Safety consciousness in toddlers

Tiarnan, twenty months, is a very careful boy. He evaluates his environment, moment by moment and doesn't seem to miss much that would be relevant to him - whether it be an opportunity to do something interesting - or an issue that might be of personal safety concern.

The 21st of October is an example. He started to go downstairs but noted, as he looked ahead of him, a difference in the surface: it had been polished and therefore reflected somewhat more light than usual. He understood what this meant and DIDN'T step onto it. Instead, he sat down, and went down the stairs, not on foot, but on his bottom - one step at a time, bump, bump, bump.

I thought that was a smart response to the situation. First, he understood what a polished surface would mean from the point of view of slipperiness. Then, he had an idea about how he might make the situation safer for himself. It is reassuring that he is so responsive to his environment.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and ten months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and three months, and Tiarnan, twenty months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

A child's book shelf

There is a bookshelf, in our house, in fact, more than one. The child's book shelf I wish to speak of, is by the wall in the living room. It is of an unusual appearance, being a furniture book shelf, that is round in design, not rectangular.

Now, this bookshelf doesn't have a ladder leaning against it. Indeed, there is no ladder accessible in our house (from the days we found Tiarnan at the top of it, of his own accord, while a matter of several months old).

About two months ago, I heard a little squeal coming from the living room. When I looked in the room, I found that Tiarnan, who had been quietly playing, had found an altogether unorthodox use for a bookshelf. There was a strange new addition to the top shelf of my book shelf. There, balancing carefully on top of the books, was my son, Tiarnan (eighteen months at the time). Somehow, he had climbed to the top of the bookshelf - and had done so without, as I could see, knocking off any books.

Once he had got to the top, he found that going down didn't look so inviting - hence the squeal. I reached up and took him down.

This is just another adventure in our daily life with a little spiderman/spiderbaby/spidertoddler. With him, nothing is safe from being climbed. So far, he has yet to fall off anything - but I really don't want there ever to be a first time. He attempts to climb everything that looks even vaguely possible - and always succeeds, as far as I can see. Perhaps he was born to be a mountaineer (or comes from mountain-living stock!) - for he just can't stop climbing.

Although he enjoys climbing, I would rather he took up a safer pursuit - like reading the books, instead of climbing on the bookshelves (he does like books, actually, too).

If you have a climbing baby, no doubt you, too, have had the experience of finding your child in strange places. With Tiarnan, this is a fairly regular occurrence. Oh well...

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and ten months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and three months, and Tiarnan, twenty months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Let the children play

About a month ago, when Fintan was still three, I saw something which made me wonder what some parents think parenting is all about.

Fintan was in the pool - it was the shallow children's pool and there was only one other child in the pool - a boy of about two or three years old (generally Chinese children are relatively small so it makes guessing their age difficult - but he was certainly at least two years old). This child was accompanied by two adults, one of whom appeared to be his mother, the other a friend.

What I noted fairly quickly was that neither adult seemed to be able to play with the child, very well. Their main concern seemed to be stopping him from doing things. They would always intervene when he tried to do something, interrupting whatever it was that he was trying to do. They seemed to be worried that he would hurt himself somehow. After some time, he appeared to basically give up trying to do anything, and stood largely immobile. Here was a child who wasn't being allowed to be a child.

Fintan is a friendly boy. He saw the other little boy and decided to play a game. He approached the boy, swimming like a shark and diving into the water just before the boy, teasing him with the possibility of being eaten. He would then back up quickly, running through the water, while looking back to see if he was being followed. Very clearly, Fintan, three, was trying to initiate some sort of improvised chase game. The other boy never reacted. Never once did he try to chase Fintan in return. He just looked at him, in incomprehension, it seemed.

After a few attempts to make the other boy engage, one would have thought Fintan would give up - but he didn't get the opportunity to. Suddenly, the mother snapped at Fintan: "Will you stop bullying my baby!?" she cried, "Will you stop?"

Fintan and I were both surprised at this since it was clear that she had completely misunderstood the situation. He looked at her in silence - and then backed away, his face somewhat hurt by this unfair accusation. After a minute or two he started to play alone - and ignored the other child completely in the remaining half an hour he spent in the pool. The boy's minders, meanwhile, got on with preventing him from playing.

I felt like remonstrating with the mother, but thought better of it. A woman who misunderstood children to that extent was probably too stupid to reason with. I watched her with her child for a while and never saw any playfulness creep into her interactions with her child: it was all about control. It was one of the saddest pieces of "misparenting" I have ever seen.

This woman - and her friend - had intervened so as to prevent their child from playing. They had thwarted another child's attempt to befriend their child. They had misunderstood Fintan's friendliness as hostility - and isolated their child. In all the time that the other boy was in the pool, he was never allowed to make his own decisions, never allowed to be free to play. Most pointedly, he was never allowed to interact with another child.

I did note, too, her reference to her child as a "baby". That, perhaps, said it all. In her mind, her child was forever a baby, forever needing protection, forever needing to be watched over. From his size and motor development, he was at least two years old, however - and far from being a baby. He was almost Fintan's contemporary.

Fintan and I left the pool, sometime later - and he never spoke of what he felt about what she had done - but we both went home quieter than before, having been subdued by this silly woman's behaviour.

She did teach me one thing, though: how not to be a parent. Perhaps we can all learn from her poor example - and do what obviously she could never do: let the children play.

(If you would like to learn more of Fintan, four years and no months, and his gifted brothers, Ainan Celeste Cawley, seven years and seven months, and Tiarnan, seventeen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Child safety: window grilles, a life-saver

When we first bought our apartment on the top floor of an apartment block, it had beautiful uninterrupted views over a leafy area of Singapore, laden with old trees. Wonderful, you might have thought - but we didn't, not after our initial delight had been ambushed by a second thought. What was that second thought? That it was an awfully long way to fall down.

You see, the flat had balconies with windows that opened freely. An ambitious, athletic child could easily climb out of the windows - and fly briefly through the air to the ground below. We had young children to consider, so we went to considerable expense to obstruct our pristine views of a beautiful vista with what might seem like an ugly, black, gridwork of metallic grilles.

For a long time, they seemed to serve no purpose but to prevent us from fully enjoying the vantage of our apartment view - until the other day. Guess what my wife found, when she walked into the children's bedroom? Tiarnan, fifteen months, clinging to the grille, half-way between ceiling and floor, as they covered the open windows. Somehow he had climbed up a sheer perspex balcony covering, with no holds, to over three feet above the ground where the window grilles began. Then he had managed to pull his weight up and climb up to the open windows, covered only by the grilles. Had there been no grille, Tiarnan would have discovered the uglier side of gravity, pretty quickly.

So, if you have young children and a great view in an apartment on the second floor or above - don't hesitate to get grilles fitted. Yes, I know they are expensive - and ugly - but there will come a time when your children are able to climb up to open windows - and if that day comes and you do not have grilles, it could be the last day of your child's life. So get grilles, ugly or not.

Have a safe day - and watch those climbing babies. There is now nothing that Tiarnan won't climb - and no height or vantage he can't seem to reach. So, watch yours, too.

(If you would like to read more of Tiarnan, fifteen months, or his gifted brothers, including Ainan Celeste Cawley, seven years and five months, and Fintan, three, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted children and gifted adults. Thanks.)