Is your nanny using the time she has with your children to support their cognitive development? You naturally want to provide your children every opportunity to grow and develop their brains, so they can realize their potential and enjoy their achievements. Your nanny can help you do this through normal, everyday, interactions with your child! She can support your child's cognitive development in ways that daycare simply won't.
For example, I had put my son in the best daycare I could find. It was, by all accounts, impressive. However, one day I observed the children playing with Duplo blocks while the adults circulated and interacted with them, and the only thing the adults ever asked was "what color is that block"? Over and over again - a primary color quiz. They thought they were doing a great job. But, they were barely stimulating the children's brains, it was just rote memory.
Although it isn't complex or difficult to promote children's cognitive capacities, most people just don't how. But, the benefit of a nanny is that you can teach her! Then, she can engage your child in these ways while your'e not around, and you can feel good knowing that your child is learning and growing in her presence.
You only need to know five simple practices to help your nanny promote your children's intellectual and creative abilities. Here are the first three:
Method #1. Encourage object exploration. Infants and young kids learn by exploring their environment. They look at things, listen to things, and touch things (“objects”). This is called “object exploration.” Your nanny can promote object exploration by noticing the limits of your children's ability to do these things, and gently encouraging them to expand their knowledge. Here's how:
With infants:
o Place toys and objects within their reach (if they're not yet mobile)
o Hand them different and new objects to manipulate
o Sit them up so their hands are free
With toddlers:
o Suggest different ways of using objects, including silly ways
o Teach imitation by modeling new ways of handling things
o Add unfamiliar objects to their play
o Praise the child’s attempts to use objects in new, unconventional ways
o Encourage exploration of different aspects or functions of thing (eg: open and closing, sorting by color, shape or use)
Method #2. Scaffold play. "Scaffolding” means supporting increasingly higher levels of sophistication. This is how we gently promote progress in any area. Here we're applying it to your child’s play. Starting in toddlerhood and beyond, your nanny can incorporate these tactics to scaffold your child:
Demonstrate features of objects the child may not recognize (eg: round objects can bounce off each other, blocks can be stacked) - but make no demands. We're just making suggestions here in order to stimulate the child's own intellectual and imaginative processes.
Encourage the transition from functional to pretend play (eg: blocks can used to represent things like a house or a space ship; objects take on pretend roles). This is where daycare can really fail. Adults tend to lose their imagination and capacity for pretend play. Then they try to force children to do the same thing by discouraging innovative or silly applications of things in favor of how they're "supposed to be used." This is a huge NO-NO! There's no wrong way to use or play with anything (safely).
Follow the child’s lead and support and help expand the child’s narrative, (whether or not it is realistic). This builds on the above bullet point. Adults tend to impose their own ideas on children, but it only stifles their creativity and sense of control in the world. The more we let the children lead the play, the better.
Method #3. Encourage concept development. “Concept development” is idea development. Your nanny can help increase your child’s knowledge of general concepts by labeling and talking about these things, but letting the child lead as much as possible:
Size ("Wow that one's so much bigger than this one")
Shape ("Oh, you're putting all the triangles in a pile")
Color ("You like the red ones. I'm going to move the blue ones over here")
Spatial relations (over, under, above, across, up, down, between - This is also a good activity in the car as you're driving under, over and across bridges, for instance)
Feelings (comment on how the child seems to feel: e.g., "You're frustrated that you can't get that ring on the stick"!)
Categories of things (animals, numbers, letters): "These are all animals, but in that bin it's all letters"
Check out the last two of the five ways your nanny can support your young child’s cognitive development in Part 2 of this article.
Based on research by:
Atkins-Burnett, Sally, Shannon Monahan, Louisa Tarullo, Yange Xue, Elizabeth Cavadel, Lizabeth Malone, and Lauren Akers (2015). Measuring the Quality of Caregiver-Child Interactions for Infants and Toddlers (Q-CCIIT). OPRE Report 2015-13. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Halle, T., Anderson, R., Blasberg, A., Chrisler, A., & Simkin, S. (2011). Quality of caregiver- child interactions for infants and toddlers (QCCIIT): A Review of the Literature, OPRE 2011- 25. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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