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Teach Your Child Visual Discrimination |
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Written by Esther Andrews
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Page 1 of 2 Develop your child’s mind in the formative years
Would you like your child to develop phenomenal creativity? Brilliant problem solving skills? A perception for details far superior than you have ever seen? Genius imagination? Here is your chance to help your child develop all these, and improve your own skills in the process! These are fun and enjoyable activities that require no special equipment, no expense, just a little bit of practice will show huge benefits. We will talk about different age groups, and age appropriate activities.
The Subconscious Mind:
We all use only a small part of our brain. A genius part of our brain, the subconscious mind, is neglected by most of us. Our subconscious mind, which is the seat of our intuition, holds far more information than our conscious mind. It is said to know the answers to all of our problems. It is constantly active, but we have learned to ignore it, therefore we don’t use its enormous capabilities. We have a bank of knowledge in our subconscious mind that we have forgotten how to access. Many techniques have been developed in order to tap our subconscious mind; some of them are based on careful observation and development of our visual discrimination.
Young children did not yet learn how to ignore their subconscious mind. Children are easily taught how to access this part of their mind. The following activities will develop the visual discrimination, and get your child into the habit of detailed observation. The advanced activities will prepare your child for the important skills of thinking in pictures, visualization, and visual creative problem solving.
Infants:
Very young babies take the first few weeks of their lives to mature the connection between their eyes and their brain. You can help your newborn develop their eye-brain connection and mature their eye focus skill by showing them an image. The trick is to show your newborn an image that is big enough (for example, 10"x8" or bigger) and has bold colors. It can be a simple picture at first, preferably one of a close person, for example Mom or Dad. You hold the picture in front of your baby, and watch the baby’s eyes. Wait until the baby focuses on the picture and hold it there for a second or two. Do this several times a day. You will notice that the baby takes less and less time to focus its eyes on the image. Normal babies may take 6 to 8 weeks to get to the point that they can easily focus on an image and perceive the details, but if you help your baby in this manner, it will speed up the process.
Since ‘Mom knows best’, you will know when your child is ready for the next step. At that time you can start showing a picture of an object and say the name of the object. The child will develop his vocabulary and visual discrimination. You can show the same image several times in a row, and then switch to a different picture. Do this only when the baby and you are in good mood, and turn it into a fun, relaxed and joyful activity. Show your baby lots of love when you are done.
I suggest you prepare a set of pictures ahead of time, probably about 25 pictures. Remember, the pictures should be in bold color, and at least 10"x8".
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