Raising Intelligent Babies

Raising intelligent babies.

I have been curious about this title for a pre-school/nursery for a while now. Seeing the word intelligent always piques my interest. Seeing it associated with babies piques even more interest. I have been trying to organize my thoughts about this before I express them in print. Many questions come to mind, but the most forceful one is ‘how do you raise intelligent babies?’ Other questions include what exactly are they doing to raise these intelligent babies? What specific methods of child rearing are they engaging in? What are they doing differently from all other nurseries/preschools?

A part of me wants to march into there and scream at them that babies are all born intelligent, (except for physically brain –damaged ones) and that the important thing is to ensure that intelligence remains intact. My concern is that not many educators and care-givers know how, or have been trained in how to do that.

And it always brings me back to the connection between the emotional intelligence and the academic intelligence; or between EQ and IQ. The academic theory and practice of Social and Emotional Learning is one thing. I continue to promote emotionally intelligent teaching and emotionally intelligent parenting to all and sundry, despite the challenges of getting through the thick layer of unawareness, apathy, hopelessness and despair caused by the harsh societies we live in. On the other hand is the anxiety of parents to provide their children with all the latest “educational toys” in the hope that the child will not be left behind in the fast-paced global race to some elusive technologically advanced goal.
Alissa Quart writes in the July/August 2006 ‘The Atlantic Monthly’ about what she calls the Baby Genius Edutainment Complex and discusses the varying opinions concerning the value of all the educational toys and media programmes being pushed to parents today.

Knowing the society in the Caribbean and the patterns of child-rearing, I know that the work of raising awareness of even the simple fact that a child who is emotionally stable is a child who can function intelligently and can do well academically and socially is still a long, hard process. There is so much to be done to first of all support adults to work through their own issues of how they were parented and taught, before they have the available attention to provide the emotional safety for children to grow and develop as the intelligent babies that they already are.

I see how children are treated here. I see how the conditioning of our society has led to the idea that children don’t really need or deserve deep loving care and attention. Children are to be fed, clothed and sent to school. The rest is up to some divine intervention. As long as the child is not giving any ‘trouble’ then all is well, and no need to work at parenting. These are unfortunate patterns of thinking.

Hopefully the sign on this preschool indicates that someone/s are open to new ideas and change. Maybe they do understand the importance of emotional intelligence and are practicing social and emotional learning strategies.

Perhaps I will visit them soon and share some knowledge and expertise with them and offer some support.