No one is “too young” or “too old” to learn something new. Every day we always discover something we’ve never known before. However, no one soaks information the way very young children do. After all, they have yet to discover the myriad aspects of life.
You play a crucial role in what your toddler can learn; sometimes, you must take the helm in this process. The following are some of the basic things and concepts you can teach your toddler and how you can do it.
Responsibility
Sure, children aged 2-3 may still be unable to do things alone. Still, with some prompting and encouragement, they can eventually learn a sense of responsibility and act through initiative, which they can get used to as they grow up.
You can slowly introduce the concept of responsibility according to the things your child does at the moment. For example, if your children have already started playing with toys alone, you can slowly teach them to return the toys where they got them from. You can try and make it look fun to do so it encourages them.
For instance, you can make a fun game out of returning toys. You can prompt them to toss the toy (assuming their toys are safe to throw around) in the container from a certain distance to engage them in doing the task. You can also bedazzle the toy box to make it look exciting or buy better-looking or more durable containers like wooden toy boxes.
As the children grow up, you can upgrade these games and make them do simple errands or chores.
Verbal Communication
One of the crucial things a child needs to learn is the skill of communicating with others. We have learned non-verbal communication skills since we were infants, exhibiting signals such as crying, squirming, and even making noises to convey something.
However, once infants turn into toddlers, they can now utilize words they know to build sentences, making it easy to understand their intentions of communicating with us.
With this, you must help develop their verbal communication skills by expanding their vocabulary. Talking to them is the easiest way of doing so. One thing you can do is to repeat a few words or phrases they can easily remember and associate, like “good morning,” “thank you,” and “I love you.”
Another thing you can do is sing to them. It can be a simple nursery rhyme or any family-friendly song you like. Toddlers can learn words as long as they are repeated, and they can also learn about rhythm. They can coordinate rhythm and lyrics, making them remember the song, and can sing it with you, essentially learning more than just words.
Lastly, you can also read them a book. Short stories like fables or fairy tales are typically the types of books parents go for. Repeating the same story can help them remember some or many of the words in the storybook. It would also help if the storybook had pictures, so they can easily associate and comprehend the words they learn.
Numbers
Numbers are equally as necessary as words. They are a part of our daily lives as it helps indicate things that are vital to our everyday lives, such as time, money, age, and many more. Knowing at least the 1-digit numbers helps the toddler communicate better, especially when they want to talk about something involving quantity.
There are many ways you can introduce numbers to them. A popular way of doing so is to demonstrate it. For example, you can teach them numbers through the situations they are faced with in real life, like how many toys they would like to play with or how old they are. You can also sing songs to them, which helps them remember numbers easily.
Another way you can help your child learn numbers is to use props. For example, you can use toys with numbers on them, like blocks, or you can DIY some toys that help demonstrate numbers much more straightforwardly. You can also hang posters on the wall where the child can look over from time to time, which can help them quickly learn and remember at least the most basic of numbers.
Identity
While a child can pick up this information as they grow up, you could, from time to time, tell them a lot about their identity. One of the things we have to recognize as individuals is who we are, as well as the things and people that matter to us. A self-identity helps give the child confidence and self-value.
As toddlers, you can teach them simple information like their family names and the names and ages of everyone else in the family. You can also teach them a few other things, such as their address or street. As they grow up, slowly introduce them to more aspects of their identity, such as sex, race, religion (if any), and more.
Simple Academic Knowledge
Very soon, your toddler may exhibit curiosity and ask many questions. They may be in that phase where they want to actively learn about what piques their interest. Fortunately, there are several ways you can go around it.
A modern way of doing so would be exposing them to family social media on topics such as animals, our world, or whatever their child wants to learn. Child-friendly books are one of your best options if you want to limit TV or gadget use. The illustrations are bound to catch their interest, and they can keep going back at it until it becomes information they can easily remember.
To Conclude
As very young children are still absorbing everything around them, it is up to the parents to help nurture them intellectually. Start with simple concepts and then expand on them as they age.
