The Baby Analyst by Amazing Jesz

  We are now at  The Baby Analyst  -  https://thebabyanalyst.wordpress.com/ 

Kids need time to be bored; that is how creativity is born" - Melanie Jean Juneau   Yes, I said it! Let kids be bored! 😁 I look at some children sometimes and see how their lives are filled with a lot of activities. They are almost always engaged and stimulated. And like the Energiser Bunny, they just keep going. Lol.  So now I say to you, it is a-okay for a child to be bored. I started a podcast sometime last year. It just involved recording some audio devotionals for children to listen. Just before I started, a couple of my friends had suggested that I make it a video podcast, and because children love visuals, they would watch and probably engage more with it. I agreed with them, and it's true. Any flashy thing with a sound will pique their interest.  But then I began thinking about how children get exposed to a lot of things that stimulate and potentially distract them. They get  overloaded with sights, sounds, activities, etc that overwhelm their brains.  In a bid to not

"Life is best organised as a series of daring ventures from a secure base" - John Bowlby I have talked about attachment in past and I just thought to share here for reference and expand on it a little bit more.  First of all, attachment is not inherently a bad thing. It is the type of attachment that is a problem. We hear things like "that child is too attached to their parent" and automatically assume it's bad. Next instinct is to train them to become tough or independent so as not to be so attached.  Dear mostly African and Asian parents, before you start training on toughness, please hear me out... Attachment Theory (thanks to Bowlby and Ainsworth) tries to explain the close relationships or bonds that exist between people, starting from childhood. Since my interest is children and their development and behaviour, I will talk about it from the context of a parent-child/caregiver relationship. I would have considered romantic relationships, but I haven't q

"If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders" - Abigail Van Buren Children get bored when they are not sufficiently engaged, and they start to become cranky or fussy. Sometimes, this is followed by disruptive behaviour and eventual recuritment of other children into the disruption. It's incredible how quickly children are able to recruit other children in unacceptable behaviour (usually inadvertently). It's like a cue that gets other children started. Apart from enaging them in tasks, one way that I try to manage this is by giving them responsibilities. I learnt this earlier, and have seen it play out and work in different situations. And trust me when I say children love responsibilities. We do them a disservice when we "shield" them from responsibilites because we think they're too young to understand or that they will slow us down, or we're usually looking for the kind of perfection that their

"You can be a good person with a kind heart and still say no to people" - Unknown A friend sent me a video a couple of days ago to get my opinion. I get these sort of videos every now and then. Now I'm starting to wonder if it's because they genuinely want my opinion or a debate because my opinions almost always seem to be different. LOL.  Anyways, the video was about a guy advising that parents shouldn't always affirm or praise their kids when they do things, otherwise they would create in the children a desire to always want to have that sort of validation or affirmation from people. And in doing this, they'd inadvertently become people pleasers.  So when his daughter draws a beautiful picture for instance and shows him, rather than praise her by saying great job, he would first ask her how she feels about it, then affirm whatever she says.  People pleasers are known to be sacrificial even to their detriment, and do not have an independent opinion that is co

"Children learn to lie from parents that lie. Lying children grow up to be lying adults...and the cycle continues"     - Unknown My not-so-baby sister asked me a question yesterday in her usual manner. Bless her heart for believing that I would always have answers to all her children and parenting questions. 

"The beauty of the  world lies in the diversity of its people"   - Unknown My Dad was in the military so I am a military BRAT (Born, Raised And Trained). One common thing is that they move around a lot.  Unlike the Navy that lets the family reside in a location while the military parent moved (I think), my Dad was in the Army, so we did move around a bit with him. For me, it meant I hardly kept childhood friends. As we were settling into a new location, our neighbours were moving out, or as our neighbours were settling in, we were moving out. No mobile phones and internet meant no keeping in touch.  Home/land phone numbers and addresses changed too often to keep in touch over phone calls or snail mail.

There are different opinions on whether Apostle Paul should have made the visit to Jerusalem that eventually landed him in jail and truncated his missionary journey.  Some assert that Paul was right in following his conviction to go to Jerusalem, some others argue that his zeal to preach to or convert the Jews in Jerusalem made him go there. Yet others argue that he disobeyed the Holy Spirit’s instruction. I do not believe Paul was right in going to Jerusalem, neither do I believe that his going to Jerusalem was to preach to the Jews there, although I agree that he had unusual love and passion for the Jews that got him into trouble a lot of times. I have laid down my thoughts on this below.  Please note that all Scripture references are from the New Living Translation (NLT).  First, Some Background Paul was no stranger to Jerusalem. After his conversion in Damascus and some preaching there, Jerusalem was the next place he went. It was there that he received an instruction from the Lord

  "Don't always rescue your child from a challenge; instead teach them how to face it" I struggled a wee bit with a topic for this post.  Let me start with a story to give some context to this struggle. I was visiting a friend once and she told me how her daughter (6 years at the time) who usually loved to eat beans and take it to school for lunch had been complaining about taking it to school recently.

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle." ~ Steve Jobs I am taking a break today from my usual Child Safety to talk a bit about my journey (still in progress) into Education and/or Child Development.  I must confess that this post is long overdue. Please sit back and enjoy reading.  I began year 2019 with a quest to get some knowledge about working with children - be it

"Childhood trauma does not come in one single package" ~ Asa Don Brown When I decided to write on this topic, the first thought that came to my mind was  CONSENT. That word has been thrown around so much, especially with the not-so-recent '#MeToo' movement that trended a couple of years ago on Social Media.  

"You do love them, right? Then ask questions" - The Baby Analyst It's been a really long while people, and I'm glad to be back 😊😊😊. This post is long overdue, so I'll just dive right into it. I had to take my Mum to the hospital a few weeks ago to run some tests. I remember having to sit with her during her consultation and paying just as much attention as she was (or even more) to the doctor. When he recommended a test, I would ask what it was called, what it was meant for, how it would be carried out, any side effects, etc. Same thing went for the pharmacists when she had to get her prescription. I needed to know the name of each drug, what it was for, and any possible side effects. You know how some hospitals in Nigeria just dispense drugs in that little plastic ziploc with no name sometimes...so my questions were very necessary I tell you. Lol.  At that moment, I thought about kids and hospital visits and how parents and caregivers manage. Takin

"Your first obligation as a parent is to not bring chaos into your kids lives" ~ Anonymous                                                                                   It's that time of the year again! Woo! Hoo!  And I apologise because this post should have gone out a lot earlier than now; but as the saying goes, "better late than never". So read on with me... Christmas season just seems to bring out all the joy in me, right from the very first day in December when I can 'officially' play Christmas Carols without looking over my shoulder and hoping no one's listening. So these days when I have the radio on, I'm listening to Christmas Carols and singing my lungs out in that awesome voice of mine.  

Guard himself as he may, every moment's an ambush ~ Horace Just before the rains started, I made up my mind to go swimming every weekend (or every other weekend) - something I used to really enjoy doing.  I managed to go a few times though. Whenever I go to the pool, I see some kids come in to swim very often  (they take swimming lessons) . I've always had the 'consciousness' of knowing how to swim since I was a kid, so I really don't remember ever learning (I grew up in a riverine area in Nigeria). But these

Guard himself as he may, every moment's an ambush ~ Horace OK...So, I normally have drafts of posts at various levels of completion. When I notice something, or an idea pops into my head, I'd take a few minutes to put it down so I can develop later.  So I looked through my draft stash today and found nothing quite 'meaningful' to complete; it just seemed like there was nothing to write on. But seeing that this is something I love to do so much, it didn't take too long for something to come to mind. (*pats self in admiration*). LOL While in my 'thinking mood', I took one look at my handbag right beside my desk phone and remembered an incident that happened a while ago:  I was rummaging through my handbag absent-mindedly trying to get something out when  I felt a sharp pain on my finger. Yes, there was a pin or some sharp object in my bag that pricked me. I flinched and pulled out my hand immediately and there was a tiny spot of blood on my forefing