Social skills of babies

Hah!It's 9:50 AM and she's still sleeping!!!

Okay fast before she wakes....

A child in Asia is so blessed with extended families and friendly neighbors who would be more or less your age(child & parent alike). I am sure I will not be worrying about Iaree's social skills if we lived in the Philippines but I'm pretty sure I'd be worried about something else such as security & pollution. We just noticed that since she only gets to interact with mommy & daddy and also lola before she is very very anxious with strangers. Especially with men. This anxiety is acceptable since this is a good defence mechanism of babies like her from strangers. However her aloofness extends even to kids except for babies younger than her.

This brought us to consider putting her in a play school. We scouted around Bangsar area but considering the schedule and my lack of driving skills we totally dropped the idea. I tried this small school inside Pantai Hillpark Phase 2 and the owner Ms. Nadia was kind enough to let her try it first for free because she's the youngest baby there and they obviously dont have a special group for her.

I noticed that it's pretty structured and although not that traditional(that's what they claimed) the school does not incorporate the play and learn environment that is more ideal for young children. Iaree had a blast the first day my mistake the second day was I left her too soon I should've left her after say a month or 5-7 meetings. So she was so anxious when I came in to get her. The following meetings ( I take her 2x a week), she would never leave my side ever. I know it was my fault but I noticed that on the other meetings it wasn't that much play anymore so Iaree even if she would try to leave my side gets uninterested in of course writing alphabet in the workbook and coloring. Not to mention they got at ease having me around that they dont mind scolding the kids for not finishing the food or not working...I am no expert but that's not how you make children their age do things. There was only one teacher there who was engaging and patient enough to really go along with her interest. Unfortunately she is the dedicated teacher of the bigger kids (5-6). After 3 more meetings and I think even the toddler's teachers were also noticing its not working (they had 10+ more students ages 2.5-4. The owner left it to me to decide if we will continue and never charged us. Dapat lng naman dahil di naman sila ngextend ng effort ke Iaree.

So put on hold muna her socialization activities and we'll plan it out we move to our new place and Iaree will be 2 y.old and more independent. For now...we all love Jungle Gym in Bangsar and we'll surely miss going there weekly.