If you could observe the development of your child’s brain, you would see that it grows very quickly. But besides an increase in the number of neurons and the volume of gray matter, there are a lot of important processes that parents need to know about in order to help their child develop correctly.
Let’s go through the facts and find out what to do so that the child grows up as an intelligent, bright, purposeful person and achieves everything in life that he wants.
Even Before Birth, The child is able to perceive the languages spoken by the parents
Finnish scientists have shown that from the seventh month of pregnancy, a baby in the womb hears well the sounds of the world around it, remembers words and distinguishes the languages spoken by the parents.
Therefore, after birth, children already have a base for further and faster development of speech.
Tip: If you are currently expecting a baby, then talk to him more often, read fairy tales, stroking your belly. Ask the future dad to do this too, especially if he speaks a different language. In this case, immediately after birth, your child’s brain will be able to process languages faster and then it will mix them less in speech.
Children actively learn to speak from 6 to 8 months of age
Of course, some time will pass before the first word appears, but a child at this age already catches, as parents say: the rate of speech, pauses between words, how syllables are formed and writes it down to his “hard drive” in order to apply this speech model later.
Tip: If you want your child’s speech to be formed correctly, talk less with him, pronounce the words clearly, speak not too quickly and not too slowly. Then your child will quickly learn to pronounce sounds correctly and you will not have to go to a speech therapist.
If your family speaks two or more languages, then use the rule – one parent – one language. So the child will simultaneously learn to speak two languages.
Baby babbling is a signal: “Mom, Dad, I’m ready to learn.”
When a child begins to actively “gag”, then his brain is ripe to begin to learn more.
Tip: Talk to your child more, pay attention to the world around you while walking, comment on what is happening, show and read books. Your child will absorb everything, and when he grows up, he will start to amaze you with his ingenuity and it will be easier for him to learn.
The rapid development of the child’s brain occurs from birth to 3 years
When a baby is born, his brain is one-third the size of an adult’s. But in the first 3 months of life, it increases in volume by 55%. The part that is responsible for motor activity – the cerebellum – develops most actively. During this period, it increases by 110%.
Tip: Allow your baby to move more from birth. If you have a newborn baby, do not swaddle him, let him move his arms and legs freely.
If your child is 6 to 9 months old, do not rush to teach him to walk, let him crawl more. The crawl stage is responsible for the formation of brain regions that play an important role in the learning process.
Well, if your child is already 2 – 3 years old or more, do not rush to sit him down for studies, but let him run, jump, climb, walk on curbs more. By practicing movements, the child develops the nervous system and intelligence. And when the time comes to study, school subjects will be given to him more easily than children who moved less.
If a child constantly wants to be near his parents, this does not mean that he is a “mama’s son or daughter”
Jerome Kagan, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, suggests that the attachment of a nine-month-old baby to his mother is due to the fact that he has already formed an emotional association with her. For example, just now mom was there and he was calm, and now mom went to the store, the situation has changed and emotions too. This means that a long-term memory begins to form in the child.
Tip: Nature itself tells you what needs to be done for the full development of the child. So don’t worry if your child wants to be there for you. Everything will change along with the stages of brain formation as you grow up.
The brains of boys and girls are different from birth.
Even in the womb, special hormones determine the functions that a female or male child will most easily cope with.
For example, boys are more easily given spatial and visual tasks – building from a construction set, collecting puzzles, etc. Girls develop emotional intelligence better. They begin to speak earlier, have an extensive vocabulary, and earlier begin to understand and evaluate their feelings and the emotions of others.
Tip: All children are different, so take this information more as an introductory one. Each child has its own developmental characteristics and this is normal.
Do not forbid your child to eat sweets.
Until the age of 8, a child’s brain consumes a lot of energy. A child weighing 20 kg per day needs to consume at least 860 kcal. And 50% of this energy will be used by the brain. For comparison, in an adult, only 20% of all energy is spent on brain activity. Therefore, it is important to ensure that a sufficient amount of glucose is supplied to the child’s body.
Tip: Do not completely restrict your child from eating sweets. Of course, the measure is important. But if a child asks you for a chocolate bar every day, these are the requirements of his brain. Allow at least a bite a day. And also be sure to read our article about healthy foods that improve the brain and memory of a child. There is important information on the topic of baby food.
Development of the child’s brain is no longer the formation of new neural connections, but the destruction of unnecessary
From birth, the child’s brain forms up to 40 thousand neurons per second. By the age of 5, 80% of these connections are destroyed by the brain itself. This process is called synaptic pruning.
To make it clearer, imagine that you need to go to a place where you have not yet been. You ask passers-by how to get there. You go, but in the end you end up in the wrong place. Go to the wrong place a few more times until you get to the right place. As a result, a neural connection is formed, which will now always lead you to the right place, and the brain must forget all the “wrong” paths.
For example, in people with autism, extra neural connections are not cut off in time, so they have a feeling of confusion even in a familiar environment, but where things are out of place.
Advice: Be attentive to your child, if it seems to you that something is wrong, immediately contact the specialists.
Bilingual children have special cognitive abilities
Learning to speak multiple languages from childhood has many benefits for the development of the child’s brain. For example:
- Improve cognitive skills – thinking, spatial orientation, understanding, learning, speech, reasoning ability;
- There are more opportunities for communication, learning and achievements in life;
- Higher IQ;
- Fewer chances of dementia in old age
Read more about the benefits of bilingualism and how to properly raise a bilingual child here.
Tip: If you have the opportunity to give your child more than one language, be sure to use it. In addition to courses on studying a foreign language, be sure to read books with your child. They are very beneficial for the development of children’s brains and help them better absorb a new language.
The human brain is “programmed” for the development
Our brains are “programmed” from birth to receive the necessary information and develop important skills without any external effort. A child’s brain is very flexible and able to adapt to everything.
For example, if a baby does not have brain pathologies, and he grows not in isolation, but in a family where there is at least one loving adult, he will in any case learn over time to eat himself, and go to the potty, and draw, etc.
Tip: Just surround your child with care and love, and also support and rejoice in his success. And if you want to teach him to read, then use the game, as we do at the Kidskey online school.
Psychologists have long proven that play is the best and physiological form of learning for children. Learning in the format of a game is structured in such a way that the child is interested and wants more. Children are 100% involved in the game and do not notice how fun and easy learning is.
It is in the game that the qualities of the psyche develop, which will determine the behavior of the child throughout his adult life.
So, dear parents, play more with your child, and if you want to see how our play reading lessons go, try the lesson for free.
