<p>We may have raised smart children but the only thing that matters is if they become smart adults.</p>
<p>Let them ask questions, then take the time to answer them.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Early reading, grandparents got D Hooked on Phonics for 4th birthday and she was able to
read 3 months later.</p></li>
<li><p>I saved “baby talk” for my pets, not my D. Instead of “Wook at the cute widdle puppy”,
it was “Isn’t that a beautiful German Shepherd.”</p></li>
<li><p>Let them do things on their own from a young age. They may not get it the first 10 times,
but when they do, their sense of accomplishment is worth it.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>
</p>
<p>And of course, only eating fish from Lake Wobegon.</p>
<p>Make sure your children ALWAYS know they are loved and valued. Even with biological children, genetics can play funny tricks on you–so what you get is pretty much pot luck. A wise CC parent whose name I can’t remember (I AM a boomer, so please forgive me) once said “Love the child you have, not the one you wish you had.” </p>
<p>Every parent knows that each child has something unique, special and wonderful in his/her makeup–don’t ever forget to praise and nurture those qualities and/or skills–ESPECIALLY if they are different from those possessed by you or your spouse.</p>
<p>I happen to believe that one of my sperm was smarter than the others and a better athlete too. The Egg was even smarter and could discriminate the good from the lesser.</p>
<p>Everything that mafool said, plus be sure to instill a solid work ethic. If anything, that’s more important to success in school (and beyond) than raw intelligence.</p>
<p>Thanks, geek_mom!</p>
<p>and I agree with your extension.</p>
<p>Well, of course there is the nature element. But, in addition…lots of holding, interaction and stimulation in infancy and beyond – lots of love. Lots of reading and books and music. Getting involved in their schools. Spending lots and lots of time and energy finding the right school for each kid and doing backflips to get them into the right program and encouraging their various gifts/talents. Back to getting involved in schools – whether it’s being room parent or president of the parent organization or however you find your niche – being involved so you know what’s happening and so your kid knows that you value their education and are a partner with their teacher/school. Going to every back to school night and parent conference and Open House – which may seem obvious but I’m usually surprised at how many parents just don’t show up at the middle school/high school level. It sends a message to a kid if you show up to see how he/she is doing. I have heard of studies that correlate achievement with parent involvement in the school. And I think expectation matters – each of my kids knew we expected them to go to college and they knew we expected them to do well in school – that was their job so to speak – I guess that goes to instilling a work ethic.</p>
<p>We just really liked and enjoyed the company of our kids, at all ages. They were who they were from birth- their own little unique selves, and so I am a strong believer that nature trumps nurture. It’s nothing we did as parents.</p>
<ol>
<li> Love them</li>
<li> Feed and water them</li>
<li> Provide them with interesting things to look at and talk about</li>
<li> Make sure they grow up surrounded by books</li>
</ol>
<br>
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<p>This is important. I absolutely forbade the use of baby talk around our girls when they were babies. Babies learn to speak (and think) what they hear.</p>
<p>">>2. I saved “baby talk” for my pets, not my D. Instead of “Wook at the cute widdle puppy”, it was “Isn’t that a beautiful German Shepherd.”<<</p>
<p>This is important. I absolutely forbade the use of baby talk around our girls when they were babies. Babies learn to speak (and think) what they hear."</p>
<p>Hmm… I find this very interesting, because my psychology textbook referred to this cross-cultural phenomena as parentese or motherese. Studies have suggested that not only do babies prefer this mode of speech, but the exaggerated rhythms, tonal changes, and enunciation help babies to understand how their native language works. </p>
<p>[Speaking</a> Parentese . Parenting Pointers . Early Learning . PBS Parents | PBS](<a href=“http://www.pbs.org/parents/earlylearning/parentese.html]Speaking”>http://www.pbs.org/parents/earlylearning/parentese.html)</p>
<p>As for me, I don’t really know how my siblings and I wound up really bright. My father is by all accounts not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed (though we do love him dearly), and while my mom is quite intelligent, my siblings and I are smarter. I can’t explain it in any way, really, other than the fact that my parents were always very loving and supportive, and made sure to expect our best while knowing what that best was. While we haven’t wound up at the Ivy League, considering the fact that we didn’t grow up with much, my siblings and I have done very well compared to peers with much more in terms of resources.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Uhhhhhhhhhh… I got nothing. </p>
<p>I think she was gonna be what she was gonna be. We just got out of her way.</p>
<p>HyperJulie, I’ve also seen some of the research on “baby talk.” It seems to have a purpose at a certain developmental phase and the fact that it is a cross-cultural phenomenon is very interesting. Here is a link to an article on research from Carnegie Melon that indicates that babies speak sooner who hear baby talk. I think exposure to regular non-baby-talk language once a child is verbal is very important. For example, there is evidence that kids from socioeconomically depressed households often hear far fewer words (by the thousands) by the time they start school which contributes to an achievement gap – hearing language used is very important in building up language skills, etc.</p>
<p>To clarify - I had no problem with “parentese” - the sing-song and exaggerated way of speaking to babies. I probably did that myelf. But I always insisted that the speech consist of proper grammar and pronunciation. In other words, no baby talk.</p>
<p>I had a cousin who was 7 or 8 years younger than her siblings and grew up with her brothers and sisters speaking a lot of baby talk to her. She ended up speaking in baby talk herself until she was well into elementary school.</p>
<p>This is going to be controversial, but I think that one of the things we did that helped to convince our kids to take academics seriously was to never have them miss school for a family vacation.</p>
<p>We must be the only people on this continent who have never been to Disney World.</p>
<p>The rationale: How can you expect your children to take school seriously if you pull them out for the sake of family fun?</p>
<p>As for some of the suggestions about how to nurture little kids in a way that promotes academics, I question their value based on my own family’s experience. My first child, who enjoyed being read to and taught himself to read by the age of 4, actually did less well in school later on than my second, who had no interest in books and didn’t learn to read until first grade.</p>
<p>It’s all in the genes. The educational environment we provided- at considerable expense- helped.</p>
<p>To Marian’s point above- we took our kids out of school a couple of times for family vacations and, yes, one of them was Disney World. Academics are important- somewhat less so for a 1st and 3rd grader (or whatever they were then)- but family time/relationships are also quite important. With my work schedule and two parents with demanding careers, the family togetherness component required more attention than elementary school academics. WildChild wrote this amazing school essay after one family ski trip when he was about in the 3rd grade about a Japanese tourist he heard talking on one of our ski resort shuttle busses. I thought my kid was ASLEEP! Learning can take lots of forms.</p>
<p>We also pulled our kids out for family vacations, even now with our D1 in college. I have taken time off from work to go to their concerts or field trips. Many people probably had a view that I was on a mommy track, but my kids always knew our family was more important than my career. We’ve had many wonderful memories of family vacations. Our D1 printed a photo album of our family trips for us when she went away to college, which made me cry all the way home.</p>
<p>A note - our kids were responsible to get their work made up because of missed classes. D1 college professors were also very helpful to go over lectures she would have missed during office hours.</p>
<p>For my D, now 15, she is raising herself. She shocked us the first day at the preschool by speaking English to other kids. We didn’t teach her at home, nor did we speak English in our house. We don’t interfere much with her academics since third or fourth grade. So in this case, nature has more to do 
My S, still in middle school, is the opposite. But the reason he’s doing well academically, I think, because he has such a long attention span at the age where it is important. J.S. Bach has more to do to help him than us. So, I have nurture in one kid and nature in the other. Honestly, I think we’re just plain lucky.</p>
<p>I forgot to put in the link on baby talk - but a google of “baby talk and Carnegie Melon” should pull it up. We’ve pulled our kids out of the occasional day or so of school. We pull them out one day a year for a religious family camp we go to where they have deep and strong friendships and relationships. The message is – school is important but there are other things that are equally or more important and that is a message I’m comfortable with. But I’ve never pulled them out for more than a day and a half or so – except when we were visiting colleges to make a final decision about where to go.</p>