Friday, March 27, 2009

apesal aku baru tau?

Why Toddlers Don't Do What They're Told

Are you listening to me? Didn't I just tell you to get your coat? Helloooo! It's cold out there...

So goes many a conversation between parent and toddler. It seems everything you tell them either falls on deaf ears or goes in one ear and out the other. But that's not how it works.

Toddlers listen, they just store the information for later use, a new study finds.

"I went into this study expecting a completely different set of findings," said psychology professor Yuko Munakata at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "There is a lot of work in the field of cognitive development that focuses on how kids are basically little versions of adults trying to do the same things adults do, but they're just not as good at it yet. What we show here is they are doing something completely different."

Munakata and colleagues used a computer game and a setup that measures the diameter of the pupil of the eye to determine the mental effort of the child to study the cognitive abilities of 3-and-a-half-year-olds and 8-year-olds.

The game involved teaching children simple rules about two cartoon characters - Blue from Blue's Clues and SpongeBob SquarePants - and their preferences for different objects. The children were told that Blue likes watermelon, so they were to press the happy face on the computer screen only when they saw Blue followed by a watermelon. When SpongeBob appeared, they were to press the sad face on the screen.

"The older kids found this sequence easy, because they can anticipate the answer before the object appears," said doctoral student Christopher Chatham, who participated in the study. "But preschoolers fail to anticipate in this way. Instead, they slow down and exert mental effort after being presented with the watermelon, as if they're thinking back to the character they had seen only after the fact."

The pupil measurements showed that 3-year-olds neither plan for the future nor live completely in the present. Instead, they call up the past as they need it.

"For example, let's say it's cold outside and you tell your 3-year-old to go get his jacket out of his bedroom and get ready to go outside," Chatham explained. "You might expect the child to plan for the future, think 'OK it's cold outside so the jacket will keep me warm.' But what we suggest is that this isn't what goes on in a 3-year-old's brain. Rather, they run outside, discover that it is cold, and then retrieve the memory of where their jacket is, and then they go get it."

The findings are detailed this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Munakata figures the results might help with real situations.

"If you just repeat something again and again that requires your young child to prepare for something in advance, that is not likely to be effective," Munakata said. "What would be more effective would be to somehow try to trigger this reactive function. So don't do something that requires them to plan ahead in their mind, but rather try to highlight the conflict that they are going to face. Perhaps you could say something like 'I know you don't want to take your coat now, but when you're standing in the yard shivering later, remember that you can get your coat from your bedroom."

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oooo.... baru le aku tau apesal bila aku cakap kat anak2 aku diorang buat muka blur jek. penat je aku explain dan bagi reasons sampai keluar semua fakta tentang biology, calculus, fizik, keseimbangan termal, astronomy segala. aduiyaiii.... *aku mmg seorang mak yg over*

Saturday, March 21, 2009

edible garden

aku ada tanam beberapa pokok dalam pasu. aku susun kat koridor. konon2 nak buat edible garden. beberapa hari lepas, aku jumpa dua ekor ulat beluncas yg gemuk tgh makan daun pokok limau aku. dah hampir togel pokok tu kena lahap. hari ni satu dah jadik kepompong, sekor lagi tak dijumpai.

hmmm.. tak sempat aku nak beri nama kat ulat beluncas tu. baru ingat nak jadikan pets.

but somehow, it proves that my edible garden is really EDIBLE. :)

ulat beluncas yg gemok tgh makan daun pokok limau kasturi. sedap betul agaknya.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

lagu tadika

aku gelak je dengar ayu nyanyi lagu2 yg dia belajar kat tadika. mcm2 versi. kena dengar ulang banyak kali baru dapat tangkap apa lirik lagu tu.

lagu 1:
merah seventeen.. merah seventeen.. merah seventeen in a wayyy..
sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday and sunday...


*yg ni mmg aku confuse... lama baru faham. sebenarnya lirik dia ialah, 'there are seven days.. in a week..' tapi, mana saturday?


lagu 2:
one two.. pakai my shoe..
three four.. shut her down..


*kehkehkeh.... ganas... *


[happy birthday!]


happy 4th birthday my dear Ayu (12 March 2009).
omi doakan yg terbaik untuk Ayu, semoga jadik anak yg solehah.

...lots of loves & kissess...

Monday, March 02, 2009

homework

iqbal mmg liat nak buat kerja sekolah yg jenis tulis ulang2 banyak kali. dia kan suka melukis jek. jadi, punyalah susah nak suruh dia duduk siapkan homework dia. tak pasal2 aku membebel2 dan marah2 bila dia sajer tulis lambat2. sekejap2 nak minum air la, nak sharp pensel la, dah ngantuk la, nak itu la, nak ini la. sabo je la. untuk cepat siap, aku pun suruh dia tulis besar2 dan tulis selang2 dua baris. tu pun mau sejam baru siap.

tapi, minggu lepas mmg aku tensen. korang bayangkan la lagi 15min nak pkl 8pagi, di saat2 aku nak keluar rumah utk hantar dia ke tadika, baru dia kata nak buat homework! arrgghhhhhhh... arrgghhhh.... argghhh... kalau lambat ke tadika, maknanya lambat le aku pegi keje... argghhhhh....

aku pun menjerit2 la suruh dia cepat tulis. tak sampai 15 mins dah siap. dua muka surat. aik? aku terkejut gak, siapalah yg ajar dia buat homework last-minute ni? boleh pulak siap yek...?

tapi, letih la aku kalau setiap pagi nak jerit2 mcm komando bagi dia 'semangat' (pressure) nak siapkan homework kan?

we'll see.