Kroner Ministries: equipping the saints for the work of the minsitry

DK

Mary Ann Bradberry has a great little article in the September issue of ParentLife, which is a publication of LifeWay, about how parents can help develop their infants and set them on a path to success. Her insights for working with infants are great, because too many people think of babies as just fragile and unable to do much.

Sure, they can’t hold a job and they can’t feed themselves, but even your infant can begin learning the valuable gift of language and the recognition of meanings of words. I encourage you to read the article for yourself if you have a baby, but let me point to a few development highlights:

* Talking to your baby

This is a simple enough concept, but one that is missed by more parents than I care to acknowledge. The author states plainly that ‘a baby does not learn to speak unless spoken to.’ Many parents however don’t spend much time talking to their baby, because, as reasoning goes, they don’t talk back! However, it is important for a parent to talk to their infant…as you wash dishes, do laundry, or organize bills, explain to them what you’re doing and show them. They begin making connections and recognizing words from as young as 5 weeks, with their ability to recognize speech patterns (stress, anger, excitement) beginning even before they are born!

*Read Aloud

The importance of hearing words is critical for a baby, and what better way for you to relax while spending some quality time with your child then to read to them. Sure, the Cat and the Hat is a great start, but why not read your favorite book or even the Bible to your kid? You can have a lot of fun as a parent telling the stories, making facial expressions and doing the voices for the Biblical characters, and your infant will be hearing and learning to recognize new words.
This promotes listening skills and helps them learn meaning! If you want to make reading Bible stories more fun for you as well, go check out my post on the Action Bible!

*TV and Video

It is strongly suggested that parents limit the exposure of kids under the age of 2 to TV. This can seem unfair, because they make such great distractions. However, the connections to problems with eyesight as kids age, the issues with attention spans being shorter, and  the fact that TV isn’t interactive like a live person are all strikes against using it as a tool for training your young one.

*Signs

Using signals to help identify things and make connections to tasks and objects can be a powerful tool for infant development. Before they develop the ability to speak, a baby will develop gestures. However, these things are not instinct…they must be developed by having them modeled to the child. Consider learning basic sign language and teaching it to your child as well, as some studies suggest this can aid in the learning process!

I found it interesting that at 4 months a baby can make the sounds that form the words of all 6,500 languages of the world, however, by 9 months they have developed their speech patterns of only the languages they’ve heard spoken. And by only a year old, they have learned the sounds that will be used to make every word of the language they will speak!

 Babies are fascinating, not just drool producers! If you want your child to be a cut above, start off when they are a baby be reading and speaking to them. If you want to help them develop skills that will aid them significantly in being multi-lingual, then find friends or family that speak other languages as well, and have them participate in the process as well!

For more from Ms. Bradberry, visit her site at www.letchildrenlearn.com. And check out ParentLife from life Resources at Lifeway Christian bookstores at their website!

DK