How Babies and Toddlers Learn Through Interaction

Babies and toddlers learn more about the world, about themselves and gain important new skills in a number of ways. One important way in which they learn is through interaction with other people.

For babies and toddlers, life is an almost continual learning curve. In the early years, they learn heaps of new things – skills they have, tasks they can master, what the world around them is like, their emotions and how they can best get on in life. One important way in which they can learn is through social interaction – with other babies and toddlers the same age as them, with older children and with adults. This is why social interaction is important from a young age and why babies and toddlers can benefit from attending mother and baby clubs, activity events and other educational and learning classes, as well as being out and about with you.

Learning About Relationships And Emotions

Interaction with other people, including their own peers and adults, can help babies and toddlers learn the basics about relationships and emotions. When they’re young, babies are often not that interested in playing or interacting with other babies (this is something that develops over time and will be fully active by the time they’re two years old), but it’s definitely helpful for them to be used to being around other people.

Babies and toddlers can learn a lot of clues about the basics of relationships and emotions through being around other people and seeing how they interact. Although they will still have a long way to go in their own development of emotions and their understanding of relationships, it’s definitely helpful them to be around other people from a young age. It helps them learn how to react in certain situations and the different emotions people express.

For example, it’s good for babies to get used to being handled by people other than their parents and to be left with other people, for babysitting purposes. In fact, when they’re young, many babies don’t mind this at all. As they get a bit older, they may go through a phase when they cry or don’t want to be held by anyone other than mum or dad, but this is perfectly normal and they may subsequently adjust back to being happy to be with other people again.

Learning About Socialisation And Behaviour

Another key way in which babies learn through interaction is learning about socialisation. This can be how people interact and get on with each other in their daily lives, through play, in social situations, in shops, at home and in the family.

Interaction is also important for babies and toddlers to learn about behaviour. They get to see how people behave in certain situations and get a degree of knowledge about what behaviour is right and wrong. Of course, parental teaching is also vitally important in this area too and it’s up to parents to help guide and teach children to behave appropriately in situations too. But early interaction is a helpful tool in the path to learning how other people behave, as well as their family.

As a parent, you can help your child’s early learning through giving them plenty of opportunities to experience and witness interaction in their lives.