The mother’s role in shaping the child’s learning and personality is pivotal. The mother serves as the primary educator in a child’s life. A strong bonding relationship unites the child and the mother. The womb is the place of security for the child as he grows. Stress, poor diet, and emotional disturbance in mothers transfer into the bloodstream and affect child health. No doubt, the womb is the place where the child learns. Although there is a lack of scientific evidence from this perspective, researchers are still exploring the concept of mother-womb intelligence.
The Brain Develops During the First Trimester
The trimester refers to a period lasting three months. The three-month pregnancy division is particularly significant. In the first three months of pregnancy, or the first trimester, the basic structure of the brain begins. In the first month, just 16 days after fertilization, an embryo forms the neural tube. The neural tube is the earliest nervous system tissue that eventually develops into the brain and spinal cord. During the second month of development, the neural tube begins to differentiate into brain cells and nerve cells. Recognizable brain structures, most notably the cerebral cortex, form from the brain cells. The cerebral cortex is the outer layer of the brain. By the third month, this basic brain development allows the embryo to display reflexes and react to its environment. Hormones, released at the end of the first trimester determine whether the embryo will continue to develop as a male or female.
What Are The Stages Of Piaget’s Development?
The children’s intelligence changes with time. As the child grows, he develops a mental model of himself and the world around him. The child’s periodic behavioral changes serve as a gauge; an individual’s life span reflects their learning process. Piaget’s stages of development encompass a theoretical framework that delineates the sequential phases of typical cognitive growth from infancy to adulthood, encompassing processes such as thinking, reasoning, and acquiring knowledge. Jean Piaget, a psychologist and developmental biologist who meticulously observed and analyzed the cognitive growth and capabilities of infants, children, and adolescents, inspired the designation of the stages.
Piaget’s Stage of Development
 This model narrates the four stages from birth to adulthood. The cognitive development stages are here.
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Sensorimotor Intelligence
This is the baby’s stage from birth to two years old. This is the infant’s first stage, during which the infant uses abilities and skills such as grasping, listening, sucking, and looking. The baby also knows about the environment that he is in. The baby exercises control over his arm movement, directing it towards an object and demonstrating some degree of control over it. He holds the object in his hand and perceives it according to his thought patterns.
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Preoperational Thinking
This is the stage where the baby understands the symbolism; he uses the words and pictures. Children of this age engage themselves in activities like playing. One notable element is that the child makes distinctions and similarities between objects.
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Concrete Operational Thinking
Direct experience and observation are the strongest ways to acquire knowledge. The term “concrete” refers to the direct, tangible, seeing, and touching experience. This is the stage where the student develops logical thoughts, analyzes the situation using reasoning, and provides a potential solution in his mind.
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Formal Operational Thinking
Understanding the abstract term, which refers to thoughts and ideas that exist in the mind but are not tangible, is crucial to comprehending the stage. This is the ability of the baby to think in abstract terms, develop reasons, argue, and plan. This stage starts at the age of 12 and continues into adulthood.
| Piaget,s Four Stages | Ages Description |
| Sensorimotor Intelligence | Birth To 2 Years Old |
| Preoperational Thinking | From 2 To 7 Years Old |
| Concrete Operational Thinking | From 7 To 11 Years Old |
| Formal Operational Thinking | 12 Year And Older |
The Child’s Jealousy Factor
The baby understands the concept of jealousy in the context of a peer or sibling relationship. The children will learn about the world around them through observation, emulation, experience and failure, play, exploration, using the senses, and experimentation. A child’s intellectual development accelerates once they can move around, gaining new experiences to learn from. Between approximately 1.1 and 2.3 years, jealousy emerged most intensely in the majority of children, and at 3.5 years, children distinguished between social situations that elicited jealousy.
Baby: The Battle of the Wills
This is when the parents say to the child, “You have to do this,” but the child responds, “No.” Usually, parents use the term “do it now,” but the child is not in a position to accept that he has to do it. This leads to a power struggle, arguments, and compelling behavior. This could potentially lead to a child engaging in inappropriate behavior. In another sense, the battle of will refers to defeating opponents and weakening one’s own will, allowing the child to maintain his own goals and demands. This occurs when a child compares himself with his siblings, classmates, or peers within a peer group.
Infants’ Minds Conflict
In any case, one cannot neglect the relationship between a mother and her child. Both mother and child share feelings, harmony, and care. If the mother has feelings of impatience or irritation, the child faces the sleeping problem, his attitude becomes annoyed, he starts crying, fretting, and clinging. The child then protests in different ways, and he may fight and become the victim of clinical issues like conflicts. Therefore, the child’s relationship with his mother is a reflection of his attitude.
What Does A Scream Mean For The Baby?
Most of the time, a child enjoys his voice when he speaks. When a child screams, it triggers an alarm for the parents, prompting the child to observe how they respond and behave towards him. Screaming is not a bad word, but yelling is a noisy word for the parents, which can have a negative impact on the baby. The child’s anger is normal behavior; in this case, parents are never angry in front of the child, and they must deal with intelligence.
Stress From The Mother Affects Blood And Hormones.
During prenatal development, a baby’s cognitive development begins. The formation of the baby’s neural plate occurs approximately 2–3 weeks after fertilization, and this structure subsequently undergoes development to become the actual brain. The cerebral cortex, which is responsible for voluntary actions, undergoes delayed growth and is relatively immature at birth. Nevertheless, it undergoes rapid maturation during the initial years of an infant’s life. By the age of 3, a child’s brain will have reached approximately 80% of its ultimate adult size. During the early stages of life, from birth to childhood, the neurons in the brain experience rapid growth, reaching their maximum rate around the onset of adolescence.
Stunting Experience
Poor nutrition, repeated infections, and inadequate psychosocial stimulation cause impaired growth and development in children. The child’s remarkable growth serves as a gauge of malnutrition. It indicates that a child has failed to reach their growth potential as a result of disease, poor health, or malnutrition. Stunting is when a child fails to grow to the proper height for his or her age. The main cause is poor nutrition in pregnant women, babies, and toddlers. Stunting is a form of malnutrition, but it’s more accurately described as undernutrition.
Survive By Birth, Children Have Basic Instincts
Hunting was an important profession for humans’ survival in their earlier lives. A newborn baby has the basic survival instinct in his mind, prompting him to request milk from his mother, indicating that he understands the importance of survival. Humans, by birth, have the natural instinct to survive. It is those best adapted to the environment who continue to survive and pass on their characteristics, feelings, and behaviors to future generations. Humans use their primal instinct to hunt and gather as a means of survival.
This article is about the role of the mother and the responsibilities of the parents in cognitive development. The mother has a womb; this is the place where a baby’s intelligence begins. For the child’s development, the mother must keep herself calm, cool, and healthy.
Dr. Abid Hussain Nawaz
Post Doc, Ph.D. & MPhil
