Well, I wasn't in class for the guest speaker =\ I actually was very interested in hearing what he/she would have to say, so I guess I'll read other students blogs once it's posted to get filled in. If I can get a good idea of the points made, I'll add them in to this.
I feel like my "interview" with my mom I actually covered in parenting 101 part 1, but I'll synthesize what she said minus the self exposure lol:
-Breast Feeding is crucial for women who are healthy and can provide it. It has many benefits, not only a bonding experience, but also a natural choice. Baby formula seeks to imitate what women have naturally, and they still don't succeed. When a child is ready to add supplements to the milk diet, avoid pre mixed baby food. There are preservatives and pesticides that are not the healthiest. My mom opted to blend organic fruit into her own mixtures for both my sister & I. She even attributes a good relationship with food as starting here.
-She believed in speaking to us as adults, and telling the truth as oppose to making up stories. The benefit of this was that we knew we could count of her to be honest, and therefore we felt motivated to do the same with her. As I've said before, I don't lie to my mother about who I'm with, where I am or what I'm doing to this day, so I am inclined to think she's right.
-People often make the mistake of over-parenting and over-stimulating. My mom always says it takes a lot more work to screw a child up than to help a child flourish. While shopping for my cousin's baby shower last week, we had a discussion: When you walk into stores like Buy Buy Baby, it's extremely intimidating. It huge, with aisles and aisles of everything baby. As an expecting mom, just walking in the place must send you into panic. You become sold on the idea that you need all of these products in order for your child to grow and develop, when this is straight up FALSE. Children are born with all the developmental equipment they need, and they are born with the skills to learn. When instead of allowing this process to happen, you plop these manufactured distractions in front of them, it's actually hindering them from their natural ability, and if done repetitively, this can be permanent. A child needs person to person interaction and alone time to interact with their body, their thoughts, and the natural (pre-existing) environment around them.
Just like your child doesn't need breathing lessons when they leave the womb, it's important that parents trust that their child's development can come that naturally without prompting, forcing, or formal instruction. It actually builds the child's confidence when they are able to figure things out, and it's a good feeling to accomplish something. The kid wants to experience this over and over, so they will naturally keep absorbing and learning and discovering without exaggerated effort on the parents part.
The worst thing a parent can do is stifle the child's natural potential and spoon feed them material. The child won't be exercising their analytical skills to help them figure out the world around them, and they will probably grow tired and irritated with this boring, tedious and draining practice. As oppose to natural learning, forced learning will cause the child to feel poorly about themselves because they appear to not be meeting your expectations. This could lead them to be disillusioned with the idea of learning, all before school age. And as we learned in the previous unit, we can't exactly count on schools to reverse that, instead it'll probably increase resentment of institutionalized learning as well. And then you got a problem; a person who doesn't enjoy learning in school, or on their spare time. This type of person will be all too happy to simply get lost in their distractions, like TV. This type of person can also be easily convinced to consume. And then when they are pregnant, and are taking a stroll in Buy Buy baby....
Sold.
No comments:
Post a Comment