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.)

The power of the unconscious

It was four months ago, now, when Tiarnan was but ten months old, and I haven't found a moment to tell the tale, until now.

We had become accustomed by that time, to see Tiarnan go comfortably down the stairs on his own. After all, he had first tackled the stairs successfully at five months and so we had come to see little reason to fear his meanderings up and down stairs: he had clearly mastered the skill.

That morning however, as I was talking to my wife, Tiarnan approached the stairs, a few metres away, in the background. Some uncanny feeling alerted me that all was not as it should be. There was something about his gait, about his angle and speed of approach that concerned me. Just as he stepped out into the air, it became clear that he had misjudged it - he was falling down the stairs, headfirst.

I don't know what happened in that moment. Some old part of me awoke. A more youthful part. A very much faster part of me that I had thought lost long ago, in my teens, aroused itself. I leapt forward with a speed I did not know I still possessed, crossed those few metres and reached out with my left hand and closed my fist tight about his shirt, as he fell down the stairs. To my astonishment, that of my wife - and no doubt that of Tiarnan himself - I found myself clutching my ten month old baby with his face suspended above the steps, inches from contact. He had not struck the stairs at all. All that movement of body and arm and snaring of baby had happened in a time too short to consciously observe - and yet there he was, floating in space above the steps, held by my reflexively tight fist.

It has been many years since I had moved like that - many years since I thought I still could. Grateful to whatever within me had saved him, I set Tiarnan down on the ground above the steps. He was completely unharmed.

Had he fallen down the steps headfirst, he might be another Tiarnan today - one very much lessened by the incident.

I am thankful that it did not happen.

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

Tiarnan invents a new way to climb

Yesterday, Tiarnan, fourteen months, did something I have never heard a baby doing. He walked up the stairs backwards.

He started at the bottom, and reversed up two flights of stairs, clearly enjoying himself throughout until he got to the top.

This showed me something interesting about his motor skills: he does not need to see where he is going, anymore, to be surefooted - he has that unconscious, internal sense of where his limbs are and does not seem to need the constant feedback of vision that a young baby normally needs.

He didn't miss a step. He didn't stumble and he didn't fall - he just climbed backwards all the way up to the top. He did so quite quickly too.

In this action, I see Tiarnan's creative imagination at work - always seeking a new way to do an old thing; or a new way to do something he has never done before. Many children, having learnt to conquer the stairs, for instance, would, thereafter use the same method each time. Tiarnan is different: he has a need to experiment, to try a variation or find a new theme. It is in little things like this that a baby reveals their creative identity. If your baby is always trying to do things in new ways, then that baby is a creative child, who could and should grow up to be a creative adult.

I wonder what led Tiarnan to try this: what wondering thought did he have to see what it would be like to do so?

What a curious boy.

(If you would like to read more of Tiarnan, fourteen months, or Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and four months (today), or 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 adults and gifted children. Thanks.)