Contrary to popular belief, this is the one area where many parents royally mess up. Probably since we overlook the obvious and just take "normal development" for granted.
But just how does it happen that a baby learns advanced and not the easy things?
The problem starts with you... and your expectations.
All parents expect great things from their children.
You may be thinking that your child gets ahead faster by doing "advanced" things. Getting a superior education.
So your baby ends up walking in a walker since you believe it will help her walk sooner.
Or she spends most of her time in front of a computer to speed up her "computer skills" despite her inability to run properly or to catch a ball.
And all the time while your child is "getting ahead", she may in reality be missing out on the things that really matter. Proven things that really get her ahead.
The most important part of a good baby education is this...
To perform best your child needs a complete range of skills.
This means that your baby can only perform best if s/he learns and masters all skills properly. Especially the basic, easy ones.
Without these skills your child lacks a complete range of abilities. And incomplete abilities result in a lacking baby education - which most often lead to serious learning problems.
Experts in child development determined that there is a "best" time for infants to learn specific skills.
Let's say I want to get my child ahead and decide she is ready to learn letters and words. So I spend lots of time trying to teach her to read.
But in reality, she may not be ready to master reading.
In fact, after studying the development milestones for her age I discover that she should rather be spending most of her time learning to sit.
In the end she doesn't learn to sit properly. And her inability to sit may very likely slow down her further development, like learning to crawl. And crawling teaches other vitally important basic skills necessary for good performance at school.
The result?
She takes much longer to learn reading, simply because she's not ready. And s/he doesn't learn certain other much needed skills.
In the end I'm not really helping my child to get ahead. In fact, I may be seriously hindering her best development. And possibly, her future performance.
The best guideline for every parent is therefore...
1. Know what your baby should be mastering every month...
2. Or even every 2 weeks, especially when she's younger than 6 months
3. Make sure she properly masters every milestone... at the right age.
Helping your infant get a great education isn't rocket science. A foolproof starting point is simply by helping her master the basics skills at the right time! Little else.
