Baby Brain Development

Infant Brain Development.

Join Psychotherapist & Author Julie Wright and Psychologist Mona Delahooke as they discuss the importance of warm and loving engagement as part of infant brain development. Many parents get too hung up on what toys to buy, but research shows that the most beneficial type of play is what is called child-led or child-centered play time. This allows a shift in dynamics from you trying to teach your child, to getting down on the floor with your baby and letting them show you what they’re interested in and what their passion is.

Transcript:

- Well you might hear this term developmental clay, and what you might think is "Oh my goodness, I have to do all these things, I have to teach my baby and I have to buy all these flashcards and expensive toys." But the truth is you don't. Research shows that they type of play that's the most beneficial for your baby is what we call child-led, child-centered, it's also called floor time. In our mommy-me classes we call it special play time and what this time is it's time for you to shift the dynamic ... Read more

from you doing things to your baby or trying to teach your baby something. To getting down on the floor with them and letting them show you what they're interested in, what they're doing. And you follow them, you follow them, you watch them. And they start to feel that you are sharing in their pleasure and this is an amazing feeling to babies. It's developmental in that what they do grows over time. A tiny baby is just manipulating toys and looking at them and you're just kind of doing the same thing with them. As they grow their play starts to grow into rolling balls, and turn taking games and handing you things and then the most interesting level of play is imaginative play where they start to pretend, they start to play pretend. This type of play, it's really important to stay in the stance of following your child, because these are the moments where they're getting to pursue their passions, and passions might be something that you think is ridiculous, my son had a passion for brooms for a long time and I thought oh my gosh, everywhere we go he's looking for brooms! But I knew that it was important not to judge or shame him or dismiss him, but just to let him do it. Next thing I knew we were into mummies, next thing I knew we were into dinosaurs and then finally we were into high end cars and I was going to all these car shows. But what you're doing when you follow your child is you're strengthening what we call the executive function part of the brain, this is the part of the brain that strengthens our attention span, our focus, our ability to regulate, our ability to plan something and follow through. If you think about all of those things those are all of the aspects and the strengths in the brain that are not present when a child has an attention deficit disorder. So contrary to the idea of teaching your child and educating them and buying all these expensive toys is this idea of very simply following them in their play and knowing that that's the very best way to strengthen the part of their brain that they're going to need throughout their entire life.

- The foundation for growth and development for all people is relationships. And relationships, think of relationships as the vehicle that drive development forward. And inside that vehicle we have warm loving engagement, and that is the energy the, think of it as solid rocket fuel for your child's development. So you want to have warm and connected relationships as a foundation for all their treatment and for growth. It help's growth up the developmental ladder and it also help's children communicate. When they feel safe in relationship's they are communicating, different parts of the brain are working, integration happens and growth happens.

- You know what the best brain food for kids, I like to think in terms of foods, not just one particular food, and what I like to encourage parents to do is to actually think about balancing the macronutrients, the carbs, the proteins and the fat. And one of my all time favorite, whole grains, oat meal in the morning that's one of the best things you can give a child in the morning because they'll have energy for a longer period of time so they'll be able to focus and concentrate. Eggs are also great because they not only have protein but they also have omega fats which are so important for their brain development and to keep them focused throughout the day. As far as some healthy fats come from fatty fish, I love the salmon, the trout, those kinds of things because again kids who are growing, they're developing, they're brains are developing so the healthy fats are also very, very important for them.