Development of children according to Nikitin. The essence of the Nikitin technique. Description of the main types of cubes

The fundamental system of raising children for Americans is the method of B. Spock, for Russians - the method of Nikitins. Every mother, puzzled, how to bring up healthy and harmonious developed child sooner or later he turns to the experience of his parents-innovators Elena and Boris Nikitin.

How did it all begin? It started with ... exudative diathesis. The firstborn's face and body were covered with a crust, the child stopped scratching and being capricious when he was taken out into the cold. Attentive parents noticed this and began to gradually leave the child in the air in one shirt for an increasing amount of time. This was the beginning of hardening, which later grew into a comprehensive methodology for early and comprehensive development.

Cold is a doctor, cold is a friend

The basic principle of hardening is gradualness. During feeding, newborn babies are left naked for a few minutes, then during wakefulness the baby is dressed only in a vest, then the baby is taken out to a cool place, say on the veranda, gradually increasing the time of "walks". The child begins to walk barefoot. The Nikitins lived in their own house and let the children out into the yard, into the snow without shoes. Then came the turn of cold dousing, first at home, then outdoors in summer, and in the snow in winter. Children wore only panties at home all year round. We slept in sleeping bags with the window open. As a result, Elena Nikitina could list a couple of colds that her seven children suffered from in childhood.

The "problem" of nutrition

The word is included in quotation marks for the reason that this problem has never arisen in the Nikitin family. The principle was: "If you want - eat, if you don't want - don't, but until the next meal, no pieces."

The time saved on cooking pickles was spent on education and communication with children. The dishes were simple, cooked in a pressure cooker. Cereals, vegetables, fruits, dairy products, no smoked meats and spicy foods. The adult table is close to the children's one. The kid tastes little by little dishes from an adult table, a spoonful of potatoes or porridge. Gradually, the diet of baby food moves to meals from the common table.

Movement, movement, movement

Great attention was paid to physical development in the Nikitin family. The children were healthy, not overfed, which means they moved a lot. All conditions were created in the house for the development of the physical abilities of children. There were no obligatory norms, for example, to pull up on a horizontal barnacle so many times or to do push-ups so many times. Jump, jump, climb, do what you want. In the sports room there were poles, ladders, ropes - vines and ropes with knots, rods, bags with small pebbles lined up against the wall, for amateurs - “heavyweights”. Half of the floor was occupied by mats for wrestlers' fight, for somersaults of acrobats, for amateur yogis. There is a jogging track along the perimeter of the garden area. The Nikitins describe sports as follows: “The guys switch from shell to shell, exercises follow one after another, they immediately come up with and try new ones. The guys have their own inventions and favorite exercises - different at every age. "

Strength, agility and ... caution

When each of the seven children of the Nikitins took the first steps, the parents practically did not insure the baby. And the child, getting used to relying on his own strength, learned to deftly group, landing on the bottom, got up and walked on. But after a trip to their grandmother, the children often began to fall awkwardly, hurt themselves painfully. It turned out that the loving grandmother, worried that the granddaughter would not hurt or hit, supported him by the back of the head, the child, getting used to feeling the belaying hand, began to rely not on her own strengths, but on others, and as a result, he forgot how to fall “correctly”. If a baby - a two-year-old, looking at older brothers, climbs up the ladder, and is afraid to go down and squeaks, then dad does not take it off, but only comes closer to catch it, if the daughter breaks down and, of course, encourages, but praises her daughter for her courage and dexterity.

“To force is bad, to patronize is even worse, and then what is needed? Rejoicing, simply rejoicing when the child succeeds in something - this, according to our observations, is the main incentive for successful activities with the child. The most perfect sports complex does not arouse his interest, does not "work" if we, adults, remain indifferent to what the child does to him, how he does it. Well, what if you fell? Then we will console, wipe tear-stained eyes, encourage (“Don't grieve, it will still work out!”) ”. This is an excerpt from the Nikitins book.

How are abilities born?

Until a certain age, the children of the Nikitins amazed those around them not only with their physical data, but also with their intellectual development. By the age of three they began to read, at four they understood the plan and drawing, at five they solved simple equations. Children were not only more developed than their peers, but also more responsible. Parents-innovators have identified the following components of success:

The main thing is a timely start

Observing the children, we noticed that those sides of the intellect were developing in them, for which there were conditions that outstripped development itself. The child was just beginning to speak, and among other things and toys he has cubes with letters, a cut alphabet, plastic letters and numbers. In these conditions, children started a lot earlier than it was prescribed by medical and pedagogical standards.

But satisfactory conditions for classes in the field of fine arts, biology, foreign languages ​​were not created, therefore, despite the school grade, the children practically did not know the language in a foreign language. If the parents spoke with the kids, in English, then the children would know the foreign language as their own.

Wide field of activity

Attentive parents noticed that kids prefer to manipulate not toys (they quickly get bored with them), but household items used by adults: kitchen utensils, writing and sewing utensils, tools and appliances. And, noticing this, they were allowed to "enter" the adult world and explore its non-toy properties and dangers. Nikitins constantly adhere to this principle of independence, allowing children to take objects "without demand", but demanding "put in place." You can take everything except two categories of things: other people's and valuable things. This included personal items of parents and relatives. For example, it was not allowed to take anything from my father's desk. The valuable things included a tape recorder, a camera, a watch, that is, something that a child could easily ruin due to lack of knowledge. There were few such things, and a child could only consider them together with an adult.

The children had enough other interesting things that were always available to them, ranging from sports equipment to all kinds of tools and building materials. There was a room in the Nikitins' house - a workshop where one could cut, glue, sculpt, saw, hammer in nails, drill, and sharpen.

The Nikitins tried to meet any intentions of the children to do something, to prove themselves in some kind of creativity. We noticed that the kid likes to write with chalk - they made a board from a piece of linoleum; noticed that he was interested in a map in the "Children's Encyclopedia" - they hung a large map of the hemispheres on the wall. So there were hundreds and thousands of tables, printed and written letters on a poster, on cubes, measuring instruments, large wooden bricks, constructors, books. This is all the Nikitins call a rich environment for the all-round development of the child.

Together with children

Creating conditions for a variety of activities and maximum freedom of activity are not all conditions for the harmonious development of a child. What does it take for a child to get down to business? Have you been engaged in it with enthusiasm and achieved results? This is a joint action. If a mother is sitting and sewing, then a daughter with a needle and thread will definitely sit next to her. Dad writes, then next to him on the same table, on the same sheets of paper, with the same serious look, another "writer" or "artist" is working. Common work or work side by side, interest in each other's results, this is a reason for conversation, this is an exchange of views, this is communication at its best - in joint activities.

Don't do for the kid

From the very beginning, it happened that adults tried not to do for the kid what he himself can think of and decide. On the contrary, they also slipped the children tasks for quick wits, for solving everyday situations. How to translate an "inattentive" mother across the road, how to find your place in the theater. The Nikitins tried not to miss the opportunity to teach the child to think for himself, to decide, to express himself, overcoming fear and indecision.

Educational games

Boris Nikolaevich Nikitin will remain in our memory not only as an innovator parent who has created his own unique system of versatile development of the child's personality, but also as the author of unusual didactic material:. What, how to play, what "background" is this or that game, what abilities develop various tasks, and how you can create these "smart" toys with your own hands, you can read about this in his book "Intellectual Games".

Nikitins described their system in detail with practical observations and theoretical calculations in the books "We, our children and grandchildren" and "Reserves of the health of our children." Separately, Elena Nikitina published the book "Mom or Kindergarten", in which she expressed her attitude to raising children in preschool institutions and described what, in her opinion, the ideal kindergarten should be.

Three whales of the Nikitin system

Firstly, it is light clothing and a sports environment in the house: sports equipment entered the daily life children from an early age, have become for them a living environment along with furniture and other household items.

Secondly, it is the freedom of creativity of children in the classroom. No special training, exercises and lessons. The guys do as much as they want, combining sports activities with all other activities.

Thirdly, it is our parental indifference to what and how the kids succeed, our participation in their games, competitions, and life itself.

In addition to these three fundamental rules, there are other recommendations to help make children more intellectually developed:

1. Breastfeeding until the first tooth appears (this recommendation looks very underestimated, but in those days it was very bold - editor's note)
2. Physical closeness of mother and child (to separate as little as possible).
3. Expansion of horizons, unlimited opportunity in the knowledge of the world (do not "lock" babies in strollers and diapers).
4. Lightweight clothing. Undershirts with sewn-on sleeves, like tights, block the baby's touch system.
5. Enriched environment: ladders - Skripalev's "upstairs", free movement around the child's apartment - "slider", playing with adult toys (spoons, mugs, plasticine, pencils ...)
6. Freedom of knowledge of the world, removal of "traditional" prohibitions, you should forget the expressions: "Do not climb", "Do not touch"
7. Show and tell the kid only what he himself cannot reach.

Downside

On its business card Boris Nikitin wrote: "Professional father." So who are the children raised by talented, intelligent and thoughtful parents? What is the result of years of effort?

Here are excerpts from the published material: “All seven Nikitin children were gifted, talented, brought up in an effort to achieve their goals. None of them became an excellent student at school. They were unusually developed physically ... but there are no Nikitins on the honor roll among the portraits that glorified the school of athletes.

Early development of creativity presupposed early enrollment in school. The age difference with classmates played a cruel joke with the Nikitins. “The fact that we were younger than the others in the class,” says Yulia, one of the Nikitins' children, isolated us from the circle of our peers and learned to communicate with other people besides the family. ”

The children were well prepared for school and in elementary grades were so accustomed to doing nothing that later, when they moved to high school, as usual, continued to mess around, although their stock of knowledge was no longer enough.

The children were ashamed of their classmates' questions: “Is it true that you all sleep in sleeping bags at home? Do you go barefoot because you have the same shoes for three? " It is not surprising that five out of seven Nikitin children after the eighth grade decided to say goodbye to school. Four of the children received higher education, the rest - medium - special.

Only two children took the baton from their parents. Two daughters have four children, one has one child, the rest have two. None of the children have risen high on the career ladder. Ordinary life of ordinary people.

And the Nikitins themselves, analyzing their experience, note that there were mistakes in upbringing and one of them, that they allowed the family to be exposed to the vigilant attention of society, the children were under the watchful eye of the press, scientists, doctors, associates of their system and this, of course, imposed a certain on them. “The guys began to consider themselves special, they learned to show themselves, to cheat, to adjust,” Nikitins said. And the second significant mistake is that parents focused on children, children became the main thing in life. It was exaggerated, and it was not good - first of all for the guys. "

The Nikitins treated the issue of education consciously, analyzed successes and failures, were interested in world pedagogy, improved their methodology, and generously shared their experience. They gave the children the maximum they were capable of. Their preschool education system was quite versatile. Yes, they made little effort in terms of the aesthetic education of children. Elena Nikitina herself admits this, she was incompetent in this matter and chose not to touch it. You must admit that it is impossible to imagine a person so universal that he could bake pies, compose poems, sang arias and masterly work with a jigsaw.

As for the school period, here the Nikitins did not feel that school is not only a citadel of knowledge, but also a society and, entering it, we are all subject to its laws. The school has its own behavioral rules, values ​​and priorities, they cannot be ignored. The school, albeit with its imperfect educational process, provides important skills: it teaches communication, networking, the ability to fit into the social environment. Being invited to a birthday party by a classmate is perhaps more important than solving a difficult problem. In addition to the upbringing system, there is life that follows its own inexorable laws. The father, realizing the need for hardening, was surprised: the older the children got, the more indifferent they were to the home way of life. A three-year-old kid, running briskly in shorts, is a normal phenomenon, and an eighth-grader walking around the house in shorts is a strange, almost frightening phenomenon.

A huge bow to Elena and Boris Nikitin. At one time, they blew up the public with their unconventional education system, showed the importance of family education and presented the world with an almost universal methodology for the harmonious development of a child. All their recommendations are reasonable, and what is important for busy modern parents, almost do not require a separate time allocated for regular classes. Nikitins teach to communicate with children competently and get great pleasure from it. And where there is pleasure, there is a result.

The game process of learning a child has long established itself among the developers of educational materials. Fascinating tasks develop in the child logic, concentration of attention, perseverance, and form a craving for knowledge. In this article, we will take a closer look at one of the popular educational children's games - Nikitin's cubes.

Raising a child "in a Nikitin way"

The Nikitin family with many children became known in the 50s of the last century. Their neighbors were surprised that at the age of 3 the children were already familiar with the principles of arithmetic and were tempered in the winter on a par with adults. Boris and Elena Nikitin laid down the basic principles of pedagogy, explained how to form a harmonious personality gravitating towards knowledge out of a child. What do their principles of upbringing include?

• Independence of development - you cannot constantly take care of the child, force him to engage in the activities you have chosen, strive to subjugate all his time.
• Freedom of creativity - there is no need to strain the child with lessons, trainings, make him do it "out of the way." Let the child work as much as he wants and can.
• Sports atmosphere - sports equipment should be available in the house, a place for sports should be allocated. It becomes a natural environment for children, like a sofa or a playground outside. They grow up physically strong and healthy.
• Parental involvement - you cannot remain indifferent to the child's success, you need to gently push him to gain knowledge and praise, but stick to the golden mean, keeping the first point in mind.

Based on these simple principles, Nikitin's teachers invented educational games - sets of blocks that are suitable for almost all preschool children, with a discount on their physical and mental development.

the game develops logical thinking

Features of the dice game

The essence of the methodology of these intellectual games is in the absence of imposing rules. The child is smoothly involved in the atmosphere of activity with the help of older brothers and sisters or parents. Then their participation is minimized, and the child is engaged independently. The kid begins to perform tasks, over time they become more complicated, but he himself must find ways to solve it, prompts are unacceptable. In the absence of progress, it is necessary to return to the easier options. If this method does not help, you need to temporarily take a break from the game. This technique develops in the child independence in decision-making, makes him think logically and look for answers to questions without the help of outsiders. The Nikitinsky dice games have fundamental principles.

• It is forbidden to give hints. Gestures, glances and words are taboo. Only in this way will the baby learn to act independently.
• The child should be given as much time as it takes to solve the problem. It is forbidden to demand to solve faster or skip the current one.
• The finished kit assumes variations. Based on the initial set, the elders themselves can come up with new tasks for the baby.
• Praise the child. Give him a taste of victory even while completing basic tasks.
• Don't let your toddler get overwhelmed by the game. If you see that he is too carried away, it is better to set aside limited time for classes so that the interest does not fade away.
• Do not make offensive remarks, do not offend the child with phrases: "What a stupid you are!", "It's elementary!"
• Try the task yourself before increasing the difficulty level for your child.
• Take breaks and go back to simple options if you notice that your child is not doing well. Interest covers the kids with "waves". If you take a break for a long time, "by chance" show the game to guests or offer to play with a friend.
• In a large family, each kid should have his own set.
• Keep a success diary. Note the time of the assignment, the number of successes and failures, keep records of personally completed exercises.
• The game should be in an accessible, but not obvious place. Let the child remember about it, but not mix with other toys and do not lose.
• The atmosphere of the game is relaxed and light. If the child craves physical activity, do not discourage this.
• The ready-made set includes a limited selection of tasks. If the child has mastered everything, start an album in which you will sketch the schemes you have invented yourself and give them to the kid for execution.
• Diversify the game with your own rules. It can be a competition for the speed of pattern folding or another competitive way of solving problems that will bring a note of freshness to the game atmosphere.

the child must think and complete tasks himself, it is not worth helping him

At what age can the cubes be used?

Parents often ask: "At what age to start classes?" It is impossible to give an exact answer to the question. Someone is ready to master the set at 1.5 years old, someone fails to complete the tasks at the age of 3 years. It all depends on the general development of the baby, the atmosphere of upbringing, the characteristics of his health and the ability of specific parents to interest the child in a hobby. Theoretically, you can start working with a child using the cubes method, starting from six months. If he doesn't get carried away, temporarily postpone the game and try a little later. For the little ones, the engagement takes place with the help of an interesting story, a fairy tale. Imagine together, come up with "names" for the pictures. From the beginning of classes, the difficulty increases. Up to school age, the child is interested in performing developmental tests.

Description of the main types of cubes

Fold the pattern

The simplest game set of 16 identical cubes. The size is small - 3 cm. Their edges are painted in different colors. Their shape is a triangle or square. If desired, the kit can be made by yourself after reading the relevant literature and having minimal creative skills. Suitable for small children from 1.5 years old, as they can be interested in bright colors on the go. The second name is Nikitin's puzzles. Initially, the child is given the task of laying out a specific pattern from the cubes, then, on the contrary, to draw a picture into which the parts are formed. An overstated stage is to come up with your own version of the ornament and depict it, along the way explaining what he wants to sketch. Start with 2-4 cubes, gradually increasing the number.

This game captivates almost all children, without exception. The imagination develops fine motor skills, the frontal lobes, which are responsible for creative thinking, are activated. The child learns the skills of analyzing and organizing material, learns to distinguish between relative categories, and learns colors. An album for notes and drawings is additionally purchased for the game.

fold the pattern

Fold square

A puzzle is taken as a basis, in which a square is required from several pieces of different colors. It was not served even to some adults, so Nikitin modified it into a simpler one. You can play from 2 years old. On A4 plywood, there are 12 cubes inserted into the windows. There are 3 categories of difficulty. The initial one is to make 4 simplest squares. To do this, the child needs to be shown how one figure is obtained from several halves. Then he begins to perform tasks on his own. The difficulty level rises gradually. Tasks contribute to the development of logic, the ability to divide the main goal into small ones that contribute to its achievement.

Unicub

The game introduces the kid to three-dimensional space. In the process, he learns to assemble complex three-dimensional shapes. The initial level - the simplest geometric (parallelepiped, trapezoid), more complex - animals, houses. Includes 27 multi-colored cut hexagonal cubes. You can offer to play from 1.5 years old. The child can easily be taught color classification and perception. For example, to propose to build a blue road with a yellow sidewalk and to organize a competition for the high-speed collection of monochromatic figures. Some adults defy the most difficult tasks. This is one of the best spatial reasoning and self-control training to prepare your child for the future mastery of geometry in school.

Cubes for everyone

In a set of 27 identical cubes connected in different ways in 7 shapes. One figure consists of 3, the rest of 4 each. They are different in shape and painted in different colors. In the training manual, tasks are proposed, according to which the figures need to be combined into various models, similar to geometric figures, houses, cars, animals. You are encouraged to come up with your own connection options. Young children like to construct figures from 2-3 parts, older children - from more... Constantly engaged in such activities, the child activates the thought process. Constructing figures according to the proposed drawing is a simple task, but coming up with your own model is more creative. She lays the foundation for creative thinking, develops imagination. Let your child be creative. Let him tell you what this or that model is like. Write down and sketch interesting and funny associations.

Fractions

The recommended age to start the game is 3 years. To complete complex tasks, you need to know the simplest arithmetic. The set includes 3 plywoods. Each has 4 multi-colored circles. The first is a whole circle, the second is 2 equal halves, the third is 3 parts, the latter is divided into 12 parts. Combining them, the child repeats colors, learns the basics of counting, compares shares, combines. Kids are taught new words with the help of the game - "quarter", "half" (depending on the drawings on the board). Older children can be instilled with mathematically correct names - "one second", "three quarters". By superimposing most of the blocks on the smaller one, the child learns to compare the shares. Empirically laying out the parts, the child establishes a "more-less" relationship. All concepts learned should be recorded in a journal.

Bricks

With the help of the game, children comprehend the basics of drawing, spatial thinking develops. The set contains 8 pieces of wood or plastic. The album contains 30 tasks. According to the drawings, the child builds models from cubes. Elementary ones are suitable for children of 4 years old, the most difficult ones can be solved by school-age children. The game has three execution options: fold the figure according to the drawing, transfer the figure's drawing to paper and build your own version, depicting its drawing. The set will prepare the child for school subjects geometry and drawing. It is a kind of "gymnastics for the mind", makes even adults pant over the tasks.

How to choose a set for your child?

You should not be guided by the advice of friends and relatives in this matter. Each child is a unique personality. Take a closer look at what interests him more. If he has already "got used" to some game, do not impose on him a different look until he himself shows interest. The main thing is to take into account the child's age (the complexity of the tasks is proportional to the number of years) and his psychological and physical development. Try to take the child to the store and show him the sets. If he is interested in a specific one, it is better to buy it. Let him complete an elementary task, praise the child so that he feels proud and attracted to completing more difficult quests.

In the article, we introduced you to an important educational game - Nikitin's cubes. If you want your child to develop faster than their peers, grow up with a craving for knowledge and independence, make discoveries every day, purchase these sets for him or make it yourself. Follow the pedagogical recommendations while playing and you will be proud of your child!

Consider the methodology of early parenting - the methodology of the Nikitin spouses.

The principles of upbringing in Nikitinski style

All our principles were developed in the practice of life, in communication with children. We used them intuitively, unconsciously, pursuing only one goal: not to interfere, but to help development, and not to put pressure on the child in accordance with our own plans, but to observe, compare and, focusing on the child's well-being and desire, create conditions for further its development. (B. Nikitin)

Breakthrough in education

The name of the spouses Nikitins is heard not only among psychologists, pediatricians and educators. At one time, thanks to the media, the whole country knew about the innovator-teachers, and the books of Boris Pavlovich became the desktop for millions of families in many countries of the world. More than a decade has passed, but Boris Nikitin was and remains the recognized founder of new directions in the science and practice of education, the author of a number of pedagogical discoveries that were ahead of their time and which have yet to be assessed by the scientific and pedagogical community. His works laid down the principles of parental, out-of-school pedagogy, which is especially important now.

Back in 1958, Nikitin, together with his colleagues - young teachers and educators - came up with a proposal to create self-sustaining schools of a new type, where educational tasks would be successfully solved simultaneously with the development of practical skills of production, self-management and early vocational guidance by students. Unfortunately, these initiatives did not find support at that time.

Boris Pavlovich Nikitin was born in 1916 in the North Caucasus in the family of a Kuban Cossack. In 1941 he graduated from the Air Force Academy. NE Zhukovsky, served in fighter aviation. In 1949, he retired and began scientific and pedagogical work at the Research Institute of the Ministry of Labor Reserves, then at the Institute of Theory and History of Pedagogy, Research Institute of Psychology and the Institute of Labor Training and Career Guidance of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences.

In 1958, Nikitin organized a group of teachers in order to repeat the experience of the famous Anton Semenovich Makarenko. In the same year, he met his future wife Lena Alekseevna, who became his faithful friend and companion.

The Nikitins were first talked about in the late fifties. Unaccustomed to innovations, residents of the village of Bolshevo near Moscow only talked about the "strange" family. Many did not understand how educated parents can take responsibility for raising, tempering and teaching seven children, contrary to the recommendations of the Ministry of Health and the Regional Department of Education, according to their own, unknown programs.

Indeed, it seemed incredible: the Nikitin children, bursting with health, ran barefoot in the snow; performed dizzying gymnastic exercises on homemade apparatus; by the age of three or four, they mastered reading and the basics of mathematics; they played with enthusiasm in the home-made logic games invented by Boris Pavlovich and invented new ones themselves; barely going to school, they immediately overwhelmed the programs of older students ...

Today Nikitins are often reproached for the fact that their children, despite their earlier development, did not become either great scientists or outstanding personalities. Like, was it worth breaking the spears? In response, supporters of teachers say that in the first place it is not the Nikitins who should be blamed, but the system, which did not need either geeks or just independent, independently thinking people.

Nikitin was the first - and for a very long time the only - who wrote not about how the middle child develops, but how a child should develop if his parents encourage his activity. Educators found the strength, wisdom and courage to resist the traditional practice, in which children were prescribed a daily routine for years, hours and minutes, where they followed strictly defined programs and only under the guidance of teachers. Contrary to the established rules, Nikitins laid the foundations of parental pedagogy at that time.

In the works of Nikitin himself - an inexhaustible storehouse of ideas for future integrated pedagogy, physical and intellectual development, upbringing and social adaptation of the child. Back in the 60s of the XX century, he revealed the huge didactic possibilities of business, "production" games in family preschool education, used the method of home theater in solving problems of spiritual and creative education, gave many other techniques and recommendations.

In the books of the Nikitins, especially the early ones, something seems controversial, and the teachers themselves at the end of their lives revised a number of their ideas. But it was under the influence of these books that thinking parents began to realize that they and only they, and not a kindergarten, not a school or a district clinic, are responsible for the future of children, that only in a family can the child's intellectual and creative abilities really develop, that only parenting at home can make him an independent, independent-minded person.

Today it is no longer necessary to remove pictures from wooden cubes in order to remake them in accordance with Nikitin's method: they can be easily bought in a store. But it is no less important to hear the quiet voice of Boris Pavlovich Nikitin himself, who has been disinterestedly preaching love and immense respect for children all his life. And if at least something in the pedagogical system begins to change today, we owe this person and his family.

On the basis of personal experience and analysis of documents and published materials, Nikitin has accumulated a large amount of factual material on the early development of intelligence, the influence of the school on the intellectual performance of students. As a result of many years of research and observation, the teacher formulated the fundamental "law of irreversible extinction of opportunities for effective development of abilities." At the same time, he not only substantiated the existence of this fundamental phenomenon, but also developed and tested in practice methods to prevent its negative impact on the level of intellectual development of future generations.

In fact, Nikitin was one of the few teachers who always selflessly defended the rights of the child, tirelessly engaged in selfless educational activities. For tens of thousands of parents and teachers, the author's Center for Nikitin Pedagogy, headed by him, became a place of real revelation, where new opportunities and prospects for family education opened up.

The methods of natural development proposed by Nikitin, as well as educational games, can reduce the time spent by children at school by a third. The author recommends using the free time for teaching children practical skills and abilities, creative activity. He harshly criticized school curricula, pointing out the need to revise up to 70% of their content, considered the plans to increase the duration of schooling as short-sighted and disastrous, contrary to the nature of the child, on the one hand, and the interests of the state, on the other.

Even today many people call the Nikitins the classics of Soviet pedagogy. Using their own large family as an example, they demonstrated how, breaking the established stereotypes in upbringing, to help a child become an independent, harmoniously developed personality.

❧ For forty years of their family life and work, the Nikitins continued Scientific research and teaching practice in schools, kindergartens and in his own family, raising seven children. I saw very quick-witted "problem solvers" with free and inventive thinking, with a well-developed language. They overtook their peers in school curricula some for two and some for four years. (N. Amosov)

Conditions for the independence of children

The Nikitins' experience confirms that parents should try to surround their children with such an environment and such a system of relationships that would stimulate a wide variety of creative activities and gradually develop in them exactly what is currently capable of developing most effectively.

In one of his books, Boris Pavlovich wrote: “When our first-born was born, we simply rejoiced in him and loved every free minute to be with him: to play, talk, look at him and be surprised at everything. Did he sneeze? Did he frown? Did he smile? But soon curiosity was added to this parental joy. Why does he cry in different ways?

Why does he get tense when you hold him with cool hands? Why does he resist putting on the bonnets? And so on. And so on. And the son grew up, and the questions were added. We began to write down our observations, giving the baby freedom of action, giving him the opportunity to determine himself, for example, how much he should eat, when to sleep, how long to walk - in a word, we largely trusted nature. We observed and wrote down everything that seemed to us the most interesting, and then we compared it with what we had already read by that time, and discovered the most interesting things.

The kid, it turns out, can do much more than it is written about in popular literature. And when another son was born, we began to treat him the way his older brother taught us: we gave him fingers so that he could cling to them with his tiny fingers, and in the first week he could hang on them for several seconds. From the first month they began to hold him over the pot, relieved him of all kinds of scarves and caps and allowed him to lie naked as long as he wanted ... "

According to the Nikitins, adults traditionally admit two extremes in communicating with a child. The first is over-organization, or over-caring care, and continuous activities, entertainment, and games. The child does not have time for independent activity.

The second extreme is the abandonment of the child. This means that communication with the baby is reduced only to his service (feed, drink, put to bed). This approach leads to the so-called "psychological starvation", delay in emotional and mental development and - as a result - to mental retardation.

The Nikitin system is based primarily on labor, naturalness, closeness to nature and creativity. The guys are the masters of themselves, their actions and routine. Parents do not force them to do anything, they only help to understand complex life and philosophical problems. Adults push, not outrun children, enter into dialogue with them. The main task of upbringing, according to the Nikitins, is the maximum development of the creative abilities of the growing person and his preparation for life.

The first principle of education"According to Nikitin": freedom of creativity of children in the classroom. No special training, exercises, lessons. Children do as much as they want, combining sports with all other activities. A child needs to offer something new - action or knowledge - when he shows interest in it.

Second Principle: everything that the kid can do himself, he must do on his own. You can, for example, when performing a task, work with him, but not for him. Do not prompt! Only in this case will the child grow up independent, inquisitive and proactive.

Third principle: natural combination of both physical and mental development of the baby. Thanks to this, the technique is well suited just for physically weakened children.

Finally, fourth principle: in the process of learning and developing a child, joint activities, common work play an important role. Girls help their mothers with housework, boys help their fathers, while mastering housekeeping skills. In addition, such joint activity is a type of effective communication, for which sometimes there is simply not enough time.

Also, according to Nikitins, the most important stimulus for the development of a baby is praise. Therefore, one should not forget to praise the child for success and not focus on failures.

The Nikitins did not intend to initially teach their kids everything as early as possible. They noticed that the children develop those aspects of the intellect earlier, for which the appropriate "advanced" conditions have been created.

The main discovery on this path was that in such conditions children started a lot earlier than it was prescribed for them by all standards: by the age of three they began to read, at four they understood the plan and drawing, at five they solved the simplest equations, "traveled" map of the world, etc. At the same time, they became more independent, more initiative, more inquisitive, more responsible - also beyond their years. The Nikitins understood: a knowledgeable person is wonderful, but he must creatively comprehend his work, his place in life, and this requires the ability and ability to apply in practice, in work, in any life situation.

Principles of teaching according to Nikitin

◈ The child is not forced into a specific training program. He plunges into the world of the game, in which he is free to choose the field of activity.

◈ The new game is not explained to the child, he is involved in it with the help of a fairy tale, imitating the elders, participating in collective games.

◈ Mastering a new game, as a rule, requires the active participation of elders; in the future, the child can practice independently.

A number of tasks are set before the child, which gradually become more complicated.

◈ The child should not be prompted. He should be able to think for himself.

◈ If the child cannot cope with the task, you need to return to easy, already completed tasks or temporarily leave this game.

◈ If the child has reached the limit of his abilities or has lost interest in the game, you need to postpone it for a while. This technique allows the child to independently seek solutions to problems unknown to him, to create a new one, that is, it leads to the development of his creative abilities.

Spouses Nikitins are characterized by extraordinary responsibility, amazing observation and amazing intuition. These qualities allowed and still allow them to find the right solutions even where scientists-specialists helplessly shrug their shoulders. (I. Arshavsky)

Content

The early development of a child is the foundation of his further maturation. Experts recommend many techniques, one of the most popular is Nikitin's cubes. An educational puzzle-type game perfectly influences the logic, attentiveness, imagination, perseverance of the child. You can start practicing as early as one and a half to two years and, increasing the complexity of tasks, play until school age.

What are Nikitin cubes

The famous teacher Boris Nikitin, when creating his unique intellectual tasks for children, adhered to the principle that the child must figure out the rules of the game himself. Among its main tasks are the development of independence, the desire to create something new, the training of logical and abstract thinking. Wooden or plastic Nikitin cubes are sold in 16 pieces in a set.

Each shape has 6 faces, which are colored differently. Typically, these are red, green, blue and yellow. The child needs to collect one-, two-, three- or four-color pictures, based on assignments from a special album. Nikitin's method assumes different variants of problems, for example, "Fold a pattern", "Cubes for everyone", "Bricks", "Fold a square" and "Unicub".

How to play

The essence of the games is to add pictures from cubes to a pattern or figure. The tasks differ from each other in terms of difficulty level. The simplest task is to fold the shapes into a 4: 4 square. Later, when the child is comfortable, you can fold patterns with many faces. For example, you can build a turret or a snake, a herringbone, a house, a flower, a tree. The finished outlines of the drawings will look like an object or just resemble an interesting pattern.

In his book Steps of Creativity, or Developmental Games, Nikitin recommends organizing the game in such a way that the lessons are pleasing to the child himself - the puzzle should interest the kid so that in the future he himself will be drawn to collect new figures. The smallest can be told a fairy tale or a fascinating story related to the figure being assembled at the same time. Nikitin's blocks are suitable for collecting any multi-colored patterns.

However, you should not interfere with the children with hints: it is better if the kid himself comes up with a figure, even if it differs from the given sample. It is also better to look for errors on your own.

In addition, Boris Nikitin gives parents some advice:

• During class, refrain from comments if the child does not succeed in something.
• If the child cannot cope with the exercise, it means that it is still too difficult for him and it is too early to start performing it. It is recommended to take a break and then start with easier examples.
• If there are several children in the family, it is better if everyone has their own kits.
• Don't oversaturate children with this game. Over time, she will get bored, then you should return to the cubes in a couple of months.
• When the baby moves on to the figures, it will be possible to invite him to make sketches of the resulting objects.
• You can arrange a competition for collecting figures for a while, so the children will feel a slight excitement and a desire to do their best.

Types of Nikitin cubes

Practical teacher Boris Nikitin developed his own method of developing games 40 years ago. The first children who grew up on his toys were the teacher's own grandchildren. Nowadays, educational games are known not only in Russia, but all over the world.

Before deciding to buy, decide what qualities you would like to develop in your child: logic, eye, imagination, logical and spatial thinking, etc. Based on this, choose a set. Nikitin's method for children leaves room for choice for every taste: decide in what colors the edges will be painted, how many parts the manual consists of.

Fold the pattern

The easiest option is a set of 16 plastic or wooden cubes and an assignment album, packed in a box. This technique is also called Nikitin's puzzles. It is suitable for beginners.

• Model name: Fold the Pattern Set
• Price: 550 rubles
• Characteristics: developmental technique for preschool children, the product is presented in different colors.
• Pros: develops imagination, color perception, the ability to combine, mental operations of comparison, analysis and synthesis.
• Cons: the cubes are very small (2: 2 cm).

Fold square

For children who have already mastered the simplest tasks, play options with uneven coloring of figures are suitable:

• Model name: "Fold Square Set"
• Price: 3500 rubles
• Characteristics: a set of three parts, each containing 12 squares of different colors, which are divided into parts (triangle, rectangle, etc.). This game is intended for children from two years old. The child has to reassemble the cut square.
• Pros: develops logical thinking, the ability to finish building to the whole, an eye ..
• Cons: the presence of small parts, chips and burrs on the squares, and the high price.

Unicub

A useful skill will be the ability to collect three-dimensional shapes - from geometric to funny houses or animals. There are special sets for this:

• Model name: "Set" Unicub "
• Price: 680 rubles
• Features: The puzzle consists of twenty-seven universal hexagonal identical cubes with colored edges. It is necessary to collect three-dimensional shapes from them. The game can be offered to children from one and a half years old.
• Pros: develops spatial thinking, the ability to combine, self-control.
• Cons: not found.

Cubes for everyone

When the child is comfortable with the blocks, you can offer him one of the most difficult games in the series. At an advanced level, children can collect objects from two or three figures - animals, a house, cars. The estimated age of the child is 5-7 years.

• Model name: "Bright Cubes Set"
• Price: 590 rubles
• Characteristics: The puzzle consists of seven complex shapes, differing in shape and color. Includes a brochure with sample assignments.
• Pros: ability to combine, attention, imagination.
• Cons: the presence of chips on the edge of the cubes.

Bricks

For those parents for whom great importance have environmental characteristics and safety of toys, you will like the variation with wooden blocks. They are more durable, although your toddler may like fewer brightly colored lightweight plastic cubes.

• Model name: "Little Bricks Set"
• Price: 400 rubles
• Features: Includes eight solid-colored wooden blocks and a quest pad. The child's age is from three years.
• Pros: helps to develop visual-effective and spatial thinking, eye.
• Cons: not found.

How to choose Nikitin cubes

Like any other toy, Nikitin's educational cubes should be chosen based on the wishes of the child. If he liked the wooden blocks, there is no need to impose multi-colored cubes or squares. When choosing Nikitin's cubes, it is worth considering the age of the child and the complexity of the game, the psychological and physiological characteristics of the baby.

You need to start simple. Even if the task seems to you elementary, let your child put together an example: let him feel the taste of victory, and only then move on to a more difficult level using task albums.

The game is easy to find on the free market. You can buy Nikitin cubes in toy stores, order in online stores. Another option is to buy it on the official website of the Nikitin family with delivery from Moscow or St. Petersburg by mail. The price of Nikitin cubes varies from 350 rubles to 3500 rubles: the exact cost from the manufacturer, materials, set size. On the official website it will be more expensive, but of better quality.

A very interesting system of educational games was created by the famous Russian educators-innovators Boris Pavlovich (1916-1999) and Lena Alekseevna (born 1930) Nikitin, parents of seven children from the Moscow region of Bolshev. The Nikitins are known in our country and abroad as the authors of a non-traditional system of raising children. They also invented and tested a new system of children's health improvement on their children.

Nikitinsky games are designed for children to play together with their parents. They have a high degree of variability, that is, they can be adjusted to suit yourself, your level, your interests. Each game, according to the author, " provides an opportunity to think about how to expand it, what new tasks to add to it, how to improve it; such a variety of tasks is foreseen in advance, and the transition to creative work on the games themselves will be the more successful the the level of the child's creative abilities "" became higher.

Most of these games are presented in the form of puzzles aimed at recognizing and completing images, that is, at the development of logical and imaginative thinking. Games have specific features: Each game is a SET of PROBLEMS that the child solves using cubes, bricks, squares made of cardboard or plastic, parts from a mechanical constructor, etc.

Tasks are given to the child in various forms: in the form of a model, a flat drawing in isometric view, a drawing, written or oral instructions, etc., and thus acquaint him with DIFFERENT METHODS OF INFORMATION TRANSMISSION. The problems are arranged approximately in the order of INCREASING DIFFICULTY, that is, they use the principle of folk games: from simple to difficult. Tasks have a very WIDE RANGE OF DIFFICULTIES: from sometimes accessible to a 2-3-year-old kid to unbearable for an average adult. Therefore, games can generate interest for many years (until adulthood). Some of the Nikitin games are very similar to the Frobel blocks.

Friedrich Froebel is a 19th century German educator, founder of the first kindergartens (KinderGarten). He designed blocks that allow him to acquaint the kid with the properties of geometric bodies, teach him spatial imagination, the ability to connect a part into a whole. There are 8 sets of blocks in total, they increase in complexity. The " Bricks" described by the Nikitins is one of the Frobel sets. The classic sets of Froebel blocks make up a cube and must be folded into a cubic wooden box, like the Nikitins.

Since Nikitin's games are mainly aimed at developing logic and building images, they cannot be the only means of a child's development. They can only be an addition to other methods, in which the whole range of disciplines is presented, aimed at the all-round development of the child.

As for physical conditioning, in my opinion, it is better to choose methods that are sparing for the child's psyche. Life at a temperature of 18 ° C, dipping newborns in ice water, in my opinion, brings psychological discomfort. Obviously, if a child is placed in harsh conditions, then his body will find reserves in itself to survive, and such a child will be stronger than ordinary children, but what happens to his psyche at this moment? Doesn't he begin to feel this world as a world in which he has to fight for survival every minute? Doman, unlike the Nikitins, proposes to keep children of the first month of life, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, at a temperature of 32 ° C, so that the transition from intrauterine life to our world would be as painless as possible. Perhaps this approach is more child-friendly.

About the Nikitin family and their children
Boris Pavlovich Nikitin was born in 1916 in the North Caucasus in the family of a Kuban Cossack. In 1941 he graduated from the Air Force Academy. NE Zhukovsky, served in fighter aviation. In 1949, he retired and began scientific and pedagogical work at the Research Institute of the Ministry of Labor Reserves, then at the Institute of Theory and History of Pedagogy, Research Institute of Psychology and the Institute of Labor Training and Career Guidance of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences. In 1958 he organized a group of teachers to repeat the experience of Makarenko. In the same year he met his future wife, Elena Alekseevna.

EA Nikitina was born in 1930 in the village of Bolshevo, Moscow Region. Mother, E. A. Litvinova, is a teacher. Father, A. D. Litvinov, is a military engineer. In 1948 she graduated from the Bolshevsk secondary school with a gold medal, in 1954 - from the Moscow Regional Pedagogical Institute. For two years she worked as a teacher in the village of Voevodskoye, Altai Territory. From 1956 to 1960 she worked at the Moscow railway school number 40. From 1960 to 1980 she was a librarian and head of the Bolshevsk library.

For forty years (1958 - 1998) of their family life and work, the Nikitins continued their scientific research and teaching practice in schools, kindergartens and in their own family, raising seven children. I saw very quick-witted "problem solvers" with free and inventive thinking, with a well-developed language. They were ahead of their peers in school curricula, some by two and some by four years (N. Amosov).

About yourself and your children:
“Once we had to perform in front of a large audience. We spoke in detail about our“ unconventional method of upbringing ”and answered numerous questions. In one of the notes we were asked:“ Were you also raised that way? What did you take into your family from your own childhood? "We looked at each other, laughed, and I said into the microphone: - No, of course, we were raised in a completely different way, we could not take anything from our childhood: it was ordinary with us, nothing from the rest children in general are not different. How ashamed I am now for this answer! How I would like to return that evening, to see those people who then for some reason applauded us approvingly, and to stop them, and to return their words back, and to remember, to remember , what did we take into life from our beginning and could not help but pass on to our children. "

The basic principles of the Nikitin system
It seems that what we have developed cannot be called a system yet. But the basic principles by which we are guided can be distinguished. Firstly, this is light clothing and a sports environment in the house: sports equipment entered everyday life from early childhood, became for them, as it were, a living environment along with furniture and other household items. Secondly, it is the freedom of creativity of children in the classroom. No special training, exercises, lessons. The guys do as much as they want, combining sports activities with all other activities. Thirdly, it is our parental indifference to what and how the kids succeed, our participation in their games, competitions, and life itself. All these principles were developed in the practice of life, in communication with children. We used them intuitively, unconsciously, pursuing only one goal: not to interfere with development, but to help him, and not to put pressure on the child in accordance with some of our plans, but to observe, compare and, focusing on the child's well-being and desire, create conditions for its further development.

How are abilities born?
We did not set ourselves the goal of teaching children everything as early as possible, we tried to create conditions for the development of their abilities - according to their capabilities and desires. Observing children, we noticed that those sides of the intellect were developing in them, for which we had conditions that outstripped development itself. Let's say a child has just begun to speak, and he already has cubes with letters, a cut alphabet, plastic letters and numbers among the toys.

The most important discovery on this path was for us that under these conditions children started a lot earlier than it was prescribed for them according to all norms: by the age of three they began to read, at four they understood the plan and drawing, at five they solved the simplest equations, with they traveled with interest on the map of the world, etc. At the same time, they became more independent, more initiative, more inquisitive, more responsible - also beyond their years. Now we need not only a knowledgeable person, but also creatively comprehending his work, his place in life, and this requires highly developed creative abilities and the ability to apply them in practice, in work, at any place, in any life situation. How can this be achieved?

So, the conditions for development should be ahead of it, prepared in advance. This is why we need - it doesn't matter whether in the house or in a children's institution - a much richer environment than the one in which children in many families are now growing up. We tried to meet any intentions of children to do something, to prove ourselves in any kind of creativity. To do this, they hung on the wall a map of the hemispheres, tables of hundreds and thousands, printed and capital letters, measuring instruments and, of course, many books. These first impressions can spontaneously generate interest in a particular area of ​​knowledge and even develop certain abilities of the child.

Together with the child.
What is needed for a child to get down to business, engage in it with enthusiasm and achieve a result? A common work or just working side by side is a mandatory interest in the labor process and its results from each other, this is a reason for conversation, this is an exchange of views, this is a common joy when it turned out well, in short, this is communication in its best form - in joint activities.

Another very important thing: we tried not to do for the kid what he himself can do, not to think and not decide for him, if he himself can think of it and decide. In general, in any activities of children, we try to encourage creativity, not to impose our opinions, and even more so decisions, we are not in a hurry to necessarily prevent a mistake or immediately point out it. In case of failure, we try not to reproach, not to shame, but if something turned out well, we do not skimp on praise. It was just interesting for us with children, and we never remained indifferent to what and how they do, what they do. It was not control, not tracking, not guardianship, not lessons with verification, but a completely sincere interest in the life of the children, in their various ebullient activities.

What an overload can be if a child does what he wants to do, and as much as he wants. The best rest is a change of occupation, and for our children this is not a problem: there are a lot of opportunities for such a change. Moreover, combinations of activities are possible. These ease, relaxedness were very close to play. At the same time, we tried to teach the kids to rejoice at the success of another as well as our own. By giving our children maximum freedom, we avoided three evils at once: both overload, and the possible disgust of children from necessary and useful things, and craving for street temptations, which turn out to be much more primitive and boring than their home life full of various activities.

What level of development can a child reach?
Stunned by the unexpectedly opened enormous possibilities of early childhood, we were carried away by the problem: what level can a child reach in his physical and intellectual development? They believed: the most important thing is intelligence and health, and the rest will follow by itself. When our first-born was one and a half years old, we taught him independence in this way: if he fell into a difficult position (fell or could not get something), we "did not pay attention to it", did not help him, despite all his tears and screams - let him learn to get out of difficulties. And they achieved success: the kid himself got out of the difficulty. But, without knowing it, we taught the kid ... not to reckon with the rest. And not only that.

When the second son grew up, we did the same with him. And then one day the younger cries from injury and fright, and his three-year-old brother does not even look in his direction - just like we adults. There was just indifference, indifference to my brother's tears. This struck me unpleasantly. It was then that I looked at myself, at our "educational measure" from the outside and understood why it sometimes annoys others. Sometimes, for a simple oversight, we “bring up” a child for a long time, saying: “I don’t need you like that!” He seeks our understanding and help, and receives - for a simple oversight - the most cruel punishment: his mother refused him. He protested as best he could, and I ... did not even try to understand him, followed in my actions from some locked-in rules, and not from the child and his condition.

Perhaps, with this "lesson" my mother's studies began, which does not stop to this day: I am learning to understand my children! Well, we, adults, have a strong sense of superiority in relation to children, unshakable confidence in our righteousness. Any objection seems naive and meaningless: what does he understand, what does he know to object ?! But when you admit that he can know what you have never heard of, that his mind is more direct, live, listen to his opinion and wonder: "Well done! He understood me better!" Honestly, it’s very nice, it turns out, to learn something from your son, even a little one. This raises both in the eyes of each other and ... even in their own eyes.

The untouchable time of a busy person.
My adult son: "I think it's generally good to listen to arguments: it's interesting to compare arguments, find a solution yourself, no matter who said what. After all, you did not force me and all of us to speak out, and there was no need to talk to anyone. adjusting - that was what was great. It probably teaches us to think well. Remember, in Ancient Greece this is how the young were taught: they were present at the disputes of the recognized sages, but they themselves did not take part in them, were not obliged to join either one or the other side. And so we learned to think. "It was wonderful! I just perked up. It turns out that it was not that we argued, but what the children took in it. They were free in their thoughts and statements.

For quite a long time we did not guess about the simple: everyone, even the smallest person, needs such a time when he is completely left to himself, he is not pulled, they do not climb, that is, he is not threatened by an invasion from the outside. And what older child, the more he needs this untouchable time. It is advisable to establish such a procedure from the very beginning: a busy person should not be distracted unless absolutely necessary. This is also a manifestation of the very care that both big and small people need.

Nikitins' Pedagogical Library.
N. Amosov, I. Arshavsky, V. Grum-Grzhimailo, R. Descartes, P. Kapterev, J. Korchak, A. Makarenko, M. Montessori, R. Owen, E. Pokrovsky, I. Sarkizov-Serazini, V. Skripalev, L. Tolstoy, H. Hiden, K. Chukovsky
Bibliography:

1. Nikitin BP Developing games. - M .: Pedagogy, 1985.
2. Nikitin BP Steps of creativity or developing games. - M .: Education, 1991.
3. Nikitina L. A. Mom or kindergarten. - M .: Education, 1990.
4. Nikitin L. and B. We and our children. - M .: Young Guard, 1979.
5. Nikitin L. and B. We, our children and grandchildren. - M., 1989.
6. Nikitin L. and B. Health reserves of our children. - M .: Physical culture and sport, 1990.
7. BP Nikitin, "Childhood without disease" S. - P. 1996.
8. L. A. Nikitina, "Father's House" 1982.
9. "I'm learning to be a mom" 1983.
10. "Confession" 1991.

Spouses Nikitins are characterized by extraordinary responsibility, amazing observation and amazing intuition. These qualities allowed and still allow them to find the right solutions even where specialist scientists helplessly shrug their shoulders. (I. Arshavsky)
About the reserves of our children:
Requests to doctors and nurses of the maternity hospital
The first request is not to do anesthesia (pain relief).
The second request is not to apply clamps or ligate the umbilical cord while it is pulsating.
The third request - you cannot take the child away from the mother after his birth! It is better if the mother herself puts it to the breast: to one and the other, so that the baby must suck the first drops of colostrum. Contact "skin to skin" for at least 15 minutes in the first half hour of life is required, absolutely necessary!
The fourth request. Birth ritual. So that the father also understands that the child falls into his hands, strong, reliable, and his direct duty to lead this person through life. Our children should not be flawed because of our savagery, which we show now in the first and very important moments of their lives.
Fifth request. Ask not to bury the lapis solution in the child, and his eyes will be clean.
Sixth request. Better to avoid BCG vaccinations.
Seventh request. In the first days of a child's life, the baby has the highest adaptive capabilities - he adapts to everything. It is necessary that he has free hands, and the fact that he gets scratched, let germs get in, the baby will begin to "form" his immunity. And in the absence of a developed immune system, terrible things happen to children! In the first 8-10 days after birth, the baby should know only the mother's breast. There is no need to make any corrections before the first tooth, that is, up to 5–7 months. Only when the first tooth appears, neither additives, nor mixtures, nor juices are terrible. I give advice: a tooth has appeared, you just need to give the baby solid food! Natural feeding until the first tooth appears.

Closeness (physical) of mother to child

So, African women carry children behind their backs for at least two years. After analyzing this phenomenon, European doctors came to the conclusion that these babies are much higher in developmental level than European children of the same age, despite the fact that mothers did not work with them, but simply carried them behind their backs. An increase in horizons, the possibility of almost unlimited knowledge of the world ("do not lock" babies in strollers and diapers!) Launching all reflexes that are laid down by Mother Nature. Lightweight clothing. Does it affect intelligence? Imagine yes! So, undershirts with sewn-on sleeves, in my opinion, are harmful. They block the system of touch: wherever the baby's hands fall, they do not feel anything. And cut-off sleeves on undershirts and cut-off socks on tights contribute to the development of the system of touch.

An enriched environment for children.
This is a system of principles and adaptations:

* the use of a ladder - "vstanka" Skripalev;
* free movement around the apartment of the child - "slider";
* games with "adult toys" - pots, mugs, spoons, plasticine, pencils and papers (be sure to teach how to hold the pencil correctly right away!).
* Freedom of knowledge of the world, removal of "traditional" prohibitions. Try to forget the expressions: "Don't touch!", "Don't go!" etc. Do not be afraid that the baby will ruin or break something. He learns the world and, knowing it, independently develops, takes an active life position.
* Equipment in the apartment of the sports complex.
* Educational games. There can be many of them if you are creative in this issue.
* Early acquaintance with letters and numbers (starting from 2–3 years of age).
* Early acquaintance of children with tools and materials, i.e. with manual labor. It is important to introduce children early to scissors, an awl, etc.
* The attitude of parents to the development of children. There are two positions here: 1) the child needs to be explained, told; 2) it is necessary to tell and show the baby only what he himself cannot reach. This is how independence is formed. It is the second option that gives creative individuals, and the first develops only performing skills.

How are abilities born?
B. P. Nikitin: The mental development of our children is based on all the same "three pillars" of ours: a rich environment for a variety of activities, great freedom and independence of children in classes and games, and our sincere interest in all their affairs. Here, too, I would like to emphasize once again that we did not set ourselves the goal of teaching them everything as early as possible, we tried to create conditions for the development of their abilities - according to their capabilities and desires.

We did not know and could not take the liberty of determining what and when develops in babies, and in our actions we proceeded from the simple observation that we already mentioned in the first part of the book: people talk to a baby from the day of his birth, when he is still does not understand anything. There comes a moment (for each individual), and the baby will say the first word. If you don't talk to him, then this first word may not be said in a year, or two, or three. But what if we do the same with respect to all other human abilities? Not to determine the timing in advance, but simply to create favorable conditions and see how the child will develop. In search of these conditions, we have developed the very principles that I spoke about.

Observing children, we noticed that those sides of the intellect were developing in them, for which we had conditions that outstripped development itself. Suppose a child was just beginning to speak, and he already had, among other things and toys, cubes with letters, a cut alphabet, plastic, wire letters and numbers. Together with a great variety of concepts and words that enter the child's brain at this time, four dozen icons called A, B, C ... 1, 2, 3, 4 ... etc., were memorized without any difficulty. one and a half to two years. And all because we didn’t make a secret out of it, we didn’t say that it’s early for you, we just called the baby letters, as they called other objects: table, chair, window, lamp, etc. And rejoiced when he remembered, recognizing them in any text.

It was the same with mathematics (abacus, counting sticks, numbers, a table: hundreds and thousands, beads on a wire, etc.), construction (all kinds of cubes, mosaics, constructors, building materials, tools, etc.), sports (sports equipment in different combinations in the house and in the yard). The most important discovery on this path was for us that under these conditions children started a lot earlier than it was prescribed for them according to medical and pedagogical standards: by the age of three they began to read, at four they understood the plan and drawing, at five they decided simple equations, traveled with interest on the map of the world, etc. And it was not only about comprehending some school wisdom that they easily mastered before school (fluent reading, oral counting, writing), but also that they they became more independent, more initiative, more curious, more responsible - also beyond their years. We could leave them at home alone (with a 6-7-year-old elder) for three or four hours and knew that nothing would happen. We could safely send a seven-year-old to Moscow (train, metro) or an eleven-year-old to Gorky (he took his own ticket, rode without any guardianship of a guide or any of the adults). And all this did not make them oldies - you still have to look for such inventors and mischievous people! But this is still to come.

At first we were only surprised by this, and then we became seriously interested in the problem of early development of children. It turned out that world science and practice has been studying the potential capabilities of the human brain for a long time. Scientists have come to the conclusion that the reserves of the brain are colossal, and they are used during a person's life is negligible, that genius is the most complete manifestation of the intellectual potential that any normal person possesses.

What does the realization of this potential depend on? What determines the level of development of abilities? To answer this question means to find a way to grow talents, not to look for them among the ordinary, but to raise everyone as talented people. And this will save the school from underperforming and repeaters, children - from overload, parents - from powerlessness and a convenient prejudice: "This is how he was born with me." It was simply impossible not to try to take part in the search for an answer to the question, where do talents come from? Well, of course, we in no way believe we have found a way to raise geeks. The child prodigy is a miracle child, an exception to the rule, a phenomenon that has not yet been fully explained. I'm talking about something else: how everyone, literally every baby born normal, can be raised capable and even talented. After all, this is the demand of the times - the scientific and technological revolution, the ever-increasing responsibility of mankind for everything that is done on earth, the need to foresee and make sense of every step of a person living on our planet.

L. A .: I think that responsibility depends not so much on talent as on conscientiousness. You can be super talented, but at the same time a selfish and selfish person, living according to the principle: "After me, even a flood ..."

B.P. Nikitin: This is our old dispute, we will return to it later. I will only say that now you need not only a knowledgeable person, but also creatively comprehending his work, his place in life, and this requires highly developed creative abilities and the ability to apply them in practice, in work, at any workplace, in any life situation. ... How can this be achieved?

The main thing is a timely start.
The most important condition for the development of all abilities, I consider a timely start. There are years of observation, reflection, research behind these two words. The result of this work was "The hypothesis of the emergence and development of creative abilities" (collection "Sociological and economic problems of education." Novosibirsk, "Science", 1969, pp. 78-124). For the first time, the unusual word NUVERS appeared in it, composed of the first letters of the name of the process that occurs in the human brain: Irreversible Fading of the Possibilities of Effective Development of Abilities. The whole work is presented in the 4th chapter of the book, its essence is as follows: every healthy child, being born, has colossal opportunities for the development of abilities for all types of human activity. But these possibilities do not remain unchanged and with age they gradually fade away, weaken, and the older a person becomes, the more difficult it is to develop his abilities.

This is why it is so important that conditions are ahead of development. This will give the greatest effect in development, which will be just timely, and not at all "early", as those who call the development of our children believe. By the way, we ourselves now consider the development of our children not only not early, but delayed in many respects. After all, the conditions that we have managed to create, of course, are still very far from the possible ideal. This is natural: you cannot raise such a problem with domestic efforts and means. Here are some examples. We could not even create satisfactory conditions for children to study in the field of fine arts, biology, foreign languages ​​and much more. And the development of the guys here clearly lags behind their capabilities. And now it is very difficult to catch up on lost time: for example, none of them really knows a foreign language, despite their high school grades and fours. And they could have known if one of us owned foreign language and simply spoke this language with children from the day of birth, as engineer V.S.Skripalev does with his kids. For Oleg Skripalev, studying of English language It will not be a problem: he speaks it the same way as in Russian, completely fluently.

So, the conditions for development should be ahead of it, prepared in advance. This is what is needed for this - it does not matter whether in the house or in a children's institution - a much richer environment than the one in which children in many families are now growing up.

Wide field of activity
Of course, by rich furnishings I do not mean carpets, crystal, Polish furniture, etc. All this is intended for the recreation of adults, and such wealth is of little use to a child: the polished world of hard-to-get things can only be admired, but nothing can be done in it. True, for children under the age of two, even a simple examination of objects and their images takes up to 20 percent of their entire waking time and is an important developmental factor. But the older the child becomes, the less he is satisfied with one contemplation, and he reaches for each object with his hand and begins to taste it first "to taste", then "to knock", then to any other use of it. But after all, crystal is not suitable for this, but if pencils, chalk, paper, glue, scissors, a hammer, cardboard, paints, plasticine, cubes fall into the hands of a child early, everything that can be used to work (act, build, do), the richer the conditions for its development.

We noticed early that kids prefer to manipulate not toys (they get bored quickly), but household items used by adults: kitchen utensils, writing and sewing utensils, tools, appliances ... And having noticed this, they allowed the kids to "enter" our adult world and explore its non-toy properties and dangers. We have already written in the first section of the book how we begin to introduce kids to this complex world of real things. We adhere to the same principle of independence in the future, not demanding from the kids “not to take without demand”, but demanding “to put it in place”. At the same time, welcoming research activity, we prohibit breaking, tearing, spoiling things "just like that" - "out of evil" or because there is nothing to do.

Accessibility does not mean, however, that children are allowed to touch and take everything without permission. We have things - and there are indeed the vast majority of them - that children can use at any time they want. It is pointless to list them: this is all that is not included in two forbidden categories: other people's and valuable things. By "strangers" we mean literally strangers, and in addition, personal belongings on dad's or mom's table, in grandfather's room, in someone's bag or briefcase, which are inviolable. These things can only be taken with permission. And valuable things - a strict prohibition was also imposed on them - these are watches, tape recorders, cameras, typewriter, etc., delicate mechanisms that a child unknowingly can easily ruin. We didn’t hide them from children, we didn’t put them away; but they made it clear from the very first acquaintance that these things should not be touched. And I do not remember a case when, due to the fault of the little ones, any of the expensive things went out of order, although they were always available, and the children were often left alone with them.

I think this happened because there were very few such forbidden things and they were not completely unfamiliar to the children. Usually the kids looked at them together with someone from adults or seniors, and they ceased to be attractive because of their unknown.

And most importantly, thanks to our efforts, children have more and more other interesting things that are always available to them, ranging from sports equipment to all kinds of tools and building materials, all this in addition to ordinary toys, dolls, of which children also have a lot.

In our workshop room, you can cut, glue, sculpt, saw, hammer in nails, chop, chop, drill, sharpen. Once we had two brothers visiting us for a whole week - two-year-old Vitya and six-year-old Dima. How happy they were that hammers come in different heights and nails too, and that the board can be nailed to the stump of a log on the floor. With what diligence they hammered nails into the poor board one by one, they did it better and better. And we with their mother - the doctor - looked at the "masters" and said to each other: "How can the kids lack such a real thing in a modern apartment!"

We tried to meet any intentions of children to do something, to prove ourselves in any kind of creativity. We noticed that the kid likes to write with chalk - they made a board from a piece of linoleum; noticed that he was interested in a map in the "Children's Encyclopedia" - they hung a large map of the hemispheres on the wall. So hundreds and thousands of tables appeared on our walls, letters printed and written on a poster, on cubes, measuring instruments, large wooden bricks, constructors, all kinds of games and, of course, books, many books - from fairy tales and baby dolls to encyclopedias and popular science literature. This is what we call the rich setting. A rich field of activity opens up for the child.

One professor, recalling his childhood, was surprised with what vividness and accuracy he could imagine the drawing on the wallpaper in the nursery and even the form of cracks on the white ceiling. So why, he wondered, not to provide such clots of human knowledge as a geographical map or periodic table for memorizing "for a lifetime"? These first impressions can involuntarily arouse interest in a particular area of ​​knowledge and even develop certain abilities of the child.

Those who are familiar with the biography of the woman mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya could pay attention to the following detail: the walls of her nursery were pasted over with pages from a mathematical book. But few people believe in the connection between these pages with formulas and drawings and the bright mathematical talent of the girl Sonya.

In our family, apparently, the periodic table "worked" in the same way, which three-year-old Anton drew attention to in the "Children's Encyclopedia". And later, smokes, smells, flashes began, the "Young Chemist" designer appeared, a whole wall in the workshop, clogged with chemical utensils and chemicals. Then the chemical-mechanical technical school, a victory in the chemical Olympiad and, finally, the chemistry department of Moscow State University.

Favorite tutorials
We tried to use this sensitivity and receptivity of the child's mind in teaching literacy, counting, in acquainting children with meramidline, weight, time, with a drawing, a plan, etc. Cashier of large (60 mm) written letters bent from wire, not only allowed to compose words-trains: "MAMA", "ANYA", "DOM", but also to teach the trainer to write. He had no idea about it, but, having made up the "train", he must "check all the cars", tracing all the letters in order with his finger.

It is difficult for grandfather to see on the small thermometer outside the window how frosty it is today. The kids, Vanya and Lyuba, will help him - they will set exactly the same temperature on a training thermometer of one meter height, where very large divisions and a movable red-and-white ribbon allow you to set any temperature that happens on our earth.

A watch with a large dial can also be removed from the wall, in which the hour hand moves 12 times slower than the minute hand, as on a real watch, but they can show at any time, as long as the kid turns the gear from behind. This toy allows children to master the clock and time measurement a few years earlier than their peers.

We have a "toy" that teaches you how to tie knots. On a frame made of duralumin corners and tubes, samples are tied in the upper half: 14 different knots, from the simplest to very complex ones like the climbing "shortening knot". And at the bottom 14 "ends" made of a nylon cord allow tying copies of these knots, which is not always possible for adults.

In order for the kids to get acquainted with the map and plan, we have a globe, and a plan of the house, a physical map of the world and an educational school, where its drawing is shown next to the plan of the area. Already five or six-year-olds are happy to find where the road, forest or village, drawn in the picture, or vice versa, is on the plan. And when they learn to read, they set each other tasks on the world map and know not only continents, oceans and seas, but also many states, capitals, rivers and mountains and love to travel by land and sea.

Even a seemingly simple table of hundreds gives kids a lot of food for thought and the opportunity to ask each other a lot of tasks. At first, they just point fingers at numbers and call them in order: who is next. And they quickly realize that after "twenty-nine" is not "twenty-ten", but "thirty", that is, they learn the order of numbers, and then begin to count different objects. When all the numbers are already familiar, we give puzzles: who will find the number 27 faster? 49? 93? Then, according to the same table, the guys master addition, finding, for example, the sum of numbers located vertically, horizontally, diagonally. In doing so, they invent different ways of addition and quickly get used to mathematical terminology.

Children get acquainted with the beginnings of geometry by a variety of geometric shapes cut out of colored paper and glued to the wall. Here, the main lines of the figures and their names are indicated: height, median, diameter, radius ... And the kids very early distinguish an angle from a triangle, a square from a rhombus, a circle from a circle, etc. cylinders and cones and pyramids, and we call all these geometric bodies by their "mathematical name".

In our workshop, teaching aids are actually used by measuring instruments: scales, dynamometers, stopwatches, calipers, etc.; and a variety of materials: from plywood and tin to all kinds of plastics; and various tools for processing wood and metals, including power tools that require skill and care in handling. Finally, games. First of all, these are constructors: plastic with large parts for kids; mechanical designers and even a large electronic designer, which the elders are fond of.

A special place among all teaching aids are occupied by our developing games, which we called "the steps of creativity." These games are unusual, they were born in communication with children and with their direct participation. You can play in them already in the second year of life, as soon as the baby begins to distinguish shape and colors, and adolescents and even adults play in them with pleasure.

What is creativity?
People do a lot of things every day: small and large, simple and complex. And every task is a task, sometimes more, sometimes less difficult. But with all their external diversity, and sometimes incomparability, all cases can be divided into two groups, if you approach them with one yardstick - whether it is an old task or a new one. People do a lot of things every day: small and large, simple and complex. And every task is a task, sometimes more, sometimes less difficult. But with all their external diversity, and sometimes incomparability, all cases can be divided into two groups, if you approach them with one yardstick - whether it is an old task or a new one.

Here is a typist typing on a typewriter or a chauffeur driving a bus down the street. At the same time, they solve their professional tasks. Each of them knows how to solve them. They first studied and then practiced over the years. Professional "tasks" are old, well-known for them, and the habitual work is called performing activity. Learning a profession, a person develops his performing abilities: attention, memory, the ability to copy the actions of others, repeat what he saw or heard, the ability to bring a professional skill to automatism, etc. a rule or a pattern - sometimes even mechanically. It is not for nothing that typists, for example, while typing and without even slowing down the pace of work, can talk with each other; the driver, continuing to drive, announces stops, makes remarks to passengers over the microphone, and can even joke.

But then they put the manuscript in front of the typist - a long text that must be arranged on one sheet in the most economical way or in some unusual way. This is unusual, she has never had to deal with it before: this is a new task for her. Or a chauffeur who came to the garage in the morning does not start the engine. A malfunction can be in the power supply system, and ignition, and electrical wiring, and in various parts. Not a single textbook and instructor can foresee all possible breakdowns and malfunctions and teach this to the driver, as is done when learning to drive a car. This means that this is also a new task. You have to think it over yourself, find its solution. And, although it is not very difficult, it can already be attributed to creative tasks.

The range of creative tasks is unusually wide in complexity - from finding a malfunction in a motor or solving a puzzle to inventing a new machine or a scientific discovery, but their essence is the same: when they are solved, an act of creativity occurs, a new path is found, or something new is created. This is where special qualities of the mind are required, such as observation, the ability to compare and analyze, combine, find connections and dependencies, patterns, etc. - everything that together constitutes creative abilities.

Creative activity, being more complex in its essence, is accessible only to a person. And the simpler one - the performing one - can be transferred to animals and cars, for her and the mind is not so much required. In life, of course, everything is much more complicated, it is not always possible to separate different types of activity, and most often human activity includes both performing and creative components, but in different proportions. The worker at the conveyor or at the stamping press is almost devoid of the need for creative activity, he must accurately perform the operations known to him, and the fitter of the automatic line or the inventor is almost constantly busy with it, and any of their activities is "saturated" with creativity, since new tasks in large work puts quantity, and they themselves find them in life.
Who needs creativity?

And no matter how strange it may seem at first glance, creative activity, which is not yet feasible for everyone and often requires real selfless devotion, is more complicated and attracts people, and not only young people. Apparently, these great difficulties can give great joys, moreover, joys of a higher, human order - the joy of overcoming, the joy of discovery, the joy of creativity. It is possible that this is both natural and highly symptomatic: after all, we are living in an age of a scientific and technological revolution unprecedented in the history of mankind; and life in all its manifestations becomes more varied and complex; it, the further, the more, it requires from a person not routine, habitual actions, sanctified by centuries-old traditions, but mobility of thinking, quick orientation, a creative approach to solving large and small problems. This became especially acute during the perestroika period, when glasnost began to open everyone's eyes and made it possible to see a sea of ​​problems that the limited mind of an obedient performer did not notice during the years of stagnation. How to deal with bureaucracy, how to overcome percentage addiction in schools? What can be done to make scientists from ardent opponents of innovation turn into supporters?

Mobility is also required by modern production, where literally before our eyes new professions appear and those that require heavy, monotonous, performing labor are on the decline. It is easier for a person with a creative mind not only to change their profession, but also to find a creative "flavor" in any business, get carried away with any work and achieve high labor productivity.

Acceleration of scientific and technological progress will depend on the quantity and quality of creatively developed minds, on their ability to ensure the rapid development of science, technology and production, on what is now called an increase in the intellectual potential of the people.

And our state, schools, educators and parents face a task of extraordinary importance: to ensure that each of those who now go to kindergarten and who are yet to be born, grow up not only as a conscious member of socialist society, not only as a healthy and strong person. , but also - necessarily! - an enterprising, thinking worker, capable of a creative approach to any business, for which he would undertake. And an active life position can have a foundation if a person thinks creatively, if he sees an opportunity around him for improvement.

It turns out that everyone should become creators? Yes! Let some to a lesser extent, Others - to a greater extent, but necessarily all. Where can we get so many talented and capable people? Nature, everyone knows, is not generous with talents. They, like diamonds, are rare ...