Helping Your Child Develop Socially

Social skills are defined as, the ability to communicate and interact with other without conflict or disharmony. Social skill development begins at infancy and progresses through stages as a child grows. It consists of teaching children how to interact, share and co-operate with others, how to build strong relationships that will last as well as social etiquette and good manners. The proper development of social skills will lay a firm foundation for your child's future.

Playing is the most natural way that a child educational and developmental skills grow and flourish, so interaction between parent and child play a vital part. The parent/child relationship is the most natural for developing social skills because loving, sensitive parents are emotionally connected and are best at nurturing empathy, emotional self-control and communication skills in their children. However, this is all preparation for your child's interaction with others.

Educational toys provide many ways for children to sharpen their social skills. Researchers have determined that educational toys provide ways for children to work together, share, discuss ideas about how best to solve problems and promote healthy competition as they learn to enjoy the company of one another.

So parents spend daily time with your children and help them practice positive social skills. Remember to point out both positive and negative behavior. Patiently and lovingly discouraging the negative and rewarding the positive so your child will become successful, popular, be able to resolve conflict with others, do well in school and possibly be the one that others look to for help.

Your Child's Physical Development

The physical development of of children is divided into two main areas, Gross Motor Skills and Fine Motor Skills. Motor skills are actions that involve the deliberate and controlled movements of muscles in the body. Gross motor skills are the large body movements that involve legs, arms and the entire body, these activities include crawling, walking, running, jumping, climbing, etc. Fine motor skills involve more precise and smaller movements that involve hands, fingers, wrist, feet, toes and eyes, these activities include eye-hand coordination, grasping objects, stacking objects, writing, etc.

Although both areas of motor skill development is a continuous progression over time, educational toys can play a major role in the development of fine motor skills for children from infancy to 6 years of age. The various shapes, colors and design configurations stimulate and challenge eye-hand coordination, visual tracking, shape and color recognition, depth perception, language development as well as providing hours of fun filled learning.

Your Child the Creative Genius

Early childhood education is basically defined as children learning through play. It is important that parents begin educating their children from infancy to six yeas of age by developing them physically, socially, emotionally, intellectually, creatively and cognitively. This may sound as though parents need an advanced education in early childhood development but this is far from the truth. Certainly knowledge of this caliber would be a great asset, but children in this age group actually learn through play.

The main thing that parents can do is spend quality time interacting with their children and introduce into their play various things that promote the following crucial developmental areas...

Physical Development: Developing fine and gross motor skills. Basically movement is the key, crawling, walking, running, climbing, throwing, touching and eye-hand coordination.

Social Skills: Teaching children how to interact with others, how to share and co-operate with others, how to build strong relationship that will last as well as social etiquette and good manners.

Emotional Development: Building self-esteem, self-awareness, self-confidence, recognizing and understanding various feelings and emotions and how to use them positively.

Intellectual Development: Develop the ability for children to understand and relate to the world around them as well as to differentiate fantasy from reality.

Creativity: Developing unique and special abilities and talents

Cognitive Skills: Developing the ability to learn and solve problems.

Parents can accomplish these various educational and developmental skills simply by introducing educational toys into their child's play. So parents, keep interacting and develop your child, the creative Genius.

Kids can Sometimes be the Best Judges

Kids are fascinated and attracted to toys. Whether in a store, on television or through watching other children playing. Either way toys play a major part in a child's educational and developmental growth. However, a child's fascination for toy does not mean that all toys are good. How many times have you heard a child say while in a store or while watching television, "Can you get me that toy" or "I have always wanted that toy". Often times parents will purchase a toy for their child solely based on a fascination without finding out more information concerning the toy or not being able to discern between their child's fascination or true interest in a particular toy. The interesting thing is, it does not take long for a child to determine whether a toy is fun or boring, does it?

There are two things that parents can do that can help prevent them from purchasing toys that end up in the corner gathering dust. First, most toy manufactures as well as various news and consumer agencies use children to test toys. Parents can do a little research to find what toys are the most popular as well as age appropriate. However, parents must keep in mind that children have individual likes and dislikes, so this process will not always guarantee that their child will find a particular toy fun and entertaining.

The second way that parents can learn the difference between fascination and interest is simply by introducing educational toys into their child's lives at infancy. Research has shown that the brain develops at an incredible rate during infancy by increasing approximately 60% in size in the first year. So how does this give parents an advantage when it comes to purchasing toys that their children will enjoy?

Introducing educational toys to your child during this crucial period gives your child's brain a "head start". Nerve cells called neurons connect to each other to make circuits that enable the brain to think, do and experience more things. Overall, parents will come to know which toys will stimulate, challenge and entertain their children as they grow. In a sense, parents will learn from their children as they help them grow because, "Kids can sometimes be the best judges".