The mother's role in educating our children

Hello Everyone,

When I moved from London, UK, to India about eight years ago, I asked my husband why he chose to live in Gurgaon, Haryana, particularly since he had been living in Delhi.  He told me that he felt the government of Haryana was a progressive one, especially in relation to education and females.  In light of this, I was pleased to see this recent article http://www.haryanaeducation.net/facts/ on the net.  I quote, "The Haryana Government is chiefly concerned about literacy among females. The female literacy is vital for educating the society, as children start learning from home and these are the females, the mothers, who need to be educated to train their kids".  I can relate to this entirely since I spent a lot of time on my child's initial education before he went to formal school.  As a Bengali and English speaker, I spoke to my son in both languages and my husband spoke mainly in Hindi.  We also read in English and Hindi (I am unable to read Indian languages, so the onus fell on my husband to read in Hindi).  I was able to impart this to my child because, while I was pregnant, I investigated and discussed with experts who happened to be members of my family, too (paedetricians, teachers, English language experts, and mothers whose children had good vocal skills) various ways to deliver information and language skills to my baby.  I also had the added advantage of being able to concentrate on my child while my husband went to work.  Smarttalkers would have given me the opportunity to raise my child's communication skills among other children as part of my own business - even from home!  I saw the results in my own child via his good vocabulary and communication skills. If charity begins at home, so does education. 

Here goes....

Hello, my name is Sheila and I am the master franchisee for Smart Talkers India. I have always had a passion for communication and I know from my previous career as global training consultant, that this is the main key to success in any field. I became even more interested after the birth of my son as I became both fascinated and marvelled by the process of language learning. He is now fluent in three languages, which we take for granted but actually should be recognised and  celebrated.

I became involved in Smart Talkers as I saw an article about them on a  British working mothers website. They had been set up by Libby Hill who it turns out thinks very similarly on lots of things to me! She is a speech and language therapist by background who became very concerned that the world is getting so visually based that children's skills are not as good as they used to be. This is a international problem: spoken language skills are the building blocks for written language i.e. reading and writing so that if there is a delay in the speech, language and communication skills this will affect educational progress.  Parents are not always aware of this. The groups are designed to optimise the child's potential using stories, activities, puppets, songs and games.

I will be blogging on all aspects of children's language and early educational development as well as sharing Smart Talkers India news and activities.