‘Children with loving parents who enjoy them, play with them, and offer guidance and suggestions as they explore their environment will be healthy, emotionally well-adjusted, and psychologically advanced.’ – This is how babies learn.

Waking up every morning to see my daughter sleeping snugly in her bed is one of the most enjoyable experiences any human being can experience. My daughter IS the most precious person in my life. That is why I set out to see how babies learn.

If you’ve landed on this page you must be interested in the book called ‘Einstein Never Used Flash Cards’. It’s a very catchy name, isn’t it? Some of you might think it’s too mainstream or silly perhaps.

But there is nothing silly about this book, and if you’re a parent, no matter what profession you’re in, whether you’re an entrepreneur or stay at home parent, you need to read this book for the sake of your child. You need to know how babies learn in order to raise your baby the best you can.

After reading ‘Einstein Never Used Flash Cards’ you’ll have a better sense of how your child develops and what you can do to encourage that growth in a natural and unobtrusive way.

What are other reasons you should buy this book now?

Because it will teach you about how your babies think and grow. Many of us forget what it’s like to be a child. By using the powerful examples and lessons in this book, you can help your children be the best they can be and to help you be the best parent you can be.

Here’s what will be covered.

1. How the mainstream way of parenting came to be and why it’s harmful for your children’s development.

2. The misconceptions about how babies learn.

3. How babies learn about numbers.

4. How babies learn to form words.

5. How babies learn to read.

6. Does IQ matter?

7. How babies learn to develop a sense of self.

8. How babies learn to build good social skills.

9. How different types of individual, peer, and play with parents are extremely important for your children’s development in ALL aspects of life.

In conclusion: Four principals for parents to live by.

Einstein Never Used Flash Cards is packed full of useful tips of what to do and what not to do to help your child grow. All of these tips are just suggestions so no one is forcing you to do these things.

However, not at one point in the book did I think, ‘This is bullshit!’. I literally feel that each piece of information given to you can be applicable to your child in most situations. There are so many powerful lessons that can be learned from the authors of this book. I’ll cover over the ones I thought were the most powerful of all.

1. Mainstream Parenting

Before I go to the baby shop I get quite excited because I’m pumped up to be able to get something new for my baby. But as I walk into the baby shop a curtain of blankness and confusion overtakes me. Actually, I hate going to the baby shop I realize. There are way too many toys and accessories to choose from, in all different shapes, sizes, and brands.

You probably know the feeling, right?

Which one should you buy for your baby, Baby Shakespeare, or Baby Van Gogh, or how about even Baby Einstein? According to Einstein Never Used Flash Cards, none of these products are necessary at the age the box suggests.

Supposedly these products claim that by using this product, the parents’ babies will have an intellectual edge needed to excel academically and professionally.

How crazy does that sound to you? This is the society where new parents have brands shouting in their ears saying ‘If you don’t show these highly educational videos, your child will fall behind all the rest of their friends and will have a harder time getting accepted for a job after university.

Oh, in fact, your child might not even be accepted at university. Buy this product and all your parenting problems will be solved.’ That is complete nonsense as you’ll learn from reading this book.

There are even some products pushing education even before the child is born (However, classical music has been scientifically proven to encourage brain growth in fetuses.). This has become part of today’s society at least in the US. In Indonesia (where I live) not so much, but I can start to see it growing here. It’s like an epidemic spreading across the globe.

Before I go any further in this review, I want to mention a very important point for those of you that believe flash cards are a good way to teach your child vocabulary among other things. Not at one point in this book does it say, ‘You must not use flash cards, ever!’

What it does say is that if you only use flash cards, computer games and the next new toy to teach your child about life, mathematics, vocabulary and such, then you’re hampering your child’s development now and for his or her future.

What you must do is provide real-life opportunities during play or while going to the store, basically, the options for teachable moments are endless.

Powerful Lesson #1: You don‘t need all the new advanced toys and flashcards (maybe a few won’t hurt) to teach your kid about the world. That’s not how babies learn. What you really need is to show them the ropes using real-life examples. Either way, your child will develop with or without the new gadgets offered at the toy store. If you give them too much of one or the other, it may be harmful to your children’s development.

2. The Misconceptions About How Babies Learn

I’d say this part of the book is very understandable for the average human being even though it talks about some pretty complex biological things that most of us can’t begin to understand. The authors do a good job of informing you without overwhelming you.

The main thing to remember about how babies actually learn is everything is new to them. They don’t see the world the way we do. Babies experience through touching and manipulating things, throwing, tasting, and hitting.  So when we guide them we need to be careful what we’re subjecting them to and how often we do so.

Get out into the open and experience things WITH your child. Bring them to the park, or to your backyard. Let them get their hands dirty, all the while guiding them.

Like the book mentions up above in the powerful lesson, you don’t need to go out and buy all the expensive toys. Something as simple as a tennis ball can be so much fun for your child.

3. How Babies Learn About Numbers.

How can you expect a baby, or a kid to even know what it means to add two numbers together just by showing them numbers on a flashcard?

You can’t.

Children are very physical and visual. Rather than sitting your child in front of the computer screen to learn how to count, add, or subtract with the latest educational game, why not use your environment? Use blocks. Use streetlights or cars passing out front your house to learn how to count.

Plus, why does a 3-year-old have to know what 1 + 1 is? Yes maybe you can start introducing addition and subtraction, but what use will they have for it at the age of 3? Nothing. On top of that, children don’t quite yet have the ability to add and subtract until later in their childhood.

Counting is also another factor to consider. Yes, we can teach our children how to say up to ten, but the child doesn’t grasp the concept of what a number is until around the age of four.

Powerful Lesson #2: There are counting opportunities everywhere we look. Use objects and things you see as chances to point out the power of numbers with real experiences. Let your child play with blocks and help them to count, add, and subtract.

4. How Babies Learn to Speak

Did you know that babies start hearing words even before they come out of the womb?

At around 7 months pregnant your little bunches of cuddles can start deciphering mommy and daddy’s voice along with recognizing their mother tongue.

Einstein Never Used Flash Cards is brilliant at explaining scientifically how children learn language from before they’re born until the time they reach childhood. No matter what, eventually your child will learn how to speak. It’s the job as parents to be the partner in their learning process.

I like how the book simplifies a concept that is actually very complex. Language is a very complex thing, but our children are wired to learn starting from pointing and repeating, to babbling and experimenting with the sounds they can make, to saying single words and starting to form simple sentences.

Children learn language from the environment they live their daily life in and build one step at a time at a fairly quick rate. Even their mannerisms will develop at this time such as the words ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’.

It’s your job as a parent to provide stimulating language learning environments as well as new opportunities to learn new vocabulary in ways such as story-telling either from a book or your own imagination. You can play story games.

Powerful Lesson #3: Let your children talk but keep the conversation going but asking simple questions. Basically, this means to build on to what your child has already said. Also, for babies, it’s not a problem to do a little baby talk since baby talk does resemble the intonations of real conversations. Sometimes babies need that exageration to keep them interested.

5. How Babies Learn to Read

The most important thing you can do for your children is to make reading fun, not work.

This part of the book is about promoting emergent literacy. As we all know, as adults, reading (and writing) is probably one of the most important skills to have in life. So as parents, there are many things we can do to encourage literacy skills in our children.

There are also many things we can do as parents that either won’t have an effect or will actually hinder our children from developing an extra intelligent mind far better than those children who just memorize. Understanding how babies learn is the essential first step in parenting in a smart way to raise your children to be leaders.

The tips about reading in Einstein Never Used Flash Cards are extremely helpful, suggesting several different ways you can go about guiding your children to love reading.

How can you help your babies learn about reading (from birth-3 years)?

• Start with picture books. Let your baby touch and feel the pictures. Often, you’ll notice your baby trying to pull the picture off the page. That’s naturally the way babies learn.

• Frequently read books to your baby BUT only if he/she is interested. Don’t force him/her to sit there and listen to you read.

• Pay attention to how your baby is holding the book. When does he/she start to point? This should be before 15 months.

• Let your baby scribble on paper (15-24 months). See what kind of things your baby turns out.

How can you encourage reading development with children (3 years-6+)?

• Of course, the first step the book suggests is for your children to get a good grasp of the language (spoken) before even starting to try and decipher letters.

Look at it this way and take a second and think about how hard it actually is to learn the written letters, how they fit together to form the spoken words in a language. Look at Japanese kanji, hiragana, or katakana (written language). Can you understand it? Do you know how to speak it? Probably not, unless you’re Japanese, or have studied it before.

Written letters are just symbols on a piece of paper so it’s far better for your child to actually learn quite a bit of the spoken language before even starting to learn the letters that connect.

• Let your child tell you stories. By this, I don’t mean by letting them read to you, I mean by letting them talk about the things that are running around in their heads.

• Words are made up of sounds which in turn we write in letters. Teach your child the different sounds in different words. Examples could be as simple as, cat, and hat. Dr. Seuss is good for that. Do this before your child even begins to read or write.

• Play word and rhyming games. Story dictation is a fun one suggested in the book where you have your child tell you a story while you write it down word for word in big letters. This shows your child that what they say has a meaning in written words. Vice versa, all written words have meaning.

• Use the environment to recognize letters such a the ‘M’ in the McDonald’s logo. You could think of tons more, like at the store, or even at home, right?

• When your child starts writing, always be encouraging at how much progress they’re making. Work on the different sounds and letters that might be confusing such as ‘p’ and ‘b’, or ‘d’ and ‘b’.

Powerful Lesson #4: The opportunities for how babies learn to read are all around you. Just be as supportive as  you can and read as much as you can to your baby. Start conversations and let your children tell you stories. Let their immagination run wild while you guide them along. Most importantly, make reading part of your life. That is extremely important. Imagine, if you, yourself, don’t read, then why would your child? You are the role model. Your child will copy your habits.

6. Does IQ Matter?

Yes and no. Way too many people put too much emphasis on their children’s IQ. Parents have been pushing and pushing their children to increase their IQ by forcing their children to memorize facts and numbers before kindergarten age.

The book gives extreme examples of parents who somehow altered her child’s IQ score up to 298 just so the child could be ‘ahead’ of his peers. Parents are paying up to $3,000 to get their children in the ‘Baby Ivies’. Something like a private kindergarten.

On top of all that, the pharmaceuticals are making bucks on the American obsession to increase their children’s IQ. Many have come out with specially formulated formulas that promise to develop your baby’s brain into the mind of a scientist.

That is outrageous.

Note: Given that this book was published in 2003, the mindsets of parents might have changed a bit, but to think that some parents actually think it’s healthy to push their child like that is unneeded and unhealthy for their children.

‘Children don’t learn best in academic settings. Rather, they learn best in childish ways-through play, social interactions, exploration, and enjoyment of their environment.’

What’s the Purpose of Having an IQ?

IQ tests were designed in the early 1900’s to define how well a child might do in school, academically. We all clearly know the test is meant for only what takes place in school. What the designer of this test didn’t factor into the equation was EQ (the chapter doesn’t go into explaining EQ but relates to it).

So just because you have a high IQ definitely doesn’t mean that you’ll be successful in life. In my opinion, the true measure of success is having a high sense of self-awareness, self-discipline, empathy, and understanding others.

IQ only plays a small factor in how babies learn to develop ahead of the game. It does play some sort of role in academics (since it’s an academic based test) and parents can do several things to help encourage their children’s IQ growth.

• Follow your children’s interest. That means you have to pay attention!
• Simplify the steps for your child while still challenging them.
• Encourage your child even when he/she gets frustrated. Say something like, ‘We can accomplish this together.’
• Demonstrate new tasks to see whether the task is suitable for your child. Use language while doing the task to explain.
• Explain in a simple way if your child makes a mistake. Go step-by-step to make the corrections.
• Build upon what your child already knows about something.

I personally love this section of the book because I have strong feelings about this topic. I absolutely disagree about how much emphasis school systems put on IQ. We really should be thinking more like Carol Dweck, a professor at Columbia University who coined the term Growth Mindset.

Related Post: Mindset: Why You’re Here and How I Can Help – First Post

Another interesting aspect about this section is all the different studies the authors conducted around the country. The studies are interesting and detailed, so if you want to know more about the details of the studies, you’ll have to read the book.

I leave this section with a powerful quote I connect with deep down in my heart.

‘IQ tests can measure current skill, but nothing can measure someone’s potential…Research on creative geniuses shows that many of them seemed like fairly ordinary children. Yet at some point, they became obsessed with something and pursued it avidly over a long period of time…Many of these contributions could never have been predicted by IQ scores.’

-Carol Dweck

7. How Babies Learn to Develop a Sense of Self

‘Parents act as if they are the sculptors of their children’s character and self-concept.’

This section of Einstein Never Used Flash Cards goes about explaining how babies learn about their physical self first before it goes on to talk about how older children see themselves amongst their peers then finally talks about how parents can encourage the development of a healthy Emotional Intelligence (EQ).

And by the way, the quote above is not true. Parents are actually just the guides in how babies learn about their sense of self. Parents teach their children especially about how to control and react to emotional situations.

If you yell every time you get mad, it is very likely your child will do the same thing. Children learn how to act socially from the way you do.

What is the best way to handle your child when she throws a tantrum? Talk with her, and show her the ‘correct’ way to express her feelings. Tantrums are natural. This is a teachable moment where parents can show their child how to react. There are tons of teachable moments, but you have to be the one to take action and show your child the proper way of acting.

Another teachable moment comes from talking with your child about other people’s emotions, how the person feels in a certain situation, whether it’s on TV, or in a book, and how to ‘deal’ with the situation.

Your child will eventually develop his/her own sense of emotion, but it’s something that definitely is affected by how parents interact with their children.

Some Other Ways You Can Teach Your Baby an Acceptable Emotional Response.

• Pay attention to how you talk about your children in front of them.

Just because your baby isn’t talking yet doesn’t mean he/she can’t understand some of what you say.

• Treat your child as an individual.

This is a huge one in my mind and I get ticked off every time I see a parent trying to be ‘the authoritative boss’ over their children. Children are humans just like adults. Yes, they aren’t mature yet, but they do have feelings and needs. As parents, we need to deeply respect our children’s rights and the way they think.

• Let your children know that anything is possible.

As you know from the opening of this post, I have a little girl. She was a year old at the time of writing this post. My belief in raising her is that she is able to do anything she has the passion and desire to do and I’m going to tell her when she gets older that she should never let anyone tell her what she can and can’t do just because she is a girl.

Gender equality is a problem especially here in Indonesia. That’s something I hope many people aim to change. Don’t let anyone tell your child not to do something they wish to do whether your child is a girl or a boy.

Other than that, help your child to see the positive side of life. Encourage them to keep on trying even after failing. Anything is possible with hard work and dedication.

• Recognize that EQ correlates to success in life.

The last section referred to IQ and this section emphasizes again that ‘it doesn’t matter how smart you are or how well you did on your SATs. If you can’t figure out how to get along with people, read their signals, and take their feelings into consideration, you may be a failure in life.’ Many people with IQs of 160 work for people with IQs of 100.

8. How Babies Learn to Build Good Social Skills

As I go about writing this analytic review, I realize how in-depth this book goes into how babies learn and how parents around the world can raise their kids to be the leaders of tomorrow. Not just the workers.

Each and every single one of us has a purpose on this Earth. You, as a parent, can provide the right environment for that essential emotional, intelligent, and social growth of your child. Social growth is just as important as any other growth if not even more important.

You may wonder how babies learn to interact socially, well, it’s not really a simple answer, but the book gives you a history of experiments and examples. I’ll just keep it simple and give you a list of the major takeaways.

• Discuss other people’s feelings.

• Watch your language.

• Explain about cause and effect. There are causes for people’s feelings.

• Stop bullying in its tracks.

• Make time for social time with other babies.

• Build strong ties with your baby’s teachers and parents of friends.

• DON’T ignore or belittle your child’s feelings.

• Try to see the world through your children’s eyes.

Powerful Lesson #5: Most importantly is that you connect with your children. I can’t say how important this is, and neither can this book. The emotional side of life is probably the most important. Guide your child always.

9. How different types of individual, peer, and play with parents are extremely important for your children’s development in ALL aspects of life.

Play is an essential part of every child’s childhood. I got so much from reading this section of the book. There are things about child’s play I had no idea existed such as free play actually does a lot to help a child develop problem-solving skills or a wild imagination.

So, again, I recommend if you want the full effect of this book, then go buy it once you get done reading my review. Or to make it even easier for you just click on this link to get a discounted price.

Here are some of the benefits of:

Individual Play

This is where your child will discover how to manipulate things and as they become older will start doing some imaginary play or even have an imaginary friend. Before I read this book, I thought having an imaginary friend was a bad thing. Well, it is if it goes beyond a certain point, but initially, it helps to have a more creative mind.

Individual play is also another way for children to work through their own problems they may not understand yet. For example, they might reinact an argument from earlier in the day at school between their best friend.

Play is also a basis for building up math skills. Let’s just say, play is important for every child to learn all about their environment. Any child who plays more is a happier child overall compared to a child who has a full schedule packed with extra classes, and sports.

Parent and Child’s Play

Parent involvement in their children’s play actually increases your children’s interest in play. It’s actually a chance for you to help teach your children different ways of playing.

It’s important to remember to let your children lead in the play activities though.

One of the hardest things as an adult playing with a child is that it’s hard to imagine how they imagine. So how do you get better at playing with your children? Try your best to think like them. Remeber what it’s like to be a child and become it.

The best feeling in the world is to see your child with a big smile. It’s heartwarming.

Playing with your children has many other benefits too such as teachable moments in language. You can introduce different vocabulary while you’re playing together with your child. That’s a huge benefit in your child’s language development.

Social Play

Of course, there’s no doubt in anybody’s mind that play is a social thing. When I think of play, I normally think of being with friends. So obviously play is very important in building relationships with friends.

Social play is great for pretend play as well. For example ‘Let’s play house. You be the momma, I’ll be the daddy, and you’re the baby because you’re the youngest.’ Then the children will go about playing around their imaginary house all the while learning how to cooperate with each other.

It’s fascinating how babies learn to play together and it’s an essential part of every baby’s life.

Powerful Lesson #6: Be an advocate for play and provide plenty of stimulating play recources for your children. Those recources can be anything from paper plates to sofa coushions. You don’t have to go out and buy expensive stuff in order for your children to have fun.

I remember as a child having fun with just about anything. Remeber your children have a wild sense of imagination. We too often forget about that.

And one last thing is to evaluate your children’s structured activities. It’s okay to have some structure, but too much can be harmful to your children’s mental and physical health. Let your children have free time to run around. Life only gets busier as you get older so let your child experience the world.

In Conclusion: Four Principals For Parents to Live by

Principal 1: How Babies Learn is to Learn Within Reach

It’s very important to stretch your children’s ability to the point they can still accomplish the goal but it makes it a bit hard for them. If it’s way too easy, your child will not learn to work hard. If it’s too hard, your child may give up.

Principal 2: How Babies Learn is to Emphasize Process Over Product

Emphasizing process over product creates a love of learning. The most important this is how the children learn not what they learn. We know as adults when we’re working on a project or a 4,500+ words blog post like I am now, that during the process, is where we learn the most.

The end result is just that. It ends, then we have to strive for more. Yes, there is a reward and huge feeling of accomplishment at the end. For children, the process goes the same way. But if we praise our children because of the end result it will discourage them from trying even harder and harder things due to fear of failure.

When we praise our children during the process of accomplishing something, that’s when the magic happens. All the sudden our children will have a growth mindset and will be brave to try new things.

Principal 3: How Babies Learn is Through EQ, Not Just IQ

Refer back to the section above if you have to, but I think you already know this now that EQ is what helps our children to become successful leaders in this world. Having a high IQ might help, but if your child doesn’t know how to empathize or deal with people THEY WILL NOT BE SUCCESSFUL.

Principal 4: How Babies Learn is to Learn Through Context

It doesn’t make sense to have your children learn how to speak Spanish if you live in Indonesia and have no plans to visit or move there. The point of context is to teach your children things that are applicable now.

I congratulate those of you who made it to the end of this ultimate review of Einstein Never Used Flash Cards and hope you have learned a little something about how babies learn.

Now it’s your job to apply these tips in your own life. Share this post with all your friends and family who have babies. Recommend the book. Spread the word. I know you want to make the future better for all of humankind. We must start with our babies.

After reading the analysis buy the book from Amazon at a discounted price. Click on the link below.

Always remember to share what you’ve learned with the people you care most about.