A child’s cognitive development is referred to as how a child thinks, explores, and figures things out. With this, they develop their knowledge, skills, problem solving, and their inherent qualities and characters from their parents. With this ability heightened, they would be able to slowly think about how the world works and understand how things act around them.
Cognitive development in early childhood is important as it lays a solid foundation for toddlers growing up leading to young childhood stage. From the editor’s experience, even before my daughter was born, singing and bed-time stories are done in both Mandarin and English. The following are some suggested ways which parents can try to engage with their child as early as possible.
- Sense of hearing. At around 18 weeks of pregnancy, the baby has already begun to hear what mothers say to them. Therefore, as previously mentioned, parents should already have began to communicate, or to sing to the babies even before they were born. It is not surprising to learn that even years later, little toddlers have cognitive memories of what parents sing to their little loved ones.
- Communication. In our adult life, communication is key to success. Everywhere you go, or whatever you do every day, the ability to communicate is vital to all aspects of work, and in your private lives. Therefore, it is never too early to communicate with your baby. One of the ways to achieve this, is to ask open ended questions, and encourage them to tell you how they feel about a certain activity or topic. Now-a-days, there are still schools in Asian countries where teachers “feed” information to children, and do not encourage them to think, react, or analyze what they have learned. This traditional way of education may lead to insufficient analytical thinking, problem solving, and self-motivation.
- Books. With the advent of modern technology, children cannot seem to live without their electronic devices. Some even depend on them so much that they have to watch a video with their parent’s smartphone in order to have dinner. Exposing them to modern technology can be beneficial to them, however, limiting their use can be more beneficial to them in the long run. With editor’s own experience, reading along with your little ones can be more rewarding than just giving them an electronic device to watch. Parents can learn how their child interacts, learn, and give their own opinions on what they have learned.
- Exploration. Part of developing children’s cognitive skills, is to have them explore objects by themselves. Activities such as playing Legos, puzzles, and interactive/strategic board games, will enable them to think, to experience the ups and downs, and how to overcome simple problems they encounter during these activities. Later in life, they can draw their own conclusions on how they can solve problems in real life situations.
One example I would like to share is how I have come about helping one student who was very shy and could not really communicate her thinking. One of the tasks that I was assigned to do was to assist the international students with opening bank accounts. This student was so shy, when it was her turn to approach the desk to open an account, she kept on retreating her steps back as later learned that she was afraid that the bank employee would steal all of her money. Learning from conversing with her, her parents always told her not to trust anyone, but never told her the reasons why. Most international students completed opening their bank accounts within 30 to 40 minutes. I spent two hours with her explaining every step and showing her why the bank needed her information to open a bank account.
We, as parents, may never fully be able to prepare to what our child may face in their future. As humans, parents sometimes do make mistakes on what they teach, and how they teach their children. But, the most important part of raising their children at an early age is to develop their cognitive skills. Because without it, they will take one step forward, and two steps back. This way, they will never be an individual, they will just act similar to a robot programmed to do whatever it is by the programmer, in this case, the parents.
Article references:
thepillarsclc.com/how-to-promote-cognitive-development-in-early-childhood/
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