody was able to scientifically prove these methods and they should be considered as scam.

At the same time, Meir Schneider was born with cataracts and later certified as permanently legally blind. With Bates method he got his sight back, and now he can drive car and read newspapers.

I was trying to find research on the link between eyesight and psychological factors. I found some studies but it seemed that authors have mixed up the causes and consequences.

Many psychologists believe that myopia is caused by psychological factors (and many of them wear glasses). At the same time, researchers find particular genes linked to myopia.

You can write "improve eyesight" in youtube and you will get plenty of exercises including these of followers of Bates. I have glasses and my parents and grandparents did. I have not done any eye exercises because I think that I am hopeless But I believe that I should help my children to be happy.

Three years ago my infant had amblyopia and I was reading sources like these

====

http://www.unleash-your-vision.com/myopia-causes-2/myopia-causes-is-it-really-the-eye/

Myopia Causes… Is It Really The Eye?

... The truth is that the cause for myopia is not in your eyes at all. Your eye problem is merely a symptom of the cause. The real cause is psychological. And there are few psychological reasons, which we will cover over a serious of articles.


You see, our mind is so strong, that it can literally cause us to black out what we don’t want to see. In our mid to late teens or early twenties we are faced with the question what we want or should do with the rest of our life. But the concept of days in relationship to a life-time can’t be understood as yet, that only comes around by the time we are 40 – 50 years old (see “The Continuum Concept” by Jean Liedloff, p 43). How should we understand what we want to do every day of our life?

So when we are faced with the question what to do for the rest of our life, we get scared, and I mean real scared. But what does that have to do with myopia causes? Great question, hang in there.

How Does THAT Cause Myopia?

Humans in a state of fear get stressed. So stressed that our muscles become tense and tighten up. Now if that happens in our eye muscles, the muscles flatten out the eyeball, extending it like the zoom on a photo lens, and thereby altering the shape of the lens. The shape of the lens becomes stepper because the eyeball is filled with liquid and when it is squashed together, the extension causes a steeper shape of the lens.

Now putting glasses in front of the stressed eyes doesn’t solve the problem because we are still under stress, in a state of fear, and our eye muscles are still tight as. The glasses only help us to see into the distance, the very distance we didn’t want to see in the first place. So, as strong as our mind is, it just tightens the muscles a bit more, squeezes the eyeball further, and viola there is the next level of myopia, and you need new glasses.

This keeps going until you resolve the underlying reasons. Resolving the underlying reasons is much easier than wearing glasses, totally natural, cheap as chips in comparison to a life-time of paying for glasses, and you and your mind can get rid of myopia easily. Glasses on the other hand won’t cut it, they will just increase the tension over time, worsening your eyesight every so often.
The way to deal with your psychological causes for myopia is to do natural vision correction. That’s it!

Now the fear of the future is only one possible underlying cause for myopia, there are many more myopia causes, but the concept is always the same. Your mind is putting tension on the eye muscles, which extend the eyeball, and therefore alter the shape of the lens.

=======

http://www.effortlessvision.com/docs/Myopia_As_An_Adaptation.pdf
Myopia As An Adaptation
By Robert Lichtman

... In particular, fear and anxiety play a large role in the production of myopia by
introducing factors that affect the ability to form a clear image on the retina as well as regulate
the elongation of the eye. I will propose a theory as to how emotions become thoughts, thoughts
become motor impulses, motor impulses affect the eye and visual cortex, and how these
3 phenomena ultimately blur vision. It is important to note that since these processes are dynamic
and since there is no organic damage to the myopic eye, the condition is reversible.

...
Blur begins with a fear of not being able to cope. In hundreds of interviews with myopes
conducted by the author, those who became myopic before the age of 15 tend to report the onset
of myopia as occurring within a year or so of a stressful situation such as moving to a new
country, problems at home, learning to read, or adolescence. Late onset myopia most often
occurs during college, when perhaps the stress of being away form home mixes with the stress of
reading large amounts of unattractive material and being forced to write papers on deadline.

...

From here comes the correlation between education and myopia, though it is really a correlation between
being willing to submit to strain for the sake of social approbation and myopia.

...

Beyond all this, though, there is one intriguing if not sinister advantage to myopia: while
anxiety brought on by the fear of not living up to expectations may be an underlying cause of
myopia, myopia ironically becomes somewhat of a palliative for anxiety. In her doctoral
dissertation, Carolyn Ziegler showed myopes reported more anxiety than emmetropes, but only
up to about -3 diopters of myopia. Beyond that, the anxiety levels went down as vision got
worse. By around -6 diopters, the border of severe myopia, the anxiety levels of the myopes were
similar to those of emmetropes (Zeiger, 1976). Her work further suggests that treating myopia
would concomitantly treat anxiety, though severe myopes would likely report an increase in
anxiety as their vision improved into the -3 diopter zone.

...

In my interviews with myopes, the fear of letting go is not only a fear of
losing control, but also a fear of losing parental love. This is even true for adults, who apparently
had the thought as children, took protective measures (held on), and forgot the thought while
remembering to hold on.

...

Borkovic found this anxiety linked to imagery-based worry. His
experiments support the notion that a switch to verbal-based worry from imagery-based
mentation inhibits cardio-vascular activity. In other words, it appears to calm us down.
Appearances can be deceiving, though. The discomfort of the cardiovascular response to image
based worry limits how much worry a person can tolerate. Switching to verbal/thought based
worry allows a person to worry much more without feeling the effects of the worry. In other
words, switching from imagery-based worry to thought-based worry does nothing to reduce the
anxiety, but it is similar to taking a pill that blocks the perception of the anxiety. Just a pain killer
allows an athlete to hurt himself even more, thought based worry allows a person to worry and
be paralyzed by that worry so much more. At the same time, our school systems are biased
toward thought-based mentation so the behavior is rewarded, engaging the child in a vicious
cycle that may last his entire life.

The mechanism by which we switch from imagery-based mentation to worry based
mentation may involve a suppression of high frequency receptor fields. If so, excessive worry
would induce myopia at the same time it palliates anxiety. This resolves the problem of why
people would blur their vision and take on chronic strain: in order to reduce the effects of
anxiety. While anxiety’s purpose is to provide extra energy for a fight or flight response, in our
12
modern world it actually makes our decisionmaking processes less effective. In their study of
how we process fear, Foa and Kozak found anxious persons exaggerated “subjective personal
risk” and made other, similar errors in judgment (1986). Again, the problem is the sympathetic
nervous system’s all or nothing response; every crisis is dealt with the same way we would want
it to deal with a tiger chasing us with no shades of gray (Levine, 1997).

====
interesting but unverified approaches

My congratulations
Can you tell us what exactly did you do?

Some facts. There are data that 2000 years ago human lifespan was 30 - 40 years.
http://longevity.about.com/od/longevitystatsandnumbers/a/Longevity-Throughout-History.htm

The situation was different in pre-agricultural times. It is hard to get datas but there is some evidence that paleolitic people lived 60 - 70 years.
http://www.highaltitudecrossfit.com/Life_Expectancy_in_the_Paleolithic.pdf

In Africa, there still are tribes which lifestyle is similar to paleolitic or neolitic. They are hunters-gatherers, and their lifespan is 70 years.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ancient_History/Human_Evolution/Neolithic_Age
I also read somewhere that they marry at 20.

Genetically, human is not much changed during the last 2 millions of years. We are geneticaly designed to hunter-gatherer lifestyle and  to 70 year lifespan

After the last one, I will recommend also:
59 Seconds; Think a Little, Change a Lot
by Richard Wiseman

free preview is here
http://www.scribd.com/doc/88195890/59-Seconds-Think-a-Little-Change-a-Lot#.UjvWaX-Xdjs

free download of audiobook is here
http://rs-catalog.com/e-books/211456-59-seconds-think-a-little-change-a-lot.html
(I downloaded it 2 years ago; no registration and no viruses)

There are many positive thinking exercises recommended by self-help books. 
There is also research on these exercises. Research shows that many these exercises are ineffective while some other really work. What works and what does not work?

Author starts with well known positive thinking tips and continues with other aspects. Subject by subject, author provides the newest research data. Some parenting also covered. With jokes.

Well, this is very, very interesting book if you are interested in  psychology research.

Our new activities for fingers:
- lego
- making holes in paper, with large sewing needle
- plastic bubble wrap which is used for package of fragile parcels. It is almost addictive, to press these bubbles with fingers.

bubble wrap:  http://www.greenphillyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/bubble-wrap.jpg

[Energy medicine]

Are you going to read anything which is non-fictional?

My discovery of the last year was Energy medicine by Donna Eden.
This book is not for total crazies. Author of the book is dyslectic, so her husband David Feinstein interviewed her and wrote the book. He is psychologist and pHD, and every chapter is started with literature review (I follwed some references, too). It is something unusual, to read such strange things written in such a logical way; these two things usually do not happen together!  I found this book because I had back pain of psychosomatic origin. This book (and videos) can be very valuable for people who are depressed and feeling "lack of energy". This book is also very interesting and easy to read, even if you are not going to apply it.

If you have back pain (it is almost epidemic nowadays) you should read
Sarno J.E., Healing back pain: the mind - body connection
which you can get for free here 
http://www.federaljack.com/ebooks/My%20collection%20of%20medical%20books,%20208%20Books%20%28part%202%20of%203%29/Healing_Back_Pain_The_Mind.pdf
and also
Gary Craig, EFT for back pain

I cured my back; it was not easy; now I am the Lord of My Body

Parenting. A year ago I was reading about sensitive children. Here was much about empathy and understanding, and also that discipline is needed. For discipline issues, a book about power struggles was recommended.

So I got: Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles: Winning for a Lifetime
by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka

In this book I learned that I need more, more and more empathic attitude to my children. Many variations of "you are sad" and "you are angry" (I am rather emphatic, kind and responsive mother already, I think).
After one month of such approach I found that.
- my 5 year old is making tantrums about almost everything;
- my 2 year old is becoming more and more aggressive;
- sometimes I am thinking about the possibility to shoot myself.

We call it "children are stepping on the head of their mother".

I thought that:
- if I will discipline them in a harsh and unprofessional way, that will be very traumatic for them;
- if I will shoot myself, it definitely will be more traumatic for them. So lets do something.

In searching for keyword "respect", I found:
Total transformation program,
see http://www.thetotaltransformation.com/ and http://www.empoweringparents.com/

Say Goodbye to Disrespectful, Obnoxious and Abusive Behavior, and Regain Control of Your Child, Your Family & Your Life!

Well, this is Must Read even if your children are not using drugs, stealing, and living in prison
After listening (it is audiobook) just two chapters, I was able to restore balance in my family and in myself.

Currently I am reading "Testing for kindergarten" by Karen Quinn.
It is very cheep here http://www.shopoin.com/testing-for-kindergarten-p-27684.html
Almost half of the book is about tests which are applied for 4-5 year old children in US (I am not located in US).
The largest part is about teaching 2 - 5 years old children, and this part is very, very good also for parents outside of US. For example, there is the best description I know about the dialogic reading. Author is very practical and realistic. She has a natural sense on what is working and what is not. This is definitely one of the best books I know about the toddler teaching. Maybe the very best.

upd.
anyone has this book?
http://www.amazon.com/Day-Kids-Three-Year-Journal/dp/0307952967

A journal for parents and children ages roughly four to ten (although age range is flexible) to share the evolution of thoughts, feelings, and dreams over the years. Also great for kids who want to keep a time capsule of their own whimsical thoughts and serious ideas about the world.
     
Inspired by the previous bestselling Potter Style title, Q&A a Day, this journal is the perfect family keepsake. A question by children's author Betsy Franco is featured for each day with only a few lines provided for a response, making this journal the ultimate no-fuss record keeper. Simply turn to today's date and record your child's answer. When you finish the year, move on to the next section. As the years go by you'll notice how your child's answers evolve, sometimes silly, sometimes precocious, but always interesting. The diary can be started on any day of the year and makes a terrific keepsake or gift for parents.

http://testingforkindergarten.com/book/questions-to-make-your-child-think

1. How are water, milk and orange juice alike? How are they different?
2. Which of these can be worn? Hat, boot, fish, ring, worm, belt, kite, lemon, bib, wristwatch, applesauce, robe.
3. Which has more legs, a bird or a cow?
4. Name something that is smaller than a tooth?
5. Where around you do you see a circle? A triangle? A rectangle?
6. Why do people grow gardens?
7. When you make a sandcastle, would you use wet sand or dry sand? Why?
8. Which are longer, your arms or your legs?
9. How many of these have you seen today? Frog, cup, mirror, apple, yo-yo, teapot, bus.
10. What is your favorite game to play with someone? What is your favorite game to play by yourself?
11. Rumble, rumble. Name two things that might make that sound.
12.. How many numbers are on a clock? Are the numbers the same on all clocks?
13. Name something you can make with clay and something you cannot.
14. Would you rather use a fork or a spoon to eat ice cream? A boot or a slipper to keep your feet dry? Why?
15. What does it mean to rest?
16. A sponge absorbs water. Name something that doesn’t.
17. How are bubbles like balloons? How are they different?
18. What could you find by using a dictionary? A road map? A phone book? A globe?
19. Coconut, cucumber, papaya. Besides being names of foods, what do these words have in common?
20. Which neighboring state is closest to your home?
21. “My birthday party is going to have an animal theme,” said Lucas. Name some things besides parties that might have themes.
22. How is your image in the mirror different from your image in a photo?
23. Name something that scares you. What makes that fear go away?
24. Tell something you know about a career as a teacher. A plumber. A photographer. A songwriter.
25. Name some things that affect how much an item costs.
26. How do people find out what is happening in the world? Name as many ways as you can.
27. When might you like someone’s help? When might you not?
28. “That’s amazing, but no one will believe it,” said Devon. What might Devon have seen?
29. Why might museums need to keep some documents and paintings in climate controlled areas?
30. What has been your proudest moment? Why?


==================
http://www.thinkfun.com/smartplayblog/?p=1109

1. Ask questions about concepts.

If your kid is playing with shapes, ask, “Why doesn’t this shape (triangle) fit in this slot (circle)?”  If you’re at the park, take animals into consideration.  Ask, “Why isn’t this animal (bird) the same as that animal (dog)?”

2. Ask questions to get kids analyzing and reasoning.

The next time you help your child put on a rain jacket, ask, “Why do we need to wear a rain jacket today when we didn’t wear one yesterday?”

3. Ask questions to link thoughts across activities.

When learning about fruits or vegetables, take children into the kitchen and have them observe (or help, if they’re capable) the process of cooking a snack or dinner.  Ask, “What can we use this tomato for?”

4. Ask questions to help kids apply concepts to real life.

Try drawing different types of graphs with your child about how many days in the last week it rained, how many dogs they saw at the park over the week, how many red, white, black, blue, and green cars they saw on the way home from the grocery store, etc.

5. Ask questions to inspire creativity.

Encourage brainstorming by asking questions like, “How many ways can we get to the park?”

6. Ask questions to spark observation skills and judgment.

If your child already knows the story of the three pigs (or while reading the story to your child), ask, “Why would you want to live in a straw house?  How about a brick house?  Which one might protect the three little piggies from the big, bad wolf better?”

7. Ask questions to inspire self-reflection.

Get kid to think about the very process of thinking.  This encourages critical thinking skills and even gives them very necessary ego boosts.  The next time your kid shows evidence of analysis or creativity, ask, “How did you know that?”

======================

https://www.reviveourhearts.com/articles/23-great-questions-to-ask-your-kids/

23 Great Questions to Ask Your Kids
by Sharon Jaynes

1. What do you think heaven looks like?

2. What does Dad do at work?

3. Who is a person you know that seems the most Christ-like?

4. What do you think your wife (husband) will be like?

5. If you were going to spend one year on a desert island and could only take three things with you, what would they be?

6. Who is your favorite aunt or uncle and why do you like him or her so much?

7. What sounds and smells do you think Joseph and Mary experienced in the stable on Christmas night?

8. What is the nicest thing I ever did for you?

9. When is a time that I hurt your feelings?

10. When is a time that you were really mad at me?

11. If people followed the Golden Rule, think of all the things we wouldn’t need. Can you make a list?

12. If you could be in a movie that you’ve already seen, which one would it be? Would you be a character that is already in the movie, or would you be one that you would add?

13. How is love different for a Christian couple than it is in the movies?

14. What is the difference between being smart and being wise?

15. What is your favorite outfit?

16. What is the hardest part about being (fill in your child’s age)?

17. What has been your favorite childhood memory?

18. When you pray, how do you picture God?

19. What is your favorite Bible verse? Why do you like it?

20. If you could be an animal for a day, which one would you be?

21. If you could go in a time machine, what era in history would you like to visit?

22. What person in history would you like to visit?

23. What is the most important decision you will ever make?

Sometimes we play "story telling game". I printed more than 50 small cards with pictures (google: Shichida linking memory flashcards") for the memory linking exercises. We did not succeed with memory linking. Our game is - each participant randomly takes 2 - 4 cards (number of cards increases with age) and compiles a story.

I started it when my first kid was 2.5 (now she is 6). I think, this game raised her creativity in a new level; she become more creative in her other games. When she was 5, she also started to write her own stories (without any pressure from me), designed as books with pictures.

My second child (3.7) seems to be very creative, at least much more creative than most of other kids I know, including my first kid, and including me as a kid. In his games, he makes his own world, with sounds and emotions. And it seems that this game has nothing to do with his creativity. He is making plain "left brain" stories which are boring compared to his life. I will continue

I am also very influenced by
http://www.brainy-child.com/article/thinking-skills-for-children.shtml
http://www.brainy-child.com/article/critical-thinking-skills.shtml
and other articles from http://www.brainy-child.com/article.shtml

It is easy to share links and copy articles but now I would like to discuss what we really are doing with our kids

I started to think about thinking a year ago

As I explained earlier, I am not a chatty person, and I try to compensate my unchattiness with "better" talking. Since that, I try  to discuss "why" type questions with my 2 - 3 year old.  When he was not talking fluently I tried to find something in our surrounding to explain about. I just tried to find if there is something to ask "why". When his talking was good enough he finally was able to participate in conversations about global subjects like time, age, what is alive, what is human and how the time is going. I was happy to discover his opinion about these subjects; his opinion differs from mine I do not say that he is wrong; I am very curious about his opinion and observations

After one year of such talking (not all the time; just by occasion) I think that there are results. I definitely see that he continues to think about our conversations also later.  His talking shows that he is not repeating what he has heard; he is processing all the information and comparing the new information with his knowledge. Sometimes I think that he has very analytical way of talking.

In  http://www.brainy-child.com/article/thinking-skills-for-children.shtml  you can read:
"Enhancing thinking skills in your kid can be real fun and thrilling. Nothing can be more effective than asking the right type of questions in an easy going manner. Questions that you ask should have simple and proper wordings. When you ask questions that lead to a mental stimulation of your kid’s thought process, it can be really good for you as well as your kid. "

Well, might be in contradiction to "input only" approach recommended by Doman. However, recommendations of Doman are aimed mainly to babies and on particular subjects. Currently I think that asking questions is very good if these questions are kind, easy and fun. I am not testing; I am asking for opinion.

There is some more talking which can be called as exercise. 

At home, we have names for most of toy animals and dolls. I also remember at which occasions we got every toy. I use to remind these occasions to my kids. Later I ask questions"do you remember how we got this toy?". A present from friend, a purchase in excursion etc. Than I can continue my questions about a particular occasion. What did we do in that excursions? Do you remember what guests you had in your birthday party? And so on.

I always did it with my first kid (6 years old) and now I found that this is an exercise for long-term memory. My first kid really has a very good memory, especially long-term memory. It seems that she remembers everything.

With my 3-year old, I also often ask "what happened today" and "what happened yesterday". Half year ago, he mixed everything together in his answer but now he answers almost properly.

Sometimes we play "common and different" game. What is common and what is different for two things. With 3-year old, I ask easy questions, and often answer by myself. With 6-year old, it is challenging. What is common for electricity and old socks? Answer: the shock

After the recommendation of Testing Mom, we play "I went to the shop" game. This is short-time memory game and it can also be used as party game. I went to the shop and purchased milk. I went to the shop and purchased milk and bread. And so on; everyone is repeating all the chain and adding one more.

I this forum, we usually discuss teaching with various materials and applications. Teaching without materials is challenging but interesting, and it can become a habit. My 6 year old is copying my talking and also changing her playing with her brother; she is better as I am

Well, this is not much but it took some time to gather and adapt these exercises. Probably you have also something to recommend.

[Now I want to talk about our EL children.]

Thanks. What was wrong in the family described - parents corrected their son all the time - bet they did not distinguish between minor improvable behavior and serious bad behavior. And they just said their correction, but never continued, never tried really stop the wrong action, like carrying their son away from a place of bad behavior. Kid just continued, and nothing followed.  They were like a background radio. In result, their child thought that "do not  bet your cousin in face with steel rake" is of the same unimportance as "do not run along the path because you can fall down".

I had to physically defend my child because his parents did nothing except continued talking in prayerful voice. And this boy continued his bad behavior for rather long time. If he disliked something, he did spitting, and he continued it from 1 year to almost 4 years. Once he spit on me and I said to his parents that they should do something or I will put soap in his mouth. And that was the last day he did spitting; his parents stopped it. So, in general, his parents did not do the real correcting and stopped the wrong activity only when others did not bear it anymore, and that was after 3 years of continuous objectively bad behavior. The same was with aggression. From 1 to 4 years he was attacking my girl who is highly sensitive and never beats. There was that accident with steel rake and I started actively correct that child but his parents continued to act like broken radio. It continued for almost a year and than I said to his father just a small part of what I think about his parenting and about his son (you may imagine) - and the bad behavior was stopped in one day, and his aggression towards my daughter never repeated. So their daily correcting was totally useless and unheard and very seldom they did a real correcting.

Well, I will stop about this boy. You may see that I have a problem.  Because I am sensitive too, and I do not know how to defend me, and for too long time I did not know how to defend my daughter.

====

Now I want to talk about our EL children.

Well, my son is definitely much brighter than the kid I described above, and always was. Besides my first kid, almost every other kid seems delayed and I can not evaluate properly.

I know a family where first two kids are very intelligent (PhD and entrepreneur) and the third one is different. In a regular family this third son would have simple job like builder, and be happy. In this highly intelligent family (parents are very intelligent too) he tries to reach intellectual jobs but he cannot. His self-confidence is very low. He looks broken. He tries to participate in intelligent discussions but he is able just to take single words from context. He is talking nonsense using long and complex sentences. He has no friends because people of his IQ use another language and are different. Although his parents do not show any dissatisfaction with him. So I think my both kids should be in a similar level, for their self-confidence. They will never be the same because their tempers are very different. But my second one should be above the average, to feel good in his family.

I am often thinking about the connection between logical thinking and talking. And which qualities are depending from the overall development and which do not. This is what I would like to discuss with you

I have documented the development of my kids.

The first one.
8 months - first 3 words.
1.2 years - explosion of vocabulary.
1 year and 5 months: first dialog with me (4 turns); saying "yes"; understanding consequence "you will get your milk if you will let me to dress you".
1.6: counting up to 6; distinguishing and commenting calls of common birds;
1.8 - saying "I want bread" instead of "L. wants bread" (in our language it means also adding a proper ending of word). 
2.2 - trying to tell a story.
2.3: complex sentences with proper times of verbs etc; compiling a story about events of this day.
4.5: reading; adding up to 20;  counting above 100 (it started suddenly).

My second one did exactly the same but one year later. When he was 2.2 his vocabulary suddenly (in one day) expanded from some tens to some hundreds of abbreviated words. When he was 3.3 he started to build complex sentences etc.

The most important thing is that the development of his logical thinking had exactly the same delay. He was 2.5 when he understood "you will get A if you will do B". There are a lot of other parameters which can describe the development of logical thinking. Throwing ball from one person to another. Making sand cake.

Do you also observe this pairing between thinking and talking?

My son definitely was physically able to talk sentences with questions because he was reading them from this powerpoints. But it took half year for him to start to use such sentences by his own.

What was the same for both kids:
they both learned their phonics when they were 1.10;
colors at 1.8;
they both knew at least 100 sight words when they were between 2 and 2.5.
2 years: understanding numbers up to 3;
3 years: understanding numbers up to 4 (I mean understanding the quantity and not mechanically counting like rhyme).
(I know that some kids are more successful in math but I do not succeed; I demonstrated counting and math them every day but they are where they are)
So, these skills depend on something else than logical thinking.

What is special with my second one:
he is reading since 2.10; he is very creative in his playing (much, much more creative than my girl); he is singing all the day and is already singing better than my 5 years old; he likes to play alone.

Probably it seems weird, to bother about the delay of child who is reading since 2.10. It is about my feelings. And I read the newsletter of Testing Mom and here I see that logical thinking is the only that counts, for the evaluation of how smart is a child. Early reading does not count. And in our case, reading really do not pair with thinking.

I find it very interesting. Do you have opinion?

[nee,]

thank you both for your kind replays!

nee, you asked me about the two boys.

Well, there are two families. The first one I met 6 years ago for some days and I do not remember details. Than I did not have kids. Mother is talking all the time and her son is diagnosed as slightly mentally delayed. He was 12.

The second family I meet often. Mother in this family is very chatty, she is just talking all the time. But her talking can be sometimes unbearable because she often is including memories about discussions with people nobody else knows, and interrupts others with something what is not connected with the discussion others are having. (I am sorry, L.)

Her son J is now 5 years old. He did not have any diagnosed health problems. In his first year, his both parents stayed at home and both were involved in parenting. Mother had vacation, father studied but did not finish. From 1 year to 3.5 (until childcare), father was stay-at-home father. He is a nice person and nice to kids but his talking might be called un-empathic. He is often using long and foreign words, and logical thinking is not his strong side.

This is a very strange subject, restrictions in this family. I remember some events.
When J was four months old, his parents did not allow to him to chew a towel because "it is coloured so it is chemical" (100 times washed cotton towel).
When he was 8 months old, he was sitting on a chair and swinging his legs, and his mother said him not to do it because it is not politely.
When he was 1 year and 3 months old, we were in countryside, and kids had fun trying to water flowers in a flower bed. For J, this was the first time in such activity. J parents did not allow him just pour water on a footpath and everywhere else and demanded that he pours water only in a flowerbed. When we (I and my husband) said that J should explore first, mother said in an angry voice "we are teaching him". this "we are teaching him" she said every time in following years when someone tried to say that he should explore and learn by himself.

It was like some instinct - they banned all these activities I consider developing activities. So, also the motor skills of J seemed to be delayed.

I think - if this boy would listen and follow to all these restrictions which often were age-inappropriate, his mental health would be endangered. so it was better not to listen. And even if he would listen, he would not understand because his parents did not talk in his level. They always talked in long and complex sentences. At the same time, they used rather restricted vocabulary. "do not run along a pathway because you can fall down" type sentences; pointless to listen for 3 year old boy.

In article I linked above is a quote I like:

"Parents are most efficient at promot-
ing child language development when
they calibrate their own speech to be
just challenging enough for the child,
neither so simplistic that the child
learns nothing from the parent’s model,
nor so sophisticated that the child is
bewildered. This just-challenging zone
has been termed the “zone of proximal
development."

This is what was wrong here.

I remember some episodes when J was 2.5 - he definitely did not understand what I was saying. He started to talk when he was three, and the process was slow. Now (5) he still has rather little vocabulary. "I like jeeps better than tractors" is probably the most difficult sentence I have heard from him. When he was 4, he was able to count only to 3 but now he can up to 6.  His parents are very satisfied with childcare so they do not do any education at home.

You may feel that I am not positive. This boy used to be aggressive to my daughter. He is aggressive to everyone. When kids (mine and neighbors) want to play, he without learning the game cries "you can not, I will be the first". And than he looses because he is not able to understand the rules. Neighboring kids (very nice kids) do not come to our yard when they see J. 

I think, aggressiveness is a logical result of this type of parenting. His parents do not let him explore, to be himself. And he thinks that it is the only type of communication - restriction and correcting, and no empathy.

nee1

Your approach is like this http://homeparents.about.com/od/backtoschool/a/language_2.htm   

For me, there are three whales of EL.
1. Doman and other authorities (Shichida, Heguru - they are many and strong).
2. Talking (see 30000 words thread)
3. Psychological aspects (see http://forum.brillkids.com/coffee-corner/brilliant-kids-lack-confidence-the-perils-of-praise/)

I do not think that children need exactly 30 000 words. Maybe that is in case if no direct teaching is applied. And I know two kids whose mothers are extremely chatty, and these kids are late talkers, below the average, and one is diagnosed as slightly mentally delayed. These kids are so used to useless talking (including countless restrictions) that they just switch off their ears. Such talking is like singing of birds; I am used to bird talking but still do not understand.
If you include some educative content in your language and have some empathy you can talk less, I am sure

I also do not think that reading aloud is the very best. At least for my kids. The language in books often is dead and unnatural. I retell book stories using my language and adjusting to level of particular kid. For some time, we also used to watch simple cartoons and I explained everything what happened on the screen. Reading aloud is successful after 3.5 years, at least for my kids.

There is also research: reading aloud without interaction and understanding can be ineffective
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/124/1/342.full.pdf+html

====

And now about me. Why I am in this thread. With my second kid I did Doman since birth and I did not talk enough. Mostly I continued to talk with my first kid, and I thought that my second one will learn from this. I also am not a chatty person. And this second child was unplanned; something was not waken up in myself. When he was almost two years old I understood my mistake. My second one was a bit delayed. Now he is approximately one year after my first kid. He is 3.4 years old. Concerning language and logic, he is exactly in the same level where my girl was when she was 2.4 years old.

My second kid is reading since 2.10, he has some basic knowledge in math, he knows much about animals and nature. His ability to read does not influence his language and logic development.

During the last year, sometimes I wake up in the middle in the night with thought "my son will be mentally delayed because of me". I learned from the experience of Karen Quinn.

Now things go better. His talking and logic are improving. He is very right-brained, consistent, strong-willed and creative. He likes to play alone; that is another reason for language delay because he do not seek interaction all the time as my first kid did. 

I continue to concern about his development but am not in panic anymore. He develops one year after my first kid. But my first kid is two years above the average (she is smarter than any other kid I personally know) so being one year after her is OK

This is the first time I talk about it in this forum. How guilty I feel that I did Doman without anything else.