Stunning Early Child Development Findings and Why Parents Need to Pay Close Attention

Early child development has been discussed just a bit in a seminar that my wife and I have attended years ago. Yet we've been deeply shaken. The seminar has said that 50% of the child's mental programming happens at 0 to 4 years old. An additional 30% takes place at 5 to 8 years old. Then another 15% takes place at ages 9 to 15 years.

This article seems to reaffirm what the seminar has said:

Early Childhood Experiences Have Lasting Emotional and Psychological Effects
Experiences between birth and age 5 matter significantly to children's long-term emotional and psychological health, and changing these experiences for the better pays dividends, according to an editorial and several new reports in the May issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com

The implication of these early child development findings to parents are simply earth shaking.

The key question now is, who does the child spend the most time with at ages 0 to 4 years? In our very busy world, some children spend those years mostly with the Nanny. How much of the 50% of a child's mental programming comes from the Nanny? Is this a happy thought for all of us?

At 5 to 8 years old, who does the child spend the most time with? It isn't just the Nanny this time but also the people on the TV screens. You may have names in your mind right now. Add to them those sexy bodies, gyrating in popular noontime shows. Again, is that a happy thought?

The scariest of them all are the ages 9 to 16 years when the child spends a lot of his time with peers in school and neighborhood. They contribute a lot to the 15% of your child's mental programming. Do we know who are our child's friends are? Are you comfortable with them?

Parents of today deal with one big reality that the parents of yore have not faced. There simply are more merciless influencers in each child development stage today than in the days of yore. The word of the father, the head of the household, has been considered law in the days of yore. Not these days. A father has to do more than just dictating policies at home.

How should parents maintain their primacy among all influencers in a child's life?

Here are a few thoughts you may consider:

1. Love is the primary thing a child needs from parents --- Let's give it according to the love language of our children.
2. Verbal or physical punishment is not love, in the eyes of our children. It's definitely not a language of love in today's world, where children have emotional outlets outside of their parents, which is something we all need to be very wary about, to say the least.
3. What gets rewarded gets done. Rather than catch what our children have done wrong, we catch them doing something right and applaud them each time.

You may have other thoughts that are applicable in today's world. Please share them in this post.

Have a great and abundant day!