Brain Truths of a Baby

Every year, there will be a new wave of education fad that will sweep the world off its feet. Teachers, parents (especially the more educated ones), professors will start scurrying to find out more about the fads and try their best to implement into their curriculum and their lifestyles in the hopes that the future generations can greatly benefit from it.

Some fads require more than years of study before they are proven successful. Some cause uproars when after years of implementation; they find that these fads are not useful to the child but becomes detrimental instead. It has become experiments to try out on our children where the adults adopt a "hope for the best" or "just in case" approach for our little ones (Ok ok, I admit that I am testing out the Babyplus at the moment).

Instead of trying out the latest gadgets, I think most of us have forgotten to go back to basics. It's like building a house. We are always swept away by novelty and interesting ideas that somehow we just forget if the basic foundation has never been stable in the first place; bricks that we pile high up and above will just collapse and give way one day. And its effects can be tragic.

Brain development in babies and earlier is now one of the latest rage of education tools that bombard the recent market. No doubt this is due to an increasing demographics of educated parents who can afford it (aka the middle class).  Many marketing tools have started to use facts or statistics quoted by journals and studies to sell their items. Furthermore, marketing has come to such that it is beginning to make some parents guilty whereby if they do not purchase a certain item; their child is bound to miss out on an enriching journey that may forever change their lives and it will be all their fault.

A Summary of What I have Learnt:

1. Nature and Nurture is inseperable. You can shape their intelligence or increase it after your child is born.
2. Currently, there is little evidence to show that one will start learning when they are in the womb.  Altheough there were few studies that seem to demonstrate the link between intelligence and playing of Mozart Music; results are not replicated in similar studies. Therefore, one has to ask themselves," Are there any other factors not included or stated in the report? What are the different conditions between the studies?" Remember, these studies are also by human beings. Errors or omissions can be anywhere. However, if you still want to try, you can use this link to use some as samples.
3. To put in layman terms, brain connections are always made at every single waking moment of the day. Simply, it goes as in "If I do this, I will get this." This is why associations are very important and no, I do not encourage "Good parenting, Bad parenting" mentality. Somehow, to me, it seems to serve more as an ego boost to the parent (who plays the good parent) rather than anything else.
4. A child learns certain things faster at certain ages. Self-control usually takes place at an older kid while younger kids are taking in all sorts of basic information as they shape up their brain memory (in layman terms) at lightning speed. However, when they get older as in teenagehood, information that they do not use basically gets "thrown away". Also the speed of connections within the brain slows down as one gets older. Therefore, key words are: positive reinforcement, repetition and routine.
5. Early brain wiring is resistant to change. Remember, the moment the baby wakes up each day, a connection is made all the time. If a child has a strong emotional start in the beginning of his/her life, she/he is able to handle stressors and resilience to many things later on in life (Somehow, this makes you think again when you read teenagers killing themselves over love problems).

As an educator, I strongly believe that brain is the most basic tool that all educators and parents should look at or read up about. This can help to explain several things about the certain things our teenagers do that make us shake our heads later.

Read this article for an excellent overview of your baby's brain develops.