Answers For Me : Boost Your Child's Brain Power

	–

	My Answers







	Heart Healthy Cuisine Who says healthy food can't taste good? Bible Study Institute Enjoy Bible study and discipleship training. Dear God . . . Short prayers that inspire courage and faith Signs of the Times Learn what Scripture says about the future

AnswersForMe Find Answers Children

Email | Print |

Boost Your Child's Brain Power

By Kay Kuzma, EdD

Photo: Anissa Thompson

Parents, if you want to raise brighter more capable children, you’ve got to take advantage of the first seven years when their brains are developing most rapidly. But that doesn’t mean you structure your children’s lives and sit them down for a lecture. And you don’t need to buy fancy gadgets that claim to increase your child’s intellect, such as expensive cribs with attached aquariums for fish, recording equipment programmed to play animal sounds, and alphabet mobiles that dangle above a baby’s eyes. And don’t get fooled by advertisements that claim infants can read by six months of age if you just buy big eight-inch red letters to flash in front of them ten times a day.

The truth is, things don’t build intellect, skills, and abilities. People do. That’s why the primary role of dedicated moms and dads is to make sure their children get proper environmental feedback in order to meaningfully organize their world.

First, babies need someone to point out what is important from the mass of stimulation that is impinging on their senses. They need someone to quiet their confusion and make them feel secure.

Second, they need someone to interpret the stimuli for them, to tell them why it is important and how one thing relates to another.

And third, growing children need someone who will challenge them to use what they are learning to solve simple problems that they encounter every day, like how to get something that is out of reach or how to communicate their needs.

For young children, learning takes place best in an environment that invites discovery and play; where parents communicate ideas and information in practical ways when children are open and ready to understand “why,” and when parents provide a wide variety of learning possibilities that foster imagination and creativity. That’s why play is so important.

Children At Work

Play is a child’s work. Through play, children learn how to use their muscles; they coordinate what they see with what they do; and they gain mastery over their bodies. They find out what the world is like and what they are like. They acquire new skills and learn when to use them. They cope with complex and conflicting emotions by reenacting real life. Play is so much a part of children’s lives that they do not completely differentiate reality from fantasy. Their imagination, at times, is reality! That’s why the first seven years are often referred to as “the magic years.”

Play also increases social skills. When parents play with their children, the parent-/child bond is strengthened, but it also tends to improve children’s behavior. A study from Oxford University found that the more time children spent playing with Mom at age three, the better their behavior by age four. Apparently, by getting down on a child’s level to play, you not only show interest and commitment to your child, but you teach cooperation and social skills much more effectively by modeling this behavior than you can teach through telling.

You can raise brighter, more capable children if you’re just willing to spend fun time together. When it comes to boosting the brain power of your children–play is the very best way.
______________________________

Kay Kuzma, EdD, The First 7 Years, Pacific Press, 2005. Answers © 2009 AnswersForMe.org. Click here for content usage information.