Music, Censorship, Educational signs/labels/posters EVERYWHERE, Standing

[graffjamie]

"POSTERING": Since the day we brought our newborn baby boy home, I have been literally plastering the walls of our apartment with huge letters, numbers, words and putting small bold labels - with the words underlined - on just about everything in our apartment. I now plan to label everything in as many different languages as I can - possibly color coding them for clarity (black for English, blue for his Mother's language - Estonian - and a specific color for each language I present - and possibly a tag like: (Geman) after each word...)

 I have counted the "signs" in the past but I guess I have at least 1500 signs up on everything now. He particularly loves being "flown" around the apartment as I read each sign aloud to him (vestibular stimulation, fun and reading! But possibly better for the baby to be able to see you SAY the words with your mouth...). Still it is an excellent way to break up sessions where he is just sitting there. The words "high" and "low" are amongst his favorites - along with his all time favorites: signs of words on our fairly low, bathroom ceiling - that he can read and/or wonder about until his diaper is changed - then Daddy flies him way up high to read the words out loud to him (this is getting more and more dangerous as he gets bigger - so it is with great sadness that I have had to curtail these ceiling flights.)

I somewhat regret showing him the alphabet and numerals before showing him words and quantities - but I hadn't read any of the Doman books yet. (I am now a very serious supporter of almost all Doman techniques  - What is with the flashlights in newborns eyes and air horns for a newborns incredibly delicate hearing system? I am sure I am missing something. Why does no one advocate signs and posters?  In addition to - and as a constant review for - rapid flash cards of course...I am hoping to read all of Shichida's books and possibly get him into the Shichida school in Manhattan - but as far as I understand we would all have to learn Japanese!? )

I have received an amazing amount of criticism regarding my "signs" everywhere ("It might cause autism...") - I was wondering if everyone would be kind enough to let me know what they think based on what they know? Thanks!

PREMATURE STANDING: Also I am still searching for more information about helping my 5 month old to stand:  most sources recommend against it for various reasons - back problems, crawling avoidance (he isn't crawling much at all yet) ...but he absolutely loved it while I was abetting him. I have also received a great deal of criticism for doing the Gentle Revolution "How to Teach Your Baby To Be PHysically Superb" hand and fingers hanging sessions (where you try to strengthen their ability to hang from your fingers or a dowel). I was wondering what any knows about the latest science and research into these activities.

I plan to continue plastering our apartment with educational materials until he leaves us many years from now. I personally have always wanted foreign language labels on everything for my own edification - a lot of what I am doing is incredibly enjoyable and beneficial to my own continuing education: like the A3 (on up!) posters of fine art (and anatomy and geography) that I have been printing out and posting everywhere ( most printers will print multiple page "posters" - 4x4, 3x3, etc.) Does anyone have any thought on presenting material of a graphic or depressing or disturbing nature? Where shall we draw the line and at what ages? For instance: he is visibly disturbed by pictures of - say  - crocodiles - and particularly of adult skeletons (even cartooned!...I made a poster of a cartoon version of a labeled, standing child's skeleton which also seemed to bother him.) What about great art? Most of it is pathos and quite depressing - I have actually begun editing his experience: the happier the better - Mozart Eine Kleine Nacht music and Sonata in C  - BUT NO Symphony No. 40 NO Bach's Tocatta and Fugue - these pieces visibly depress and upset him...I think perhaps needlessly.

TEACHING MUSIC: (I endlessly repeat a few pieces over and over and over - until I can literally sing the entire piece to him as I attempt to play the rhythms on and with his body. NOTE: Anything in the backgroud - educational posters, music, etc. - will basically stay in the background unless you - personally - teach them it: caregiver to child (or the childs' own hands literally on) is the best and only way to go really.

CENSORSHIP: Furthermore, I have now also become keen on presenting only "optimistic" views of everything: the vocabulary that I am presenting him with is highly skewed towards "positive" expression: "good", "great", "awesome", "fantastic", "cool", "wow", "Yeah!" and only an occasional " bad", "sad" (and then only from before I had become such an avid proponent of censoring - much to my own surprise!) Any thoughts?

I try to integrate rhyme and music and humor and - what I call - SPACIALIity (space, time, movement) - into EVERYTHING I present. (Mega Memory and Speed Reading - from Kevin Trudeau - have both dramatically changed my view of education - for all age levels. Perhaps I can write more on these topics later...)

In addition to all the music basics (pitch, rhythm, instrument names, etc.) I am attempting to teach him to actually play piano and guitar and percussion. Any thoughts? Any pitfalls or a very young baby? ...other than the obvious prime directive: keep them as safe from harm as possible:

safe, healthy, happy!!!

[hypatia]

About 'premature standing':
From the day she was born, usually after a nappy change, I would lift my baby and she would grab my thumbs for a few seconds. I read somewhere she was meant to lose the reflex of being able to stand, but she never did. She would be standing on the change table with her legs straight. When she was 6 months, I lowered her mattress and let her hold onto the bar of the cot, and we were amazed to find out she could remain there for a while! At exactly 7 months, she was able to stand up on her own, and before she was 8 months, she would walk from one piece of furniture to the other. I was certain she would walk unaided very early on, but she 8 months and a half now and she still won't let go of her hands, so I'm letting her be and do not push her to walk unaided.
It is a good thing to motivate your baby but make sure he does not get 'scared' and then refuses to do it again (e.g. my daughter was crying when she figured out how to creep, and we had to show her it was a safe thing to do. I've also heard of babies walking unaided, falling down and refusing to walk afterward for months on end.)
Let us know how you go!

[purplefungi]

I don't think that there is anything wrong with plastering the walls with educational materials. I highly doubt that it will cause autism. People are so afraid of autism. Blah! In fact, here is Nikita's great post about her creative teaching methods:

http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/photos-of-our-interesting-teaching-methods/

As for standing, I personally do not find anything wrong with it. I have never heard from any physician that standing that young is bad. I think that it is wonderful exercise and practice for the future. Furthermore, young babies love to stand.

As for the criticism about the signs, I completetly understand. I do not let many people in real life know about what I do with my children. If I do say anything they think that I'm doing Baby Einstein or something. I even try to keep my blog light on the subject so that I don't freak out my parents who would be totally against the idea. I think that they just assume, "Oh there she goes again, doing some kind of weird Montessori thing with her two-year-old." I feel bad about being so secretive, however, people just don't understand.

I try to be optimistic in my teaching approaches too. A positive, fun, caring attitude makes learning engaging and approachable and creates higher expectations and higher motivations for achievement and self satisfaction. My mom said that she once read an article that the word "no" is said hundreds of times daily to toddlers. A quick search on the Internet showed an average of 400 times daily. Toddlers are very hard creatures to redirect. They are in a lot of ways like Harvey Karp (a pediatrician) says, like little cave men. Nevertheless, this is no excuse to be pessimistic at all times.

I like what Marva Collins (an African American educator) says about providing information to children in a honest and positive ways. She says, "Children know our character immediately. Have you ever observed how a child will respond differently to different people? A child may hug one person, and shy away from another. What we are is apparent to a child. If we are not honest in what we say or do, the message to the child is that if this person in authority can get by without hard work and integrity, so can I." I feel that Doman is right on with his "make it honest, make it fun" approach because not only do children then think that learning is fun, they know that only good is trying to be produced.

As for presenting graphically disturbing material I feel that it is best continue presenting the material as factual and honest as possible. Personally, I do not believe that we should necessarily shield our little ones from every bad thing in the world. This would leave them greaty unprepared for when they are adults and have to make decisions for themselves.

One thought of mine would be to maybe even wait to present this kind of material until your child is older if it is truly bothersome. Images from the Holocaust and other genocides might fit this category. When your child is older, you can go into greater depth about the history being the material, what the material means, why the material is important, why we should remember and so forth.

After my first son was born, I took an art appreciation class at the local community college because I never learned anything about art, and I wanted to be able to teach my son. Honoré Daumier's Rue Transnonain, is something that I want to teach my children. The story behind the engraving is sad and involves the French police shooting everyone in an apartment (men, women, children) just because a young man who was on the roof of the apartment building fired his gun at one of the policemen on the street. Daumier, who visited the scene after the even (sometime in 1834) engraved the image for a newspaper of a father who was shot and crushed his daughter and of the other family members who were killed. The story is especially sad, however a young baby or young child might not notice the sadness and goriness of the artwork. You can see the picture in my personal collection of laminated art in the lower right corner or at http://www.artchive.com/artchive/D/daumier/daumier_transnonain.jpg.html


Art works such as Goya's paintings in the Quinto Del Sordo are a little bit more disgusting such as monsters ripping the head off people (http://www.eeweems.com/goya/saturn_1000.jpg). There are other art pieces from different artists that show aborted fetuses and such. Art appreciation is plagued by disturbing images.

On the music instruments, I will be starting piano soon with my two-year-old. We did Kindermusic for about a year which was fun until my son started to show some dislike of it because he doesn't like to follow rules and directions.

[Cristofori]

AUTISM??!!?  Where in the world would someone come up with that?

[luckylucy]

ON STANDING - Personally, I don't think practicing standing is harmful at all.  My baby loved standing a bouncing on my lap.  But I wouldn't rush it either.
I would let the baby take all the time he needs to explore the process of learning to stand.  All the additional movements and thoughts that babies involve themselves in to learn these things are moments that the body and mind learns something from and savors.  In everything we do in life the process (not the result) is what we learn from.  Imagine if your child took two extra months to learn to crawl where he would mentally and physically learn and exhausted all the different ways to crawl - the snake slide, the military forearm craw, the butt high up in the air on tip toes craw, etc.  His synapses would be firing like crazy. It's that baby who went through all those hoops, both mentally and physically, that is the one whose mind and body knows much more.  The long and oh so interesting process of learning to crawl or stand or walk is highly beneficial to their brain development.

ON BEING POSITIVE ABOUT EVERYTHING AND CENSORING YOUR NEGATIVE ATTITUDES-  Of course you want to be a very positive person around you baby but I don't think it's natural to censor what you baby sees a far as human feeling and responses.   It's not natural or fair to your baby to keep any feelings from him (even negative ones) and and only show him one type of feelings.  He might later be surprised and unable to deal with negativity from others.

I sure applaud you though for all you a doing for your child.  

 

[purplefungi]

AUTISM??!!?  Where in the world would someone come up with that?

I think that people are so afraid of it that they are blaming a lot of different things.

[Nikolett]

ON STANDING I have a friend who "walked" her baby boy using the new born reflex everyday of his babyhood (he swam as well). She told me babies only lose it if it's not practiced. He walked early and didn't get crooked legs (that's what they tell you will happen where I am from ).

ON CENSORING I believe what we expose our kids to should be age appropriate. The world is negative enough and I stick with positive. Art, music, books, movies... I remember accidentally walking into the room where my older sister was watching a horror movie. I don't want my kids to have that experience, at least not intentionally! Some kids are more sensitive than others also. If you notice it's disturbing for your child, get rid of it, benefits of a sound mind are greater!

PHI.4:8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

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