Building Moral Intelligence In Your Baby

Baby and toddler will forever love to imitate and trail a person whom closed to them.

As a homeschooler parent, my hubby and I always struggled to update our misbehaviors.

Happy Kids

MORAL IQ TIP: Don’t assume because your child talks morally, she will act morally. If you want your child to act morally, then expect and demand moral behaviors from her.- Dr Michele Borba

I noticed that my toddler KiruaMi-cHan could straightforwardly copycat my act and within second, her little sister; ReiHi-cHan will impersonator his acts too! *~~Oh God, how quick it could be~~*

Alhamdulillah, I have undertake numerous ways to develop my babies moral intelligence; mentally and physically.

I didn’t want them to excel superbly in education but lack of humanity.

For me, teaching is living.It is decisive useless if you depart your manner right after you outshine with your study; leaving the classroom is never mean leaving your attitude.

As an example, Malaysian Campaign on “Budi Bahasa“.

Truly I am in no way proud to be a Malaysian when I trapped in this precious country that’s loaded with people whom declare themselves as “highly educated” but possess totally “zero” manner.

As for me, never take things for granted.

Just pick a small case; throwing rubbish. How ugly is Malaysia, in foreigner eyes?*plus they also tag on the approach of throwing rubbish in our country when they saw Malaysian people didn’t respect their country, and why’s on earth must they (foreigner) do? *

Please well-educate yourself first before you try to convince others (especially your own child) because in this real world; ACTIONS DO SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS

So who am I with all this unsolicited advice?

Just a Mother who’s made Plenty of Mistakes in the last 3 years of homeschooling. *Not to worry; I still have plenty to make, and so do you. You will have doubts, plenty of them!*

But the most important thing is: Never give up!

I started teaching my baby using wastebasket in their early age of 4 months due to at that moment both of my baby could grab and hold small things such as a piece of paper, paper cup etc in handy way.

Every time I have something to throw away, I’ll bring them together with me and showed them where is the proper place to put it.

I even explain to my baby on why we need to keep our environment clean and healthy, our responsibility for this family and beloved country and reward them with a big clap and said “What a splendid job, sayang! Good boy/girl!” every time they manage to throw rubbish by their own.

Who said that homeschooler house should be chaotic?

Alhamdulillah, nowadays I didn’t need to do clean-up job all by myself regularly due to my own toddler and baby always help me with the housework.

We do it in fun and enjoyable way.

Both of them happily and eager to do the laundry (wash, fold), wash dishes, watering our garden, sweep the floor and even tidy up their own toy box, clean up after we finished our art class and clean up the toilet with my hubby.

Sometimes, my toddler will remind me, “Mama, cannot messy, messy..got germ!” or “No mama, bad example”. How sweet! Alhamdulillah.

Note: Even sometimes you’ll find kids talked morally, they wouldn’t act morally. Sounding as though you have a strong conscience is no guarantee for good behavior. After all, how we choose to behave really does speak louder than what we say with our words. Just make sure you don’t make the same mistake with your kids. Knowing the right and decent way to act and acting in that way should be the only test to determine whether or not your child has developed a strong moral compass. It’s up to us to make sure our kids’ moral compasses are solid and in place so they really will talk as well as act right and do so with or without our guidance.- Dr Michele Borba

Alhamdulillah, I love to explain anything to my baby. I created them as a story. Yes, children love stories!

There will be no need for me to shout or scream at my beloved child, stories made me easy in dealing with my kids.

They could easily been touched if they watching sad news; e.g. war, poverty, pollution and will asked my hubby and I to help those whom really needed and we pray for the rest of the universe. Amin~

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Below are Five Ways to Build Strong Conscience in Kids from Dr Michele Borba that I had tried with my child *Alhamdulillah, its works!*:

You are your children’s first and most powerful moral teacher, so make sure the moral behaviors your kids are picking up from you are ones that you want them to copy.
Look for moral issues to talk about as they come up; so your child can hear your moral beliefs, and you can assess his moral reasoning and stretch him to the next level.
Take an active stand against influences toxic to your child’s moral development, such as certain television shows, movies, music, video games, and Internet websites. Plainly explain your concerns to your child, set standards, and then stick to them.
Use questions to expand your child’s ability to take another person’s perspective: “How would you feel if someone treated you that way?” “How do you think he feels because of what you did?”
Catch your child acting morally and acknowledge her good behavior by describing what she did right and why you appreciate it.

May all the best mommies! Good luck

January 17, 2007 | Filed Under My Fun Homeschool | 3 Comments

How to Train Your Baby to Read Al-Quran

Alhamdulillah, thank you so much Allah for all the love!

Teaching my first baby; KiruaMi-cHan, about Islamic lifestyle, value, morality and the Al-Quran and Sunnah are the most sweet and lovely memories.

Al-Quran

As usual, before I teach him anything, me; myself need to be ready mentally & physically plus must load up with tons of facts and info about Islam.

Everyday is never been easy to me in dealing with my daily routine except after praying for blessing from Allah and sanctified from my husband.

Alhamdulillah, I began to educate my baby about Islam since he was in the womb.

Due to my busy as a university student at that moment, I tried hard to fill my extra time by reading Al-Quran for my little baby.

Everyday, I embraced my prayer to Lord, may all the best for my baby and may everything will be smooth sailing. Amin~

Since he at the age of 0 day, my hubby reminded me to teach our baby about Allah.

Whenever while breastfeeding and lying beside my baby boy, I sang 99 names of Allah S.W.T, Sola’wat to our Prophet Muhammad S.A.W and Zikrullah. *this routine is still been repeating until now for both my babies*

3 times per week, our bedtime stories will be about Allah, Prophet Muhammad and others Prophet, Prophets companion, Angel, Heaven or even the Judgments Day.

I work hard trying my best in explaining almost everything to him starting from 0 day old till now.

He started to ask me mountain of question about our Creator, living things and so on since he could makes full sentences at the age of 22 months old.

Sometimes, he requested me tricky questions that required me to take all my creative phrases in explaining to him.

Fun and exhilarating!

He asked me to train him to read Al-Quran when I started brought him every Friday night to read Yassin at the mosque.

He seemed to be enjoying seeing the ritual.

He even reminded me to bring plain water bottle for “Yassin drinks”

*as he surprised my grandma on our 2nd visited to grandma’s house; “Nek, ini air “baca” ye?” as he pointing to my grandma’s Yassins bottle*

[Note: at this moment, he already catch up with his Malay language after learning it in 3 days with my grandma]*

We all burst out laughs, “Good boy, Kirua!”

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Below are some of my tips on: How to Teach Your Baby about Islam and Al-Quran:

Prayer

Please pray for your baby before you teach them anything, may Allah help both of mama and baby while learning together for a pleasing learning process.

Consistency

I started to use simple method as using Arabic letter flashcard for him.I

recommended this due to the letter seems to be large and easy to recognize.

My ways: One week, one letter.

First, I showed him the first letter and pronounce it properly.

When he managed to pronounce and remember the letter, I’ll straightly stick on the flash card at the wall.

So he got the opportunity for the rest of the week to take a glimpse at the letter.

I’ll add one-by-one letter every week on the wall.Before sleep, I asked him to point me the letter that I’ll say.

Every end of the week, I inquired him to sit down beside me and play “Find It” game.

“Find It” game is the game when I demonstrated to him the Muqaddam or Al-Quran and let him discover the same letter that we had learned throughout the week.

Hence, he’ll give quick replied and interest while seeking the same shape of the letter.

Reward your baby

Please give them your warm and cuddly hugs and kisses with motivational phrases such as “Great job, baby“, “Mama proud of you“, “What an amazing baby!” etc.

Teach you baby to read Doa

Every time before go to sleep, I’ll read him Doa, Syahadah, Ayatul Kursi and Islamic lullaby.

Next, will be the bedtime stories.

At first, I just read for him, but after 3 days he is eager to follow me to read Doa.

Alhamdulillah, he also amazed my husband and I because at the age of 2 years and 6 months, he already could read the Doa by himself, with Syahadah and Ayatul Kursi.

Now, it’s time for me to strengthen his memories.

One-by-One

I didn’t teach him all at the same time. I prefer the method of “One-by-One“.

After he managed to memorize Doa before going to sleep, I coach him with the next Doa after several days.

p/s: For newborn baby, it is recommended to teach your baby simple Zikrullah; Subhanallah, Alhamdulillah, Allahuakbar etc

Never Push your Baby

Let them explore and try.

Give them some time to absorb the new environment.

By using this ways, your baby and toddler will feel more appreciate and happy in learning.

Alhamdulillah, by using those approaches, I found that; it is truly amusing and trouble-free to teach my babies about Islam *Insya-Allah*.

I wish those tips could help any moms out there

May all the best to you. Have a great day!

January 16, 2007 | Filed Under My Fun Homeschool | 6 Comments

How to Teach Your Baby to Use a Computer

Both of my babies loves computer so much. We even provided them with their own personal computer.

My hubby and I started to develop interest in computer for KiruaMi-cHan since he is 0 day old baby.

I started to showed him my personal notebook and told him every single thing that I’ve done to him, describing him how does its operated and so on.

Every time I do my duty *yes, my designing work*, I’ll let him know.

Baby and Computer

Computer could interact with baby in such a fun way if you could teach your baby the proper ways on using the computer.

But always remember, never let your television or computer be your babysitter! *poor baby*

I do strongly believe, our responsibility as parent to guide our child, not to dumb them.

With this method, we could showered our child with more love than exposing them to a hazardous environment.

Alhamdulillah, at the early age of 2 years and 6 months, KiruaMi-cHan could turn on and off the PC by himself, using Paint software to draw, playing games (educational and teens stuff!), using printer, online voice-chat, downloading stuff and even surf the Internet! (his favorite: Yahoo! Current Driver site).

Below are some of the print screen of his own creative work in Elmo’s World: Hat Games.

Elmo's Hat

Below are one of the screen shot of Grover that he played in Sesame Street: Dress Grover-Party!

Grover Party

While ReiHi-cHan begin to handle the keyboard and mouse confidently at the ages of 8 months, now at the age of 1, she manages to restart the PC, play simple “click” game at SesameStreet website and happy to change the volume of the speaker *alhamdulillah*.

I had try several time to find tips to teach my baby how to use a computer, but sadly I could not find even 1 website or article regarding to this matter. So, I ended up by giving my own personal experiences.

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How to start a computer learning for baby?

Early start

I introduced my KiruaMi-cHan and ReiHi-cHan with the real environment of the computer.Such as, by showing them what is the hardware required in running up the computer; monitor, CPU, speaker, microphone, CD-Player etc. This is a basic learning about PC.

Try and error

Let them try and look the real thing, and even open up the CPU for them, putting disket/CD/DVD, how to open and shut down the computer, do printing job, introduce the function of icons, folder, Internet.

Fun method

Teach them simple but attractive multimedia method; you could use special CD learning for toddler or just simply guide them to log on in the Internet to find a lots of suitable baby-Computer games and software that you could used it freely.

Consistency in learning

Spend only 20-30 minutes daily to use the computer with your baby.Don’t push them to learn, they’ll absorb it slowly and I bet, they were going to love it just in few second!

Do together

Amaze them with sing-a-song together with your computer, dancing, play animated or cartoons on your computer.Let them know that TV is not the only media, which they could rely on while searching for education, entertainment and fun.Â

Encouragement

Be participated and rewarded them with your best hugs and kisses every time they learn something new and each time they do something correctly.If they don’t, offered yourself to teach them again and again in happy mood.

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How to keep your baby safe while using a computer?

Consequently, the right viewing distance is the one at which the computer operator can easily read the screen without experiencing eyestrain.

Generally, the preferred viewing distance is between 20 and 40 inches (50 and 100 cm) from the eye to the front surface of the computer screen.

Stay together: NEVER leave your baby ALONE with the computer. A computer is not your babysitter!
Eye-to-screen distance: Put monitor directly in front of you and at least 25 inches away, preferably more
Vertical location: Viewing area of the monitor between 15° and 50° below horizontal eye level.
Monitor tilt: Place monitor so top line of screen is at or below eye level (top of the monitor slightly farther from the eyes than the bottom of the monitor).
Lighting: Place monitor perpendicular to window (ceiling suspended, indirect lighting. Use blinds and shades to control outside light).
Screen colors: Dark letters on a light background.

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What if you don’t have a computer at home?

Don’t let this be as an excuses for your baby.

If you noticed, you could get your own complete personal computer at the cheapest price of RM 499 nowadays! (why not try start your saving today?)

Plus, you could bring your baby to public library to use free computer.

Best recommended website for you and your baby to give a try: