Hey guys, so I just became a father and there are peers around me who send their kids to these brain development centres such as Shichida, eduwin, Ditoso, Heguru and many more..

I was wondering what are your opinions on such centres?

As when I was young me and my siblings never had such opportunities to these facilities but we all turned out well haha, one of us is a phd holder and also the other had a scholarship to study abroad in the States of a well known University in Cali..

Seems like there are so many options and activities now for Toddlers in this age of time

I observed that these activities will help toddlers to develop their mental skills earlier. After that, transitioning from toddlers to young kids - they will grow up just like us when we were young.

Realized similar patterns for babies fed on formula milk powder (super fast mental development) vs mom's milk.

Besides from nutrient, Suitable load of outdoor activities and introduce fine motor skills to toddlers. Learn from play and parent as role model. With that i believe thing will eventually get into right path.

I did send. In the end I find there's no significant difference

How old? 1-3 years old is too small. Reccommend start sending to playschool/preschool starting 4 years old.

I send my daughter at 4 years old to a playschool.

Develop their fine motor skills. Starting 5-6 years old only sent to really learning preschool.

I noticed she picked up reading, writing and simple math fairly quickly at 5th years old.

She Turn out just fine.

I think sleep is super important

Some parents over do with the learning, till late night etc

That one has bigger impact than most other things

And audio visual devices at night, also impact sleep

Impacts physical growth, brain growth and regeneration

Studies show brain growth for men finishes at 25 years old

And studies also show the brain need "boredom time" instead of overstimulation

Edit:
There's currently a trend where the kids final height is up to 1 foot less than the expected height due to mobile and iPad use

Lack of vitamin D from lack of outdoor activity

Increased rate of myopia

And markedly short attention span

Brain crave for further over stimulation

Impact real learning long term

This post has been edited by sakuraboo: May 8 2025, 09:32 AM

1st of all, you need to ensure that the environment where you raise your child is similar to what we had before.
Nowadays, those centers are popping up everywhere because kids no longer have the same opportunities to explore the world on their own.
Most of the time, they’re indoors. Thats why these centers create syllabuses to simulate real-world experiences (my thought only, not really sure on this).

Personally, I did not send my kids to those centers. Instead, I let them explore their surroundings.
Me lucky because I live in a gated, landed property where my kids can freely play with friends anywhere within the gated area.
I have a very good neighbourhood.

That’s just my two cents...
but if u wanna try out those centers, no harm.
It could be a good experience to see what they offer.
I also not sure how much their fees.

Parents play a more important role in developing their child rather than sending to such centres

(i know you are asking about brain development centre and not tuition centre) but anyway let me share something (my wife is running a centre)

i have seen all sorts of parents sending their child to tuition centres at a very young age (as young as 5 years old)

This is what i have observed among the two extremes

Well educated parents who also nurtured their kids well at home
Their children are fast learners, progress well, and easily understand instructions. When you speak to their parents, you can easily see that they are well educated and my assumption is that they have also nurtured their kids well at home. Or highly possibly, these kids inherit good genes from their parents. There are many journal articles out there highlighting the role of genes in kids' intelligence.

Parents who do not nurture their kids well at home
Their children usually progress slowly. Some even can't understand basic instructions. Well, learning development among children is also heavily influenced by genetic factors other than environment. When you speak to these parents, you can easily see it that these parents are those rich traders/businessman type who are not well educated. Some of these kids attended multiple extra classes but yet they don't seem to excel well academically.

Other than the two extreme groups i observed above, there are also the average-performing students.

In conclusion, no harm sending your kid to those brain development centres but you yourself, as a parent, play a more important role in developing them at home.

Spend time with them at home and encourage them to read instead of giving them handphones. Take them to libraries/bookstores. < These are the more important things to do and it costs less than sending to those centres.

My Daugther attending Montessori playschool at 26 months, we decided to let her go to playschool since she can talk and express herself what she want, what she don’t like.

Now, she’s a speech monster, even more talkative and can structure sentences well enough at 3 years old.

Learn to Make friend, fight, be friend again with her classmate lol

She can count, read abc, and sing nursery song

couldn't agree more with you have shared

from my observation, children will follow what the parent do, so perhaps TS can lead by example and spend time together for education and fun time together, not just sending kids to school/enhancement classes only

back to your question, what are your expectation of your child? are you training him/her to become excellent and achieve T10 in the future? only you and your spouse knows about this

Hi all! Thank you so much for the wonderful response..

I also honestly do not want to overdo with learning like what sakuraboo mentioned.. Just want her to enjoy her childhood and the ultimate goal is actually to ensure she is capable enough when it comes to standard 1(planning to send to chinese school) and do not feel left out

she's currently 22 months old


Her development is ok, can express feelings now and sentences.. Our daughter have anxiety with strangers then she would either tell us daddy, abang papa(scared) or mommy, abang(papa).. Haha the abang are the cleaners at our condo or the security guard.. She knows how to express feelings as well for example when she's angry she would do her angry face and cross her arms when my mother annoys her and every night before i go to bed I will always ask her how was her day and she told me about the experience that she was angry with my mom and showed the action of crossing her arms and showed the angry face..

I was shocked when she did that lol.. Because when it happened, she was with my wife and my mother..

She can also sit down on her own at the table and enjoy her food which makes it a lot easier for us to take her out for dining.. She wouldn't allow us to feed her and luckily she's still not an ipad baby although been exposed to some of the toddlers who join us for meals who sees ipad

Btw speaking about preschools, i was from Montessori myself at The Children House in Bangsar.. I truly enjoyed my childhood there..
So I went to enquire the 1 near lucky garden bangsar, but i felt the quality of teachers fell so much and didn't feel comfortable leaving her there..

Which Montessori did you send your daughter cuddlybubblyteddy?

My friend highly recommended Finnish early education for my daughter who is a teacher herself but the distance not too favourable..
https://www.instagram.com/funhome__/

So I did some searching and found out TTDI, KL has one as well so most likely will check it out
https://www.instagram.com/miracletotselc/

Wait what? Formula milk gives super fast development vs mother's milk?

Don't studies show that the best milk for a child's development is mother's milk and that while formula is a good substitute, mother's milk is still the best?

I think formula is better than breast. My daughter's development is so slow lol .. at 10 months can't even crawl yet, sit also very wobbly .. haha .. compared to her peers at the same month. Some of them can walk le.

I have been hearing formula child are smarter they develop faster, but breast fed infants are less prone to sick.

This post has been edited by malz89: May 8 2025, 02:42 PM

My son was formula fed because unfortunately my wife couldnt produce much milk. He got seriously ill at 3 and a half months old. RSV Virus that caused him to be in ICU for 5 days. He stayed in the hospital for a total of 12 days. Another relative's baby who was breast fed got the same RSV was out of the hospital in 3 days. Normal ward.

His speech development is quite good at his age of 2 years 7 months but the relative's kid has a faster speech development. I know its anecdotal but.....

Some people share similar thinking based on two main points:

Breast milk from the previous generation is the same as today’s—nothing has changed biologically.

Formula milk, however, has evolved—the formulation from the past is not the same as today’s. With advancements in biotechnology, modern formula has improved significantly.

if u wan your kids learn fast speak fast..send them to international skool

Haha .. my wife tries very hard to keep her milk supply. I told her to stop but she insisted because she has been reading that BM is better. My daughter got sick too occasionally but she recovers quite fast too.

Formula today and during our days, they are quite different already. Doctors do not encourage FM because they are afraid to break the convention. Else everyone would go for FM, no one will breastfeed anymore. If you look at the formula in the market today, most have supplemented with dha, etc for brain development.

Yeah .. formula changed over the years. Either getting antibodies from parents to build up their resistance or to go for FM for better development .. haha

Dont so kiasu like singapore. People do u also want follow

If TS can afford why not leh. Haha.

But speaking of a working parent in sg. Sg has a very different system. I get to send my daughter to sch as early as 2 months.

Infant > playground > nursery > kindergarten.

Infant they have some activities to do, although most of the time either sleep or eat.

When they move to playground, they do more art work and learning.

Nursery is more on learning fundamental

Kindergarten is where they are exposed to more things.

It is pretty healthy exposure to the kids from early childhood.

I think TS wants something like that ba.