The cognitive development of one’s newborn baby is a chief
concern among parents in Kerala today. Cruel as it might be, it is true and
hardly hushed up that extended family, relatives and friends begin to make assessments
about a child’s mental ability, consciously or unconsciously, at the earliest
point any evidence of it presents itself. It’s no secret that people nowadays
put a lot of value on individual intelligence, especially we Keralites, since
it indicates the possibility of performing well academically and finding a
lucrative job later on in life. What this results in is a huge number of first
time parents in the state finding themselves overly stressed out about
nurturing their infant’s brain.
For all the worried parents out there, let this quote from a
certain Mr. Albert Einstein lead this article on infants’ mental development.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree,
it will live it’s whole life believing that it is stupid.” The ‘cognitive
development’ of a child refers to it’s physical understanding of the world
around it and it’s own place in it. More specifically, this involves the
child’s ability to think and learn on it’s own about objects around it and to
use memory and reason to solve problems. Click here to know more details about the Baby Shops in Cochin.
Frank and Mates Baby Shop on Hospital Road, Cochin, stocks
an assortment of baby toys that are designed to promote the mental development
of your child. Aside from ensuring that the products they sell are safe and non-hazardous,
Frank and Mates has also taken special care to classify toys based on the age
group that it is suitable for. The first year of a child’s mental development
itself consists of several stages.
An infant naturally develops memory, or more accurately, a
tendency for familiarization, even before being born. Less than a month old
babies who have heard their fathers talk while they were still in the womb show
recognition when they hear it. The same goes for any kind of music or a
particular television show with a distinct sound that the mother might’ve
listened to or watched during the later months of her pregnancy. At one month,
it is helpful to read books aloud to your child. Even though it may not grasp
the stories and ideas, it helps the child to get familiar to the nuances of
speech and vocalizations. At three months, switch to bright colored books with
lots of pictures that will peek your child’s visual and auditory attention.
Starting from 3 – 5 months is when toys are generally
introduced into the baby’s life. Frank and Mates baby shop offers all kinds of
toys for tots of this age but advices that you start slow i.e, buy one or two
large, brightly colored toys for your child to become familiar with. Using a
toy such as a rattle repeatedly helps brain development and thought process
more than being surrounded by a lot of toys that do not make sense to it. At
this stage, your child will begin to consciously recognize the difference in
physical properties of different objects such as the texture of a plush toy as
opposed to a wooden spoon. Their new found power to handle objects will inspire
them to perform some rudimentary experiments to verify their properties. For
example, the child might pick up a toy and repeatedly throw it back down on the
ground. This is part of the learning process. Be aware that repetition is key
when it comes to learning and your patience in repeating games with your child
speeds it’s learning and the formation of connections within it’s brain.
From six months onwards, your child begins to grasp concepts
of “cause and effect”. Toys where music plays at the push of a button, light
weight soft building blocks, shape sorting toys etc. all help this process. The
visual appeal and the inscription of alphabets and pictures on toys help
familiarize the child in being able to differentiate between visual clues. This
skill develops throughout it’s early life and is essential for learning. The
Hungry Pelican toy, for example, which is aimed at kids of 8 months and higher,
teaches them the about the contrast between sizes of objects. The ‘food’ pieces
disappear into the pelican’s large mouth and appears in it’s belly. Besides the
physical concepts of large and small, and small objects fitting inside large
objects, the design of the toy also instils the ideas of co-relating hunger
with eating, and bigger animals with smaller animals. Follow the link for more details: http://frankandmates.com/
