Thursday, February 14, 2008

Encourage Your Baby to Explore

Parents who stop their babies crawling around may permanently harm their mental development, says John Brierly, a British schools inspector and author of books on child development. Encouraging a baby to explore, however, may increase inventiveness in later life.

“A narrow environment with no toys, no stimulus, no affection, inarticulate communication and a prohibitive attitude to children’s natural exploratory activity may permanently retard mental development,” he writes in the UK Department of Education’s publication, Trends in Education.

Such deprivation during the crucial years from birth to five could make thousands of children educationally backward in the early school years.

Security, minimum interference by adults and an environment that invites exploration and experiment provide the best conditions for exploratory learning.

Courtesy: The Guardian, Manchester & Reader’s Digest, April 1975 (News from the World of Medicine)

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