That hearing infants come with the potential to distinguish/produce all sorts of language sounds, and then their brains start paring down to the ones they’ll need as they hear more speech around them. For example, babies born to people who don’t have contrastive aspirated vs. unaspirated [p] in their language can differentiate /pʰ/ from /p/, but by the time they’re toddlers they’ll start losing that skill as their brains prioritize relevance of speech sounds.
ALSO, the paradigms of “how you should talk to your kids for their best language development” are based a lot on white Western individualism. Throughout the world, there are various attitudes toward children and language, and all of them produce successful speakers/signers! In some cultures, babies are spoken to in simplified baby talk; in others, they are spoken to as adults; in others, children are not directly addressed until they can speak in return so they pick up ambient language. Some cultures expect children to speak in simple but concrete phrases; some expect children to learn oral traditions first; and some expect children to speak in indirect metaphorical language and gain concreteness as they grow.
All of these methods are successful, and it’s harmful to shame non-USian caregivers for not obeying the school curriculum, or to shame working/busy caregivers for not reading a book to their kid every night and teaching them a Pimsleur course every morning.
Children who live in areas with easy access to greenspaces and natural vegetation showed better overall development than their peers who lived closer to fewer greenspaces.
While sitting in his high-chair, your baby drops the spoon. You get up, pick it up from the floor, give it back to Baby - only for him to throw it away on purpose.
If this scene sounds familiar to you, you might wonder why he does that. Is he rebellious and tries to upset you on purpose? Does he have a really silly kind of humor? No and no. In fact, your baby is busy conducting his very first scientific experiments. His brain is starting to understand two important concepts.
The first one is called “Cause and Effect”: When i throw away the spoon, mom picks it up. When i do it again, she does it again. Oh, yay!
The second is called “Object permanence”: When i throw away the spoon, it disappears - No, it doesn’t, mom picks it up! It’s still there, even when i can’t see it!
To fully grasp these concepts, your baby needs to repeat those experiments again and again and again. That’s annoying to you - but try to smile at your little scientist!
another cognitive thing they’re learning is “when i drop something, it will fall downevery time!” - boom, gravity
also, as important, they’re learning social emotional skills like trust. “every time i lose something, mom, helps me. even if it makes her mad.”
always pick up the spoon - you’re teaching the kid that they can depend on other people
Important information for people who get annoyed/mad when kids “act out”
they’re just learning, fam, give it time
Again a good post send by God
I’m a nanny, and I’ve worked with a lot of babies over the last few years, (including twins, which, OH MY GOD). So yeah, I’ve seen a lot of this, and while I do encourage exploration and experimentation etc, repeatedly picking up spoons off the floor for forty-five minutes is so boring and gives me back pain, so what I do is: every time they drop something, I wait slightly longer to pick it up and hand it to them.
This also adds the concept of natural consequences to their understanding of cause and effect. Not consequences in a disciplinary way, but the idea of, “if I throw this thing across the room, now it’s on the other side of the room and I might have to go and get it myself if I want to keep playing with it.”
man the crazy thing about babies is that like, some people would think that reading a baby a book about farm animals is teaching them about farm animals, but really it’s teaching them about the concept of a book and how there’s new information on each page of a single object, but really,beyond that,it’s teaching them how language works, and beyond thatit’sreallyactually teaching them about human interaction, and really really it’s them learning about existing in a three-dimensional space and how they can navigate that space, but actually, above all it is teaching them that mama loves them.
Children younger than about 18 months don’t recognize themselves in the mirror, and this video shows the development of self-awareness via this construct. So cute.
One of the kids I’m babysitting rn just asked me, “Miss Amy, can I tell you a secret?” and then informed me that his brother does not have blood anymore, because they saw a doctor take it
Same kid that attended this Sunday’s church service in full vampire bat costume and screeched loudly anytime someone said his name
Update his two year old brother just handed me a partially squished cockroach
Today’s secret is “if I carry too many things, I die,” and he definitely, for sure did not tell me that specifically because I asked him to pick up his jacket moments beforehand
“Where’s the tiger?” the five year old asks, peering around the zoo. “I don’t see him!”
“Probably he had to get his covid shot,” says the three year old, nodding wisely.
How could I possibly forget this exchange
“You can’t play with my skunk,” says the three year old, snatching the toy from the five year old. “Mr. Skunk doesn’t like you.”
“Whoa, whoa,” I say, while driving. “Mr. Skunk likes everyone!”
The three year old makes direct eye contact with me in the rear view mirror. “Except the police,” he says darkly.
Overwhelmed! When the five year old learned that I’m having a bad day today, he immediately asked me to take him home so he can “get us a snack and help with whatever you want to do today.”
The three year old has offered to carry all the backpacks into the house, despite his former statements re: dying if asked to carry his own belongings
Today the two year old stole the headphones I always wear, put them on upside down, and ran away yelling “hi Babydoll!” over and over, which is in fact how I greet him. I did not come here to be roasted by a toddler
I recently put a purple streak in my hair! The three year old says that he loves it. He says he loves my brown hair too, because it’s beautiful. I feel very loved and I am going to bake him cookies about it
The three year old has covid (he’s okay), so I won’t be seeing the children this week :(
Here’s another story from last week instead:
“Do you want to come make paper airplanes?” the five year old asks. “I have a book that teaches you how.”
“Sure,” I say, following him upstairs. “I like paper airplanes.”
“It’ll be easy for you,” the five year old assures me, “because you can– wait. Can you read?”
The three year old has recovered <3
He’s also a little confused by the phrase “playing a trick,” so if he suspects I’m teasing him, he’ll point and yell “you’re tricking!” instead
Today he told me that I’m “always tricking…… kind of like satan”
I just realized how fucking disgusting it is that it’s considered healthy and normal for teenage boys to eat everything ever yet teenage girls are obviously also growing but are fucking dieting all the time and shamed for eating while they’re growing
Shit
That’s not even the half of it because
- often when a teenager (male or female) puts on some fat it’s in preparation for a growth spurt. Grownups know this.
- teenagers grow in weird gawky ways, like a girl’s hips will spread out and look “fat” until her legs get longer, or they’ll shoot up super tall and then slowly put on muscle and fat. Grownups know this.
- it’s very common for a women’s body weight to fluctuate plus or minus 5% with her menstrual cycle
but in the diet mentality all of these things are considered personal moral failures, a failure of control, when controlling it is literally impossible. I am so incredibly saddened by women who weigh themselves multiple times a week and fuss over ten freaking pounds when that’s well within the bounds of menstrual fluctuation + just-ate-lunch. It’s horrible.
“A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.” – Naomi Wolf
Grown ups really do not know this. I tell this to parents at least once a week, your child is sleeping/moody/putting on weight because their body is preparing to more or less jump the Grand Canyon of maturation stages. Hormone changes start a full YEAR before first menses.
My own mother, who works in the medical field and has worked solely for OB/GYN for the last 16 years, gave me grief about all of those things. And she knew about hormone level changes and weight distribution changes and she STILL did it. Don’t think hard facts will outweigh societal norms. Keep talking about it until they can’t ignore the facts
How I was scammed a few days ago, research for a good cause went side-ways.
Hey guys I am back after a short break, had some personal duties to take care of and I have some time for myself finally. So if you have been following me since the beginning, you would have known that writing is a lifelong dream of mine. So recently I saw a youtube video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jHaKPF5Jk8 ) about the infection of HIV/AIDS and other STDs and I have been told that it’s quite common is it in same-sex relationships. I wanted to do some floor work by myself on how things work among themselves.
Google helped me a little as I was surveying about these particular lifestyles, so as I was surveying what sort of ways people used to connect and the most popular way was dating app. Google gave me a list and the top two applications being used were Grindr and Scruff. To be honest, I have never heard of something called scruffing but I sure do know what is grinding, boom - Just a little humor haha.
As I was looking into some information into this Grindr app, I did not get much information. So I decided to download the app and create a free account. Just to see how things are in that world. I used my photo (because I got nothing to hide, from my perspective this is purely for educational purposes), but I used an alias though. I used it for a total of 4 days, I received a few “pokes”. Most of them were just looking for sex basically, maybe 1 or 2 were having a conversation about themselves. It was like a gay sex market.
Here is when it got interesting, on the last day before I deleted the app. I received a poke and these guys wanted to know if I was interested to meet him in person. I was keener on getting some information about that person and the “lifestyle” itself, so I made it a two-way communication. He wanted to communicate via WhatsApp and the biggest mistake I did was moving the communication to WhatsApp, more on that later. So on WhatsApp, I gotta admit I was trying to fish on how things go so later on I got to know what he is what they call themselves as moneyboy a.k.a male/gay prostitute. However, my inquisitiveness did not stop there and I started asking him about group affairs and parties and where these happen and do we need to get the place by ourselves or do they provide such. At one point, I felt like I have had enough, so I ended the conversation by saying that “okay noted, if I need it I will let you know” and I did not give that person any agreement to proceed with a meet-up certainly as it was full of red flags and I deleted the “Grindr” app and the WhatsApp conversation. I did not tell him that I was just trying to fish some information from him as I did not want to trigger that person into doing something rash and it’s not my goal to have sex with 1 man but to make it more disgusting with multiple men in this case.
A few days passed, then I received a WhatsApp message from a new number. So what happened was this person stole my WhatsApp display picture and edited it with a google picture of a penis and some caption about I am a cheating gay person. It was very cheap and ugly editing by standards, technology has improved and they could have tried better haha. However, at first, I was shocked as I had forgotten about the previous communication we had, so I tried asking him who was that, and he told me some bullshit story saying that he borrowed 500 ringgit from the loan sharks because I requested for a meet-up session and he needs to pay twice the borrowed money and it’s my fault he borrowed that money. However, I gotta admit I was stupid and I fold. Just to avoid problems, I agreed to pay him back the money and he passed me his CIMB account number which was registered under the name “Ganesh Thiagarajan” with account number “7066473035”. It was done, I shared the receipt with him and he told me that he will delete the photos and I blocked that number.
A few hours passed after that incident, I got another new message from a new number with a new bullshit story from someone new claiming to be that guys sister, claiming that the loan sharks beat her brother up and robbed his chain and I am accountable on paying this up, or else she will come to my house with the police force as her husband works in Contingents Police Headquarters Malaysia (which was a bluff, I got to know later, as the so-called husband is not a police officer and they do not have my physical address). As you know, only I knew my pure intent on why I got into these, and I didn’t want to trouble anyone else, to be honest, I folded again and she told me to transfer 1K so that she can buy the chain back and I will need to pay her up monthly, which I initially agreed with it to think that I messed up by trying to be a professional blogger and I need to pay the price. I transferred the money to the same account number the brother provided earlier.
I went back home from work and had a few beers. Sat back and tried to backtrack what happened a few days back and what was the communication me and the other guy had and things came clear to me. I was SCAMMED!!! because when I was inquisitively fishing for details about the “group thingy” he told me each person costs rm 50 and including him there are 4 people in total and that makes rm 200 and hotel is not that costly nowadays, it’s just below rm100. Max would be rm 300 only, but this guy even if it was real that he borrowed from the loan sharks, borrowed an additional rm 200 for his gain, and due to his stupidity he went to the loan sharks with a gold necklace around his neck? How stupid is that (considering that happened)? Aside from that, the sister’s concern was not about the brother all along when I spoke to her, she wanted money only.
The next day, the sister contacted me again asking for more money and I had enough. I started questioning her, she claimed that she needed to buy back the necklace. So I asked for the receipt, but she couldn’t show it to me (meaning she did not buy the necklace with that money). Aside from that, the number her brother used and the sister used was not registered under their name, there is a very useful app called “truecaller” which you guys can use to check on whose name the mobile number was registered under. That’s when I knew that they do not have anything against me cause, to be honest, I was not at fault nor accountable at any point here. These scums are scammers who are trying to feed off other people’s hard earn money.
When I asked the sister about all these, there was no valid response and I told her that I will be making an official police report and if they wish to share my photo on social media, they can go ahead as it was a stolen photo from my WhatsApp display picture and I was handsome in that picture, haha and another threat came by saying that they will share a photo of my family as well, well they can try all they can but I got nothing to be afraid of cause my intent was not to fuck nor get fucked by a guy and I did what I did to get information for a good purpose. I guess dating apps are still dangerous to many people out there as we are not aware of who are we surrounded by. I have gotta say, I learned my lesson on sharing my details with strangers (even the slightest such as phone number). At least I am a guy, sharing my photo might not affect me much but I can’t imagine what if it was a girl’s photo is shared with false claims and how that affects the girl’s life.
Some people don’t get that, I guess the saying “When there is a light, there will be shadow” is true though. It is a dangerous world we live in, let’s not corrupt it anymore, and let’s make it better for our future children.
There’s a reason lots of good parents say to babies stuff like
“You’reexcited to go to the park!”
“Oh, it makes you mad that we can’t go outside.”
And then when the babies get a little bit older the parents can say
“You seem upset. Are you sad?”
“Are you excited that gramma is coming over today?”
Which lets the kid (who is learning to utilize speech) respond with yes or no, which may prompt more questions, like
“So you aren’t sad, are you angry?”
“Yes, does it make you happy when gramma is here?”
And then, finally, when the child is learning to use language in a more complex way, the parents can say,
“How does it make you feel?”
“Why are you feeling like that?”
And it’s all about teaching emotional awareness. I really reccomend using the process on yourself. Learn to ask, “am I happy?” “Am I sad?” “Am I anxious?”
Then practice identifying, out loud or on paper if you can, “I’m happy.” “I’m upset.” “I’m sad.” “I’m anxious.”
Final step: “Why am I feeling anxious? I’m still thinking about that awkward conversation earlier.” “Why am I happy? It’s such a beautiful day outside.” “Why am I sad? None of my friends are responding to my messages.”
It really helps you notice patterns (“I’m more likely to be happy when I’m around this person.” “When I haven’t eaten, I often feel angry.” “If I don’t plan ahead, I get anxious.”) which is the first step in avoiding things and people that are bad for you and encouraging things and people that are good.
Basically don’t forget that you’re just a baby who got more complicated.
Not sure how to articulate what you are feeling? Try starting at the middle and working your way out to the more specific feelings!
