Babies like to imitate others

Many parents are anxious because their babies like to imitate others and seem to have no ideas of their own, and even some child educators and researchers believe that imitation is the enemy of creativity. Therefore, to raise a creative baby, we need to reject imitation and inspire him to be more individual. This idea is undoubtedly a good one, but are imitation and innovation incompatible?

A misunderstanding: imitation is the enemy of innovation

Most parents have high expectations for their babies and want them to stand out among their peers. In addition, the education we receive and the information we get from all sides convey to us the idea that imitation is of little significance and that only innovation is valuable. Under such a premise, we get anxious when we observe that our baby is always imitating others and lacks autonomous behavior. Especially when he imitates babies younger than him, we are more likely to think that it is simply a "degenerative behavior".

Reassessment: imitation is the first step to innovation

In fact, by observing the environment, your baby receives certain information to express everything he receives in the form of imitation. Therefore, when a baby imitates certain behaviors, it is a sign that he is observant and receives a lot of information from the outside world. Regardless of the complexity of the behavior, or the age of the person who is doing it, it is a very difficult task to imitate it. If we try to imitate it, we will find that it is not as easy as we think to imitate even a simple action perfectly. From this point of view, imitation is also a comprehensive ability, which is quite meaningful for the growth of babies. Moreover, if we don't control our baby and don't put pressure on him, then after a period of imitation, he will suddenly become a different person, abandoning those imitation behaviors and appearing in many autonomous behaviors. Therefore, imitation is just a stage of a baby's growth process, a means for him to learn, and innovation is not a pinpoint relationship.

There are two broad types of innovation: one is "making something out of nothing". This kind of innovation can only be thought of by individual geniuses. The other type is a combination of old elements + new. Many people can't think of it, but if someone thought of it, using the old elements of the organic combination, a new idea will come out. Once the new idea is announced, everyone immediately realized and lamented: "Ahem! How could I not think of such a simple thing?"

The majority of innovations are of the old element + new combination type. The basis of this type of innovation is that we need to have a lot of old elements first. Imitation is one of the most important means of having a lot of old elements. By encouraging imitation when the baby is small, he will be able to observe everything around him more carefully and draw from it, laying the foundation for innovation. Therefore, in a sense, imitation can be said to be the first step to innovation.

Of course, the old elements are not bold enough to be combined, and creativity will not come out. Therefore, while encouraging our baby to imitate, we should also encourage him to boldly combine, regardless of whether his combination is reasonable and scientific or not. The most common mistake we make is to stop our babies as soon as we see them doing something we think is "wrong" (such as dismantling toys, playing with toys in unconventional ways, or doing other things) and teach them, "That's not okay! You'll break the toy." "This is not the right way, it has to be done this way." Slowly, under our constant denial, the baby's perception of self is not so firm and gradually loses the desire to try, so his creative spirit is killed by our so-called "correct teaching".

Smart guidance: let imitation evolve into innovation

1) Provide opportunities for imitation from the age of 0

Based on this special relationship between imitation and innovation, we need to encourage imitation at a very young age to promote better development of imitation skills. From the day your baby is born, it is best to interact with him more often. For example, when he wakes up from a nap, look him in the eyes and talk to him, whether he understands or not. Of course, you can also smile at him, nuzzle, smack your tongue, etc., to provide him with as many opportunities to imitate. When the baby imitates us, we can encourage it with appreciative eyes or body language. When the baby invents certain actions or language, we can also imitate him with an attitude of appreciation. Once we find that his behavior is appreciated, he will be more excited to "innovate".

2) Create "imitation games" together

By the time babies are two or three years old, they are interested in some simple role-playing games, so we can expand some games at will according to their characteristics. For example, for children who like cars, you can play driving games with them. But the game must pay attention to follow him, maintain an equal relationship with him and interact with him, do not force him to play according to the ideas of adults, but according to the baby's cognitive ability and the game scene at the time to randomly add some content to his favorite way to guide him to try some creative activities under the premise of imitation.

3) Create through imitation by doodling

Doodling is one of the activities that babies like very much. We can always draw his favorite things with them, provided that we don't force him to draw the way we want him to, but rather let him play freely. And, when the baby has not yet mastered the skills of drawing, it is better to lower our drawing level to the same level as the baby, focusing on describing what we have drawn and what we have to draw, rather than focusing on what the drawing looks like. We can also use various instruments and materials to doodle and expand the activity of drawing further. If we do not take any particular approach to expansion, babies will naturally imitate and even develop more interesting ways to play. Thus, the baby's imitation behavior evolves into a creative behavior.

Of course, we can also expand more imitation and innovative games according to the baby's preferences and characteristics.

A special reminder is that in the process of playing these games with our baby, we need to treat his imitation behavior with the attitude of "only ask for the work, not the harvest", and never rush to force our baby to imitate after doing a certain action or saying a certain sentence. Such an approach not only runs counter to your baby's developmental needs but also puts pressure on him and hinders his development. Give your baby a relaxed environment so that he can naturally observe, absorb, imitate, and innovate without pressure.

Knowledge Window: Imitation makes babies understanding

Physiologists have discovered that the brain has nerve cells that possess the ability to imitate - mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are active not only when they perform actions such as grabbing a toy with their hands and shaking a drum, but also when they observe how someone else picks up a shaking drum. This neuronal activity encourages the baby to imitate the actions of others and to envision the intentions of others in the brain: he wants to pick up the drum and shake it to make a sound. Mirror neurons allow people to be more empathetic by imitating themselves and others. More simply, by imitating the expressions of those around him, the baby learns to be understanding.