Your Child’s Growing Brain

By Caroline Knorr

A child’s brain grows most rapidly during the first year of life. So what can parents do to encourage brainy babies? The answer will surprise you.

What You Need to Know to Give Your Child the Best Start

Common sense is making a comeback. Dietitians are telling us not to eat so much. Financial advisors counsel against high-risk investments. And when it comes to child development, experts are taking a back-to-basics approach. The way to promote healthy brain growth in your child is not by playing classical music or buying fancy high-tech toys. It’s with lots of love, a stable home and caring, supportive adults.

The latest brain studies indicate that our basic nurturing impulses as parents give babies exactly what their growing brains want. But all too often, experts warn, in our attempts to make our kids smarter with so-called brain-building gadgets, activity-filled schedules and complex computer games, we don’t make time for the types of personal interaction that promote the best environment for developing brains.

“Young children need hours of positive, attentive caregiving. Quantities of quality time help children meet their potential,” says Bruce Perry, M.D., Ph.D., a neuroscientist on the forefront of brain research and senior fellow at the Houston-based ChildTrauma Academy, an organization working to improve the lives of traumatized and maltreated children and their families.

This may seem obvious to many parents. But research and an emphasis on early brain development in the mid-1990s led many parents to feel pressured to capitalize on every learning opportunity for their infants and toddlers. The result was a notable increase in high-tech learning toys, classical music recordings and structured play and learning programs.