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Video transcript

Halime Duzen (migrant advocacy worker, mother of 2): Play is very important for babies. Why? Because of learning.

Naime (mother of 2): My name is Naime. I am 33 years old, and I have one ten- months-old baby.

Halime: Babies can learn numbers with fun activities

Naime [counting her baby’s fingers]: One, two, three, four... High five!

Halime: You can use your fingers, you can use cups, you can use cars, you can use colours.

Naime: He likes everything. He likes to play the ball, peek-a-boo, hide-and-seek.

Halime: As parents, we’ve got big responsibilities. I think we need to be very creative.

Naime: I can’t read too much, so just look at the pictures.

Halime: As a parent, if you talk with them, and then if you laugh with them, if you sing with them, that’s the most important thing, as a parent, to grow up our children. Enjoy your baby and then they will learn everything from you.

Naime: I am dancing for my baby and I am singing, Turkish baby song. [In Turkish with English subtitles] Being a mother is beautiful. Seeing your children grow, bringing them into the community. And then they can look after you when you’re old! [laughs] It’s wonderful.

Tajma (mother of 2): I’m Tajma; I’m a mum of two kids. Eldest one is ten years and the younger one is 22 months.

Halime: Babies love to read, even before they speak.

Tajma: As a habit, we read always. My hobby is reading but my kids copy and yeah, they are good readers. I try to contact with the little one, showing and pointing, and then little by little they expand, according to their age – baby books, toddler books, like that.

Halime: You can read to your baby every day. When you sit down with your baby, it’s very important physical contact, hold them nice and then reading the books together. Such a great way of attachment with your child.

Tajma: The main thing I enjoy as a parent is spending time with my kids and interact with them, do a lot of things with them and play with them. Yeah, I’m so enjoying and so happy.

[Tajma sits on the floor, singing and doing actions with her daughter]

Halime: I think singing is such a great activity, such a relaxing activity. You can learn with singing. You can relax with singing.

Tajma: Especially, we need to sing with them. Not only put the radio – we need to sing, and we need to do some actions – even with the Sinhalese or the English – yeah, they love that; they try to always copy us.

Tajma: They are like flowers, they are blossoms. When the smile comes through their hearts, hugs and kisses – yeah, I like. If you can spend even some little time with them, yeah, they are so happy and they can learn a lot. And we can learn a lot from them sometimes.

Tagrid (mother of 4): My name is Tagrid. I came to Australia in 2002. I’ve got four kids: three boys, one girl.

Halime: I think it’s very important, even if they don’t know [how to], read with your child, explore the world with your child, and encourage them to learn more.

[Tagrid reads a book and talks about it with two of her sons]

Halime: They can see the colours there, they can see the shape of words, they can see the animals there.

Tagrid: I try learning with my kids. So, start with the alphabet or numbers or colours. So I help my son. I like to help my son. When I help my kids they get more good, then good, then good.

Halime: Playgroups and libraries are great ways of going out and mixing with other children.

Tagrid: When they are in playgroup, they are with a bunch of other kids, and they sing and sing, and make stories and everything. Sometimes go to the park and play. If raining I take him to a jumping castle or jungle gym or something. And I love my kids. Yeah, I love them much.

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  • Department of Social Services

Raising Children Network is supported by the Australian Government. Member organisations are the Parenting Research Centre and the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute with The Royal Children’s Hospital Centre for Community Child Health.

Member Organisations

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  • The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne
  • Murdoch Children's Research Institute

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