The Baby Line

Get Motivated for a Positive Career Transformation

In this day and age, it’s not uncommon to see more and more seasoned adults returning to college to acquire essential skills and training to gain an edge in the competitive job market. Despite the fact that baby boomers are at retirement age, the age group (55-64) is the fastest growing segment of the adult population. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of individuals 65 and older in the year 2050 is projected to be nearly 87 million. That means one in five people will be a minimum age of 65 or older by the year 2030.

Today, retirement-age baby boomers aren’t necessarily in the market for a retirement home in Florida. The older generation of thinkers and doers is breaking ground with continuing education and post-secondary education to stay active and knowledgeable, thus remaining a critical element in shaping the ever-evolving future of this nation.

Baby boomers aren’t yesterday’s generation, and they’re demonstrating that older persons can be a vital part of society. Instead of high school-age students awaiting happy returns from prospective colleges, it’s the baby boomer generation anticipating acceptance letters into the school or university of choice.

Today’s boomers are settling for nothing less than a meaningful and enriching lifestyle, which often includes going back to school to re-train for new and exciting careers that benefit society.

Some rewarding career-training programs are attracting baby boomers to post-secondary education in the field in which they’ve worked most of their lives. For example, if you’ve worked in computer technology your entire life, you could pursue education from a local tech school or college to become a computer educator in elementary schools or in senior citizen centers. Other popular academic options include natural healthcare courses for those who’ve served as medical health practitioners.

Of course, there are multitudes of career-training opportunities for those undecided about how they wish to spend their golden years. Whether you choose to pursue a new career in beauty, health, education, or alternative medicine, rest assured that baby boomers aren’t throwing in the towel for retirement. Now, more than ever is the right time to rethink your future plans. Transform your tomorrows into personally and professionally-rewarding fields today.

Baby Boomers back to School

Get Motivated for a Positive Career Transformation

Copyright 2008

The CollegeBound Network

All Rights Reserved

NOTICE: Article(s) may be republished free of charge to relevant websites, as long as Copyright and Author Resource Box are included; and ALL Hyperlinks REMAIN intact and active

The most relevant stage in learning starts from being a toddler. What baby learns during this stage will reflect throughout his growth. Toddler educational toys are the most effective tool that will cultivate their knowledge. Educational toys are entertaining. It’s the reflection of fun and laughter. Provide your child a lot of learning opportunities through wide variety of toys: Toys for bath time, toddler cubes, books, puzzles, roller coaster toys, shape sorter, soft toys stackers, wooden toys, DVDs and CDs. Widen a child’s imagination with books - they are windows to the world. Supply chunky board books, ABCs, animal books, music & shapes, word books, flap books, bath book and coloring books.

As parents, it’s totally challenging and yet greatly rewarding to raise kids. Having enough time to play with your child is a great opportunity for you to learn more about your own kid. We have to understand that every child is unique; each one has specific way of cruising through the milestones of physical, mental and social development. Parents do there best to raise kids to be smart and happy to be who they are. Even in early years of a child, we can start to shape their life. While other parents use television, play station and 3D games as a tool to keep their child entertained. This can lead to disabilities in learning. Children can gain hearing problems that leads to difficulty in language development from watching television.

Toys must be carefully selected. Find the most appropriate toys that stimulate learning abilities and fun to play with. Through toddler educational toys children discover themselves, their environment and their social life. Their toys become instruments in building their creativity, leadership skills and personality as well. Playing educational toys is the best foundation for a successful future.

Play can enhance a child’s growth in all areas. Different toys give specific development and experiences for your baby.

Toddlers are like sponges. They absorb concepts through playing. Our role as parents is to choose appropriate toys for their age. Toys must be well-designed & durable. It should expand a child’s ability, such as in arts & crafts, reading, verbal skills, music and movement. Keep in mind that what we can offer our child in not just enjoyment, but also what kind of benefit toys will deliver. Encourage them to take their first steps in learning into a fun and enjoyable way.

In addition, to maximize playing for your child’s development, there are several points we have to remember.

oSet a proper and favorable area in playing. It must be safe, hygienic and non-smoking zone.

oLook for proper clothes that promote comfort and freedom of movement.

oGive them educational toys where in they can reap the benefits for their growth

Parents must be patient with their child as they found gladness in even small accomplishments. Share excitement as your child discovers the world through shapes, colors, sounds and textures. Make fun in learning a priority. Embrace the importance of toddler educational toys in providing a step-by-step success. Remember, the future of your child lies in your hands.

The modern day busy parent tries to compensate for his or her lack of time for his or her children by investing a great deal on education. Thus, it is not a surprise how many of such parents move mountains just to provide their kids entertaining products that not only encourage play, but also instill discovery and learning.

Makers of toys worldwide recognize this growing trend and are, consequently, coming up with new and improved lines of children’s educational toys and games almost every month. What was once limited only to specialty toy and game shops, educational toys and games are now a staple in every children’s oriented stores around the world, even at general mass retailers, like Wal-Mart and K-Mart.

Statistics show that the sales of toys and games have declined over the years. However, educational toys have been on the rise, as more parents opt to purchase products that would give them the most value for their money, as compared to, say, buying Bratz dolls and Hot Wheels.

The record for educational toys was broken in the Holiday season of the year 2000, when toy maker LeapFrog’s LeapPad Learning System electronic reading toy became the bestselling children’s game of the time, helping the company boost its sales by a whopping 120 per cent!

LeapFrog’s success paved the way for other major and small toy makers to come up with educational toys of their own. Jakks Pacific, under its Child Guidance brand, released its own line of children’s educational toys and games following a deal with Baby Genius. Hasbro released its Baby Einstein line and unveiled its preschool units, namely the Baby Einstein Company and Playskool. These new toys encouraged children to dabble in art, music, different foreign and local languages, and even poetry.

The strong demand for educational toys and games for children has urged major retailers, like Toys “R” Us, to allocate shelves upon shelves for these kinds of toys. And because more and more households are transforming into two-income families, it is likely that the demand will grow further as parents seek products that would try to fill their absence during their children’s formative learning years.

With the rise in demand, it won’t be a surprise when the price tag that comes with these educational toys and games will also decrease as the years pass. Right now, these kinds of toys are still a little expensive (though it hasn’t stopped most parents from buying them). In the future, due to the overwhelming interest, educational toys and games will be accessible to everyone.

Today’s parents feel pressured to use technology to begin their child’s education in utero. For example, the BabyPlus Prenatal Education System promises to “give your baby a headstart” by playing rhythmic patterns to help stimulate early learning. It is time, therefore, to step back and evaluate the true value of toys that incorporate technology to teach.

Toys that are formed from high-tech electronics embedded with semiconductor chips are generally known as edutainment toys. The quality and substance of their play may be limited by the number of buttons a child can push. Some promise to challenge a child by allowing him or her to interact with the educational content to learn it. For example, V.Smile offers a Baby Infant Development System aimed at introducing interactive learning to kids 9 months to 3 years. They can watch educational videos with this system or push buttons on a tray to influence what is happening on a television screen.

Some older toys are also adding electronic bells and whistles to appeal to the current technologically sophisticated generation of children. Dolls now interact with the Internet. Wooden Brio trains make electronic sounds and can be controlled by infrared remotes. The classic Fisher-Price Rock-A-Stack now also comes in a Dance Baby Dance version whose center rod lights up and plays songs when the rings are stacked on it.

Open vs. Closed-ended Toys

An open-ended toy encourages free play with an unlimited number of outcomes. For example, a building set can be used to construct a variety of different structures. A closed-ended toy, on the other hand, has a limited and often soon exhausted number of outcomes.

Not all closed-ended toys are bad. After all, a stacker is a classic closed-ended educational toy: it can only be put together correctly in one way. However, to solve a stacker, a child must develop and use logic and fine motor skills. The child benefits from the repetition of playing with the pieces of a stacker, manipulating them with his or her fingers over and over and thinking about how they fit together until the solution is mastered and then repeated for pleasure.

A closed-ended edutainment toy, on the other hand, may only require a child to press a few buttons. Eventually, it leads to a dead end and the child grows bored and tosses the toy aside. As Martha B. Bronson notes in The Right Stuff for Children Birth to Eight, although a child can have a rich play experience with any toy, basic, open-ended toys encourage this type of experience more than rigidly programmed toys with only one or two functions do. This sort of edutainment toy is not timeless. It is meant to be replaced sooner rather than later by the next big product in edutainment that uses the latest in technological innovations.

Often people assume that toys that use new technology are more innovative and educational than non-technological educational toys. In fact, childhood specialists such as Jane Roberts (president of Young Media Australia, a consumer advocacy group), question how educational and interactive high-tech edutainment toys really are, noting that “[p]ressing buttons and having items do things for you is fairly limiting in terms of how children learn.” Furthermore, many traditional toys are themselves becoming more innovative about stimulating a child’s imagination and creativity without having electronics in them. For example, the blocks in FoxMind’s Cliko game can be used for a variety of games that are challenging to children and adults alike.

Negative Impacts of Edutainment Toys

Overall, parents might not want to encourage children, especially younger ones, to use too often edutainment toys that involve televisions and computer screens. The authors of “Effects of Preschool Television Watching on First-Grade Children,” found that preschoolers who watched more television than their peers did worse in school and were not as well socialized when they entered first grade. Researchers Frederick Zimmerman and Dr. Dimitri Christakis found that babies watching Baby Einstein DVDs and videos scored lower on language skills than babies who had never watched them at all.

In addition, Allison Sloan notes in Shopper’s Guide to Healthier, Greener Toys that computers and television sets emit EMFs, “invisible forcefields whose possible health effects, from headaches to sleep disruption to cancer, are the subject of heated debate.” Children’s developing brains are in the greatest danger from such outside influences.

A final caution about edutainment toys is that they can foster in children an acceptance of a disposable consumer culture. A timeless toy such as a set of wooden unit blocks will hold up under heavy use for generations and can be played with at the same time by children (and adults!) of a variety of ages. Edutainment toys, on the other hand, are usually played with by only one child at a time, and they generally have a shorter playtime and life span. Children quickly master and get bored of them, or their high-tech components break, rendering the toy useless, and then they are discarded, releasing toxic chemicals and metals into the environment.

What Parents Can Do

As technology and the Internet permeate society and people’s lives more and more, it does make sense to introduce children to computers and other inventions that they will need to use as they grow older. A toy is not necessarily bad or useless because it incorporates technology. That said, smart parents should examine the stated purpose of an edutainment toy, evaluate how and what it teaches, and determine if their children could receive equal or greater value from a simpler, classic toy. Roberts warns against the dangers of a parent using high-tech toys as babysitters, substituting interaction with a machine such as a single-player computer game for what should be “the best learning for young children-real-life experience when they model, create, explore, and develop their own initiatives through play.”

Play is the language of children. It is an essential part of a child’s learning and development. It facilitates the child to further enhance cognitive, psychomotor and social capabilities. It also serves as a channel for their creativity in which a child can express his thoughts and emotions.

Parents play a crucial role in stimulating a child’s development. During this important time, it is their responsibility to provide an advantageous environment for physical and intellectual growth. It can be very difficult to understand how best you can provide this because you cannot control or predict every aspect of his educational atmosphere. The first step often involves identifying and recognizing each child’s strengths and weaknesses. This can be tricky for each child is different. The only thing you can do is to have constant interaction with your child and provide guidance in order for them to develop new skills in the most positive way.

Unfortunately in this modern time, parents do not exactly have the time to interact with their children personally. This leads to a decline in effective stimulation and the learning experience. Although parent participation is very significant in this process, the good news is educational toys can be used as substitutes. You just have to choose the best toy for your child.

A wide variety of choices for toys are offered in the market, so as a parent it may be a little bit overwhelming. You are faced with the dilemma on choosing the toy that will suit your child best. The best guide is to have a thorough understanding of the developmental milestones of a child and how appropriate toys can boost their imagination and creativity. But if you are still a bit confused, here are some tips to find the ideal toy:

• Safety first. Make sure the toy is safe, durable and appropriate for a child’s age. Follow the recommended age guidelines to avoid accidents such as choking.

• Take your time in making a decision. Examine the toy first and think over the educational benefits it can offer. It should encourage imagination and inventiveness.

• The toy is easy to use. It is important that the child is able to play with the toy himself in order for him to enjoy it.

• The fun value is also a factor in choosing a toy. The toy may hold educational benefits but if it does not satisfy a child’s curiosity it will be quickly thrown aside and forgotten.

• Find a toy that is specifically the child’s style and interest. This will give the child determination to learn and have fun at the same time.

• Choose toys that will promote social skills. These toys will encourage cooperation and compromise by playing with other children.

• Budget-friendly. Choose toys that fit your budget. Good toys are not necessarily pricey.

Keep in mind these helpful tips the next time you find yourself looking for the perfect toy. It may seem challenging at first but remember that your child’s future is in your hands. Embrace the significance of providing the right educational toys to provide your child the best foundation for learning.