Sure Your Toddler Can Read, But Can He Milk a Cow?

My grandmother was one of fifteen children. Her family lived on a farm on the prairies, and every child contributed by doing chores and farm work from the earliest age. It was such a different time: no exersaucers, soothers, baby monitors, or playgroups. Mother's attention was divided fifteen ways, not to mention the mountain of work necessary to keep the household and farm running. And yet people of my grandmother's generation grew up to be happy, contributing members of society.

Child rearing is so different than it was eighty years ago. Mechanization lets us spend more time with our children and less time washing clothes, doing dishes, and travelling from place to place. With fewer children and better overall health, we can devote more time to each child.

But the one advancement that has meant all the difference is information. Biological and psychological studies offer new insights into the growing and developing brains of babies and children. These studies shape the way we interact with our children, the way we run our families.

On the one hand, this is a fantastic and exciting era to be raising children. With knowledge comes possibility: parents can play an active, positive role in their children's emotional and mental development.

But look back eighty years to the childhood of our grandparents. They didn't have the Ferber method, the Spock method, attachment parenting, family beds, educational toys, or Blue's Clues, and remarkably everything turned out fine. Are we wasting our time with playgroups and baby massage? Maybe all kids need to grow up right is a milk stool and a bucket. It worked for Grandma. And yet there is a pull for thinking parents, a gravitational force that compels us to learn how our children see the world.

If you encourage your children to partake in developmentally-appropriate games and play, will they be more adaptable, patient, caring, or curious? I really don't know. But I do think that parenting is a difficult job, particularly when children are young. If we take our natural instincts and team them with the tools that science provides, it can only enhance the understanding we have of these marvellous little people.

This topic area on Suite 101 will help distil the electronic information that exists on our babies' and toddlers' tiny milestones. How do their brains work? How can we play with them in ways that satisfy their needs and challenge their minds? How can we understand them a little better?

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