If you could observe the development of your child's brain, you would see that it grows very quickly. But besides the increase in the number of neurons and the volume of gray matter, many important processes are taking place there, which parents must know about to help their child develop correctly.
Let's go through the facts and find out what to do so that your child grows up as a smart, bright, purposeful person and achieves everything they want in life.
1. Even before birth, a child can perceive the languages spoken by their parents
Finnish scientists have proven that from the seventh month of pregnancy, a baby in the womb hears the sounds of the surrounding world well, remembers words, and distinguishes the languages spoken by their parents.
Therefore, after birth, children already have a foundation for further and faster speech development.
Advice: If you are currently expecting a baby, talk to them more often, read fairy tales while stroking your belly. Ask the future father to do the same, 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 later they will mix them less in speech.
2. Children actively learn to speak from 6–8 months of age
Of course, it will take time before the first word appears, but at this age, the child already picks up how their parents speak: the pace of speech, pauses between words, how syllables are formed, and records this on their "hard drive" to later apply this speech model.
Advice: If you want your child's speech to develop correctly, avoid baby talk, pronounce words clearly, and speak neither too fast nor too slow. Then your child will learn to pronounce sounds correctly faster, and you won't have to see a speech therapist.
If your family speaks two or more languages, use the rule—one parent, one language. This way, the child will learn to speak two languages in parallel.
3. Baby babbling is a signal: "Mom, Dad, I'm ready to learn"
When a child starts actively "babbling," their brain is mature enough to start learning more.
Advice: Talk more with your child, pay attention to the world around you during walks, comment on what's happening, show and read books. Your child will absorb everything, and as they grow, they will surprise you with their cleverness, and learning will come easier to them.
4. A child's brain develops rapidly from birth to 3 years
When a baby is born, their brain is 1/3 the size of an adult's brain. But in the first 3 months of life, it increases in volume by 55%. The cerebellum, which is responsible for motor activity, develops the fastest. During this period, it increases in size by 110%.
Advice: Allow your child to move more from birth. If you have a newborn, don't swaddle them; let them move their arms and legs freely.
If your child is 6 to 9 months old, don't rush to teach them to walk; let them crawl more. The crawling stage is responsible for the formation of brain areas that play an important role in the learning process.
If your child is already 2–3 years old or older, don't rush to sit them down for studies; instead, let them run, jump, climb, and walk along curbs. By practicing movements, the child develops their nervous system and intellect. And when it's time to learn, school subjects will come easier to them than to children who moved less.
5. If a child constantly wants to be near their parents, it doesn't mean they are a "mama's boy or girl"
Jerome Kagan, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, suggests that a nine-month-old baby's attachment to their mother is related to the fact that they have already formed an emotional association with her. For example, the mother was just there, and the baby felt calm, but now the mother has gone to the store, the situation has changed, and so have the emotions. This means that the child is beginning to form long-term memory.
Advice: Nature itself tells us what to do for the full development of the child. So don't worry if your child always wants to be nearby. Everything will change along with the stages of brain formation as they grow up.
6. The brains of boys and girls differ from birth
Even in the womb, special hormones determine the functions that will be easiest for a child of female or male sex to handle.
For example, boys find spatial-visual tasks easier—building with construction sets, assembling puzzles, etc. Girls develop emotional intelligence better. They start speaking earlier, have a more extensive vocabulary, and begin to understand and evaluate their own feelings and the emotions of others earlier.
Advice: All children are different, so take this information more as introductory. Every child has their own developmental characteristics, and that's normal.
7. Don't forbid your child from eating sweets
Until the age of 8, a child's brain consumes a lot of energy. A child weighing 20 kg needs to consume at least 860 kcal per day. 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 the child's body receives enough glucose.
Advice: Don't completely restrict your child from eating sweets. Of course, moderation is important. But if your child asks for a chocolate bar every day, it's their brain's demand. Allow them to eat at least a piece a day. Also, be sure to read our article about healthy foods that improve brain function and memory in children. It contains important information on the topic of children's diets.
8. The development of a child's brain is more about eliminating unnecessary neural connections than forming new ones
From birth, a child's brain forms up to 40,000 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 get to a place you've never been before. You ask passersby for directions. You go, but end up in the wrong place. You take a few more wrong turns before finally reaching the right place. As a result, a neural connection is formed that will now always lead you to the right place, and the brain must forget all the "wrong" paths.
For example, in people with autism, excess neural connections are not pruned in time, so they feel confused even in familiar environments where things are not in their usual places.
Advice: Be attentive to your child; if something seems wrong, consult specialists immediately.
9. Bilingual children have special cognitive abilities
If a child learns to speak multiple languages from childhood, it gives many advantages for their brain development. For example:
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- cognitive skills improve—thinking, spatial orientation, understanding, learning, speech, reasoning ability;
- more opportunities for communication, learning, and achievements in life;
- higher IQ;
- dementia occurs less often in old age, etc.
More about the benefits of bilingualism and how to properly raise a bilingual child can be found here.
Advice: If you have the opportunity to give your child more than one language, be sure to use it. In addition to language courses, be sure to read books with your child. They are very useful for the development of the child's brain and help them better absorb a new language.
10. The human brain is "programmed" for development
Our brain is "programmed" from birth to receive the necessary information and develop important skills without any effort on our part. A child's brain is very plastic and able to adapt to everything.
For example, if a baby has no brain pathologies and grows up not in isolation but in a family where there is at least one loving adult, they will eventually learn to eat on their own, use the potty, draw, etc.
Advice: Simply surround your child with care and love, support them, and rejoice in their successes. And if you want to teach them to read, use play.
Psychologists have long proven that play is the best and most physiological form of learning for children. Learning in a game format is designed so that the child is interested and wants more. In play, children are 100% engaged and don't notice how they learn in a fun and easy way.
It is in play that the qualities of the psyche develop, which will determine the child's behavior throughout their adult life.
So, dear parents, play more with your child.
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