They are never too young to learn.

"He's still too young to know. Let him be. He'll understand as he grows older."

That is what we hear from some parents when their children commit wrongs when they are still young. The question is "When will he be old enough to learn?". When should the teaching start? At what age is he old enough to realise his mistakes?

Parents ought to understand that children start learning, at the latest, the day they were born. That is the age they start to learn about the little world they are put in. That little world consists of their parents and their surroundings.

They learn to love and be loved. They learn to respond to their parents. They learn the attitudes of their parents. They learn to make demands the correct way or the wrong way. All these depend upon the parents for the parents are the first teachers.

Do they feel security? Are the parents always present to attend to their needs? Do they feel the comfort of their parents arms?

Then, are there voices to listen to? Does the sound of language come often enough to help the child remember it?

Is there the opportunity to learn coordination? Do the parents play with the child to have it develop physical skills, to catch hold of parents' hands, toreach out for them?

Then, does the child get pampered? A morning or evening walk in his pram is good but when he is used to it and when parents' time do not permit such an activity, does it demand with cries and such cries are rewarded. When that happens every time, a child learns to cry for rewards. He learns that tantrums can get his demands met. When that happens, it is the start of a bad habit which, unless quick action is taken to stop further practice of such demanding ways, can lead a child to throw tantrums to expect being rewarded to stop the undesirable action.

Pampering starts innocently enough to have parents not realise that it could lead to a child with bullying techniques to achieve his aims in life. It can lead to undesirable ways unacceptable to society. That could bring danger not just to society but also to the child because as the child grows older and realises that tantrums alone could never get him what he wanted, he would resort to other undesirable ways to achieve his goal.

So, a child is never too young to learn bad habits or language. When it comes to language, it imitates the parents and that is the reason we sometimes hear very young children shout offensive or obscene words without much thought of its effect on other people. There have been parents who are so casual with such profanity that their children learn them at a very young age. As such, parents ought to be careful with the kind of language they use in front of their children.

Children are never too young to learn. Parents must ensure only good habits and proper language reaches their young.