It's not all there from the beginning

All the great achievements of humankind, they could not have been achieved by children, let alone by toddlers or babies.

Almost everything that matters for a human has to be learned. And nothing is learned without effort.

Watch a baby learning to walk. How many mistakes, how many falls, before he gets it right. Watch a young child learning her mother-tongue. It takes months and years of practice before the first well-formed and complex sentence can be produced.

A child's brain is even more able and keen to learn than an adult's.

The first imprints will be the ones putting down the first traces of what will become well oiled routes and often travelled neural riverbeds.

That is why the formative years are so important. They literally form the brain, trace the pathways of behaviour, thought and feeling. Pathways that - being used again and again - will later become highways.

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2010-03-09 13:11 Sleep would be good ;-) 7 months today, and wondering if I'm ever going to have a solid nights worth of sleep. I never slept through before kids, but ..... thank goodness I have them in my bed. If it weren't for co-sleeping I'd have to actually get up, and if I didn't breastfeed I'd have to get up AND make bottles in the middle of the night. This way it's more like a self-service milk bar and straight back to sleep.
2009-11-17 22:02 I'm trying to be good With half a tub of ice-cream and a baby attached to me in a sling (www.bebecannelle.com) I'm trying to come up with some good ideas for this site. But then again I'm not so sure that 10 in the evening - without having slept for more than 2 hours in a row in months - is a good place to start. If only it were the thought that counts!
2009-05-02 12:25 Saturday at College Teenagers and puberty should be another topic. The hormones and their devastating effect on what was once a lovely, caring and sensible child. The obsession with what the "cool" people think, want and do - no matter that they will not go anywhere if they don't change their attitudes. No matter that none of them will thank my hormone ridden offspring for losing track and giving up what once were her biggest passions. It's absolutely maddening.
2009-03-13 17:05 moving baby this baby is definitely kicking - 19 weeks - what will it be like in another 10 weeks - footballer in the making!
2009-02-26 15:18 New content on Sleeping have finally managed to put together a small text on sleeping - could write forever but am trying to keep it short!

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