Do you know that most of our children are smart and intelligent by birth! Probably some of you will not believe it, but if the process went in a normal way, our children are smart. But again, some of you will continue saying that you children are not that smart compared with other children.

Is that their fault? No! It’s our fault as parents, since God gave us the same brain, but all we have to do is to give good nutrition so that the free brain we got can develop in a good way. Other important thing is STIMULATION. Without stimulation, they did not get an opportunity to develop their brain functions in a normal manner.

(more…)

Some parents raised their hands when they where asked, “Who said that drawing is not important for children?” Well, what is your answer? Did you plan to raise your hand as well?

Probably some of you will think the same and force our children to learn math and science instead of drawing or playing  music, but the truth is drawing and playing music is really important for children’s right brain stimulation.

To be clever, children MUST have a balance brain, not only left brain, but also right brain. Left brain fungtioned  to control the scientific, analitical, rational and logical thing such as reading, language, math, etc, while right brain fungtioned to control about everything related to art, flexibilty and creativity. If we stimulate left brain more than right brain, children will be less creative in problem solving thing, but if we stimulate right brain more than left brain, it will be difficult to put dicipline on them and they will be more flexible in everything. That’s why we have to stimulate both brain.

(more…)

Probably most of us know about Peter Pan story, a young man who stays young and live in Neverland. My little baby loves to see Tinker Bell the Fairy in that story and I think most of children will choose to live in a place like Neverland, a place where they can play and find happiness as a child.

When I heard about Neverland for the first time when Michael Jackson bought that ranch, I didn’t really know what it was. I thought  that it was a name for the ranch but I realized it when I read the story of Peter Pan 2 years ago for my baby. That’s my ‘AHA’ moment.

Then, when Michael Jackson died, I heard so many story about how Michael loved to play just like a child, how he wanted to stay young like Peter Pan, and how he built the place to fulfill his dream as a child.

Well, it’s really sad to remember about Michael’s life, that even though he had everything in life, successful career, money, power, children, but there was something missing in his life,… his childhood. He didn’t have enough time to play with other children when he was little, he felt lonely because he had no friend to play with. 

Back to my life here, sometimes I was so mean to my little girl. She always ask me wheter she can play with her friend or not, but at the first time, my answers were “NO” because I thought playing with me is enough for her. Then I realized how happy she was when she played with her friend, playing soccer, ballon, bicycle, or just hanging around doing nothing.

Now, thinking about Michael’s story, I always remember that no matter what life we wanted our child to be, I will always give time for my baby to play with her friends. I don’t want her to end up in sorrow, thinking about her missing childhood. So parents, what do you think about this?

Parents usually want to have a brilliant children but the question is how? To increase children’s intelligences, there are 3 things that are important to remember:

1. Genetics: we could not do anything with it… we can call it a blessing

2. Environment: including

• Nutrition: exclusive breast milk for 6 months and other nutritious food after 6 months of breast milk. The formation of organs and body will not wait for the food, so if the baby is not eating properly, the brain development also will slow down, so giving proper and nutritious food for your baby is a must.
• Stimulation: there are many parents said to me that it is useless to read, to play, to teach baby since they couldn’t understand. For your information, baby’s brain is like a sponge, it’s ready to absorb much information from us, parents. When we give them information, it looks like they don’t understand, but actually, they save the information in their brain and they will use it later when whey grown up.
• Psychological: baby’s brain can develop in a better way if they live in a loving family, where they can be loved, can be hugged, can be kissed without any conditions.

3. Balance brain, left and right brain can work in a balance way.

 With that in mind, I think we can increase our baby’s multiple intelligences.

Baby’s brain is like a sponge, it will absorb everything, every information you gave them and here is the proof of it.

Claire can finish 80 pieces of puzzle within 9 minutes 53 secs!

At first I couldn’t believe that she can do the puzzle but we practice almost every day and within 5 days, she can do it for the first time for 15 minutes. And from that time on, she showed a great improvement with her record is 9 minutes 23 secs. So this is a great example that if you stimulate your baby, she will absorb every thing and she will store the data in her brain, use it again when she needs it.

Step by step to introduce puzzle to baby:

1. Introduce her with 2-3 pieces of puzzle for the first time.
2. Show her how to put the puzzle in the right place so that her brain will make connection. By the time you repeat, she will understand how to put the puzzle in the right place.
3. Learn about color is a great step to do.
4. After she can differentiate color, ask her which part has the same with the color she holds at that time. When she learn about color, she can have a great improvement for doing the puzzle.
5. After that you can use the 6 pieces, then increase the number to 9 pieces, 12 pieces, and so on.
6. After several times of doing it, I believe your baby will be much brainy than ever!

Give a try and tell me how it works for you!

To see Claire doing it, click here.

One man came to me after my seminar, asked me about his 2.5 years old boy who doesn’t like to eat fruit nor vegetable. He said he tried to make juice from the fruit but still the little boy unwilling to drink it. As soon as he tasted the juice, he spilled it out and refused to drink. So, what should he do to give balance nutrition?

This is really interesting and many parents didn’t really know about this. According to Joan Beck, a writer of the best seller book in US, all babies have a “sensitive period” in the first year of her life. After drinking breast milk exclusively for 6 months, baby is ready to learn to eat. So this is the perfect period to teach baby the taste of various foods. When baby tastes the food, she will memorize the taste and save it in her brain. Soon, when she grown up, she will recognize the taste of foods she tried in the sensitive period and will eat it happily. Thank God I knew this information before!

If parents never give fruits and vegetables during this period, baby will not have any memory about this. So, no wonder if she becomes a picky eater when she grown up.

So, that’s the first thing. And second, as parents, we should give a good example. If we want our children to eat fruit and vegetables, while we never eat one of them, don’t yell at your children if they follow your example. They will say to themselves, “Well, my mom and dad never eat that either, so why should I?” Learn to be a good example for your child is another thing to do.

If those two didn’t work, try to be creative with the food!
Try to make creation with the carrot. Make a flower, butterfly, bug, or anything you can make. You can find a cute cutter in the cooking store department.

1. Instead of using chicken, try use cauliflower or broccoli, dip it into egg, pour out bread crumb and try to make cauliflower nugget or broccoli nugget. They will surprise with the taste!
2. Make juice with fruits. Make a popsicle with it. They’ll love to eat popsicle with natural juice!
3. Cut watermelon or melon with a star shape cutter or flower shape cutter and put some ice on the top of it. Who knows they would like to try it.

I hope my idea could help you dealing with the food!

In order to learn something, we don’t have to use books all the time. Of course books can give us information, but there is another way to learn something by stimulating our senses.
 

In the past 3 years, I’ve been trying to read for my baby, but my baby is still 2.5 years, how come? Well I read since she was on my womb.

“That sounds so silly, is that really working?” said most of my friend laughing at me for doing that.

When I was pregnant, I was living in Japan and my doctor gave me a bunch of articles about communicating with your baby since she was in the womb. There is a tool as well to make your voice louder for baby’s ear, but at that time, I didn’t buy it because it was so expensive, but I still playing music using earphone and put in on my belly, after that I read for her.

After 3 years of doing that, I think I can give a proof that teaching your baby to read is really working! 

At first, I didn’t really realize, but several months ago, when she was 2.5 years old, she can read 1 book of 8 pages.  That’s amazing since I’m not a native English speaker and I’ve been speaking with my baby with 3 different languages, even so, she still can memorize the words I’m saying when I read for her.

Check her on YouTube link here

Nowadays, parents are too busy with their own stuff, working, chores, parenting, thus they don’t even have time to read a bed time story for their children. Some of them also said that they don’t like to read, so they don’t want to read for their children. But the truth is bed time story can give children a basic idea about reading a story with parents and to make children love books and of course love reading it!

It is true, that to exchange time and energy to read, you can buy an expensive reading machine for your children so that children can learn to read with that machine. Quite good, but still it is not the same if children’re doing it with you instead of machine.

If we don’t read for our children, we can not blame them if they don’t like to read, because the reading habit is not on their list when they’re growing up and they will miss many information they can get from reading.

As far as I know, bed time story has a huge advantage for you and your children:

1. It will build a reading habit for our children
2. It will increase the number of vocabulary
3. It will increase the creativity and imagination as the book will show pictures and children can visualize them in their brain
4. It will increase the bondage between you and your children

Check out children’s face when we’re doing the the bed time story. They will be so excited about the story! Their brain is hoping to absorb some more and more information. So, I really hope that you have a better perspective about reading a story to your children.

Claire swimming

During my pregnancy, I used to go to a book store to find a perfect book for my reading time. At that time, my husband found a great VCD about human body and he said I should buy it.

Thinking about the price, I thought it was not that expensive anyway so I decided to buy the VCD and watched it as soon as I got back home and I was so surprise to find out that baby can swim inside the water! She can automatically move her arm and legs and there is something inside her nose that can prevent water from coming into the nose.

It was so amazing….. I was thinking about to try it with my own baby as soon as she is born.

So, after I gave birth to my baby, I decided to wait until she is 3 months old and we went to the swimming pool around our apartment. At the first time, I just put her little foot inside the water, to make sure that she’s OK with the water temperature. But unfortunately, she cried. Probably because it was the first experience for her.

But later on, I decided to swim together instead of holding her on the side of the pool. I think that way could give her a secure feeling, and see…. she’s really fine with me in the water now…

The question is, why we should take our baby to swim? Is that really important? 

Here, I will give some explanations about this:

1. It is healthy. If she’s healthy, you can teach her anything and she will absorb it right away.
2. When baby is swimming, she will move her entire body and the oxigent will flow into the blood circulation and the oxigent in the blood will flow into the brain. In this case, the brain will get more oxigent which is very good for the brain development
3. Baby will move her left leg with right right arm, right leg with left and it will balance her brain. Baby who has a balance brain will be cleverer than a baby who is stronger in her left brain or right brain only.
4. Swimming will increace the bondage between you and your baby
5. Baby will learn to trust you wholeheartedly and become a full confident baby.

Looking at those advantage, don’t wait anylonger…. let’s go swimming…