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Just like Vygotsky, I strongly believe that language plays important role for child mental development. I think that almost all parents would think the same. Nowadays, many parents put their toddlers to kindergarten that use dual languages as the medium. Their goal might be good to equip their children with language skills, but for this case I use a different approach for my child.  I do not want to ‘suffering’ my children with having to learn multiple languages at an early age. Children need a strong foundation before learning a foreign language. This foundation is a mother language or in this context Bahasa Indonesia. So I want to make sure my child mastering his mother language first in order to interact seamlessly with his immediate social environment (which is family) where he can see, understand, and acquire knowledge, attitudes, and values. This foundation is also very important when he started interacting with other environments outside the family (friends, teachers, etc.) to enhance the experience and knowledge. Language is a mechanism for thinking, a mental tool. Language makes thinking becomes more abstract, flexible, and independent. Language allows children to imagine, manipulate, create new ideas, and share ideas with others. Thus the language has two main functions; to develop thinking and language skills and being part of the process of thought. Language can be used to create a variety of strategies to master many mental functions such as attention, memory, feelings, and solving problems. Mastery of language- especially mother language, is absolutely required for the child to develop optimally including for learn foreign languages.

In relation with adult life, I refer to one interesting question created by Kevin Hogan;
“What is the difference between the top 20% of people who earn 80% of the money and the 80% of the people who earn 20% of the money?”
The answers are:

• 20% of people that are experts in the field of communication. They know how to ask questions and find the needs and desires of others.
• Successful people are experts in two areas. First, in the field of their work that they are communicating very well with others. Second, communication at the subconscious level.

Once again, it all involves high language skills.

children

Seeing, guiding, and directing child’s early development is always a pleasant experience as well as stressful. It is pleasant because of children amusing behavior when interacting with the environment and their parents. But it is also very stressful because we do indeed aware that this is a critical period in child development that determines their intelligence, attitudes and behavior in the future. This is happening to me as a father of three years old and very active boy. Children at this age love to explore the environment and try something new. They tend to make the home as a playground which of course will make the home looks like a ‘war zone’. Instead of being strict and forbidding him, I have chosen another way.  I tried to make the home environment not only as a place to play but also as a place to learn. For example I attached the wall with various images (animals, vehicles, common object, etc.) with its names in two languages (Bahasa Indonesia, English) so he can play on those objects, guessing names and learn to remember as well.  For toys, I try to give toys that help my son to develop his imagination and creativity so I prefer buying my kids toys like puzzles, blocks, Lego or anything that requires assembly process before playing it. And the last, I give my son time to play with peers only in the afternoon which simply teach him about time management. One of the most played games is soccer. I love this game because this game introduces and teach how to socialize and coordinate with peers. I hope what I do matching to what activity suggested by Piaget for the child development during the preoperational stages.

Very Funny, Check it out