Education and Learning

Education and learning is a lifelong process. The most intensive and sensitive period of child’s cognitive (mental) development is from early infancy to 10 years of age.

Temper tantrums, hitting, throwing toys and screaming "NO" are unfortunately a part of parenting a young child.

When a child behaves in an unacceptable way, remember, he or she is not being bad. It's just a way to communicate. As a teacher, you play a vital role in teaching your child the right way to behave.

Addressing challenge behaviors will help your child in the long run. At the elementary level, children with challenging behavior have a harder time making friends and get in trouble more often with teachers.

Studies have shown that children who still have challenging behaviors when they reach the teenage years are more likely to be arrested, drop out of school, abuse drugs and alcohol, or have problems into adulthood. Here are tips to help your child learn self control.

1. The most important keys to successful behavior management are consistency and repetition. Stick to whatever rules you make all the time. Know that the rules will need to be repeated again and again for them to work.
2. The best way to teach behavior is to use lots of rewards. For every problem behavior, there is a good behavior to take its place. Give rewards after good behavior so a child will want to do the good behavior, instead of the bad. The child should make the connection between the good behavior and the rewards.
3. Make sure you do not accidentally reward the problem behaviors. For example, if a child throws a tantrum to get attention, don't give him/her attention. Otherwise, he/she will make the connection between the problem behavior and a reward.
4. The child will cooperate with the rules when there is an overall positive relationship where he/she feels valued and loved. This is another reason that it is very helpful to use lots of rewards when managing behavior. Remember the '10 to 1' rule: for every negative comment or correction, there should be at least ten positive comments.
5. Make sure the child understands what is going on. Give instructions and provide rewards, so he/she knows what is expected and why he/she is being rewarded or why he/she is not rewarded.
6. Set things up to succeed. Do everything you can think of, to make it least likely that the problem behavior can happen. For example, if the child is throwing rocks through the window, get rid of the rocks!
7. Get organized. Start with a simple plan that is easy to do, and stick to it. Keep a written record of progress so you know what works and what doesn't. If something isn't working, try to figure out why and try a new plan based on what you have learned.

by Ani Sulistiani (F42109046)

Early Bilingualism

Researches & educators used to think that learning two languages at one time (known as simultaneous bilingualism) had a negative impact on children's development and may even cause delays or other developmental problems. Today's newer research, conducted across the disciplines of education, psychology, speech and hearing sciences and neural processes now suggests otherwise saying that early bilingualism may in fact have positive consequences on cognitive and neural development.