Educating your Toddler: Mother and Me Classes: Part I

“A woman gives birth to a child, but a child makes a woman, a mother”

~ Anonymous

How apt is this quote? Motherhood, parenthood in general is one of nature’s way of providing sustenance to one of its most fragile creations, children. The bond between a mother (in particular) and her offspring is the most beautiful and instinctive things in the known universe. Particularly in today’s more individualistic, technologically obsessed world, the bond between a newborn and its mother is the foundation of a healthy mind.

Educating your newborn/toddler: What’s the need?

Children are extremely impressionable in their formative years. Even in the womb, it is said a child can feel the positive and negative energy radiating from its parents and reacts to it accordingly. How much more then, would a little child react to the same when he/she can see around him/her? Children are naturally perceptive and though they may not be able to quite verbalise it, they instinctively know that there is something wrong, or there is something going on. This heightened perception eventually gets lost, as a child’s more ‘evolved’ patterns of behaviour and thought patterns emerge. This heightened perception, if tapped in properly can lead to some fantastic developments in the child’s future.

What difference could this make to a toddler?

Good question. Scientific research proves that habits and certain traits, if programmed into a child from a young age can stick with him/her, making him/her a better overall person. But even before this, there are the intangibles like positivity, happiness, love, security and other important feelings that need to be reinforced in a child. A child who knows that he/she, is loved, is constantly reinforced (both positively and negatively), is cocooned in a feeling of security and is constantly surrounded with positivity, grows up to be a better rounded person, well balanced, with a sense of right and wrong and heightened conscientiousness.

What kind of education is the need of the day?

Playgroups and activity centres aside, a child’s first point of contact with civilization is its parents. So like it or not, you are the conduit through which the child is going to receive their first impressions of the world. And what a world it truly is! A world where an app can readily replace human interaction for many people. Social media is a buzzword, but a person’s social skills are at an all time low. It is thus, your responsibility as parents, to ensure that your child takes in the appropriate kind of stimulation, but doesn’t over consume, lest they are left instantly deindividuated. Yet isolationism isn’t the way to go either, you do want them to be social beings after all. In order for you to be able t transmit the values that are apt and tailored for the 21st century, you need to have the right kind of training yourself, that’s where a Mother and Me class comes in handy.

What then is a Mother and Me class?

A ‘Mother and Me’ class is a developmental methodology that believes in positive, safe and activity oriented pre-nursery education. While Mother and Me isn’t intended to ever replace formal education, it is still an important cornerstone in a child’s development. It is between the ages of 1 and 3 where most children learn about interactions and their brains are best stimulated by activity, colouring, games and music. A Mother and Me class provides an environment where kids can learn to interact with other children and be more independent, under the supervision of their parents. What’s more the ‘Mother and Me’ class is great for new mothers as well, as they gain a kind of support system where they meet qualified educators and more than anything else other mothers and can discuss their problems with their child and consult with each other and trained professionals to solve said problems.