Parent and Baby

It is the great desire for every parent to provide the best opportunities for their children. Educating them and increasing their knowledge are prime considerations because they  need the best skills to be better armed in life. Living in the baby genius era, today’s parents believe that with the proper foundations of physical, emotional and cognitive development, parents can hone their children’s great potential.

This idea is reflected in the choices available today. Access to and consumption of all sorts of educational tools, mostly those that merge learning with play, are witnesses to parent’s inclination to cram learning every chance they get, with the hopes that they encourage their little ones’ development and growth.

In 2005, the world market on high technology toys-tagged as edutainment toys- totaled U.S. $1.7 billion and was tagged by marketing research firm In-Stat to reach U.S. $ 5.5 billion in 2010. It is noted that since more affluent families make education their number one priority, parents are willing to do whatever it takes to give their children a head start in life. Yet, with the influx of educational toys in stores and in our homes, parents must ask: What exactly are our children learning?

So what do kids really need and how many trips to the toys store should parents makes to assure them that they are giving their ids a valuable head start? Parents should be wary of how the perceived education value of some products may actually be a product of marketing strategies.  For example, there really is no credible supporting evidence that electronic toys claiming to stimulate infant development or creativity really works long term. In fact, child development experts contend that a typical household already provides enough sensory stimulation to make such toys unnecessary. Children will get far more meaningful stimulation from the sounds of the people, animals and objects around them. Babies need to play with toys with their parents or other caregivers. Therefore, toys alone do not make the child smarter; there are several factors that parents should consider.

Any toy can actually be educational. Toys are practice ground for situations where similar skills are needed. What better way to introduce concepts to children than through something they enjoy? What becomes more questionable, it seems, is how parents rate the success of their child’s actual learning. Many times, frustration seeps in, for both parent and child, when expectations are misplaced.

While some parents must consider a toy’s age recommendation, they should not be limited by it. You can expose your child to a toy earlier, but don’t stress when he doesn’t pay attention or does not use the toy as intended. Curb your expectations and aid them with developmental milestones. The problem usually is not the toy but the user. When a child plays with a toy, the parent or caregiver should “process” it with the child. For example, identify what he is seeing. Relate it to other experiences or objects so that you give the child awareness that “there is something similar here”. Toys can play an important role in a child’s education and development, especially fo children who have not reached first grade yet. Even something as simple as blocks, allows children to create their own play environment and stimulate their imagination.

Toys with “low realism” are recommended to better improve a child’s creativity and improvisational play skills. Low realism refers to toys that are not likeness-based. For example, if you bought your child the toy cowboy from the movie Toy Story, the child will probably already be familiar with the movies and how everything works. That will narrow the range of pretend play options your child will engage in. However, if you bought him a generic cowboy toy,  your child may act out scenes from Toy Story but might also do something completely different. The problem with toys with definitive purposes is that it limits the imagination of the child. You should leave room for imagination.

It is much better that parents should let their child lead in play. Some children love lots of bells and whistles, others find a lot of noise overwhelming. Others are more interested in using their hands to figure out how a toy or object works. Just follow your child’s lead and you will discover what kinds of activities are right for him. It is the parent’s job to judge wisely about how an object can best stimulate his child’s learning and development. Remember that ultimately, it’s not the toy that makes your child smarter, it’s how you encourage him to use his mind and body to solve problems and develop his own ideas.