Carlota Nelson, director of the documentary Brain Matters
Parenting is considered one of the most difficult jobs in the world, but there’s no formal education available on how to parent successfully. The good news is there are many ways parents can stimulate their babies’ brains and use day-to-day events as exceptional learning opportunities.
Carlota Nelson, director of the documentary Brain Matters, shares five easy, effective and science-backed tips that will help set your baby up for future success.
Carlota Nelson is the director of Brain Matters, a groundbreaking feature documentary about early brain development in children. Before filming began, Carlota spent eight months researching early childhood development with the world’s leading neuroscientists and members of the early childhood development community.
The concept of 'developing a child' does not limited to nutrition and physical exercise; it also includes the development of essential life skills in correlation with physical development as a child ages.
That's why effective parenting practice emphasizes not one but both the facet of child development: developing physical and necessary life skills to ensure healthy growth.
Although the journey of child development spanning from birth to early adulthood, the first five years of experience are crucial for any child's physical and brain development.
By this early stage, every child must learn basic motor skills, and it's also the time when brain architecture starts to develop. According to experts, early childhood is the best time for laying the foundation of physical and life skills. Let us enlighten you on what skills you should focus on, how to develop a child, and what you can do to develop them.
Physical skills are all about controlling the body parts to perform tasks, including walking, dressing, writing, eating, opening windows, zipping, brushing teeth, washing hands, and so on. The essential physical skills, AKA motor skills, are two types:
While gross motor skills allow a child to perform everyday tasks such as eating or tending to sanitation properly, fine motor skills involve controlling smaller muscles to perform essential tasks, such as holding a small item with a pincer grip. Fine motor skills include increasing hand-eye coordination; for example, a child's hand must be steady and effectively coordinated enough to hold a pencil steady to draw an object.
All children are different; you cannot compare one child with another. Although every child develops at their own pace, according to American Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there are development milestones. If your children fail to meet the milestone considerably, it's recommended to schedule an appointment with a child specialist.
Physical skills, AKA motor skill development, is crucial to developing a child. To ensure proper growth, a child must become cognitively and physically healthy and have a sense of emerging abilities. Both gross motor and fine motor skills should be dealt with separately. Let's dive into what we need to know about physical skills and how to develop them.
Gross motor skills involve effectively moving large body parts, including hands, arms, legs, and other large body parts. A child develops gross motor skills like rolling over, crawling, standing, and walking over time.
Yet young babies may be unable to control their body parts and may need your support to make movements. The best way to develop gross motor skills is to interact with and support them in performing necessary actions comfortably. A little encouragement will motivate the child to use their motor skills.
For older children, obstacle courses can help them to earn the necessary skills fast if there are any limitations. But, before planning an obstacle course for a child, you must consult with a child specialist or experts for tailor-made and age-specific courses.
The best way to develop fine motor skills is through assisted play. When babies play with their hands and feet, which involves grasping and holding, pressing buttons, or making use of a pincer grip and copying gestures can help a child to develop fine motor skills at an early age.
For toddlers, bath time is a great playtime; letting them have a bath may involve squeezing, filling, and pouring water, and playing with floating toys can improve their fine physical skills. Everyday activities such as holding a utensil, pen, drawing, or connecting blocks are great ways to develop fine motor skills.
You can consider the following games and activities: (note: set in tabular infographic format)
Games:
Activities
Teaching essential life skills help a child to succeed in the future. Learning skills such as communication or problem-solving at an early age help them become not only independent but also allows them to feel empowered and develop healthy self-esteem. There are a bunch of life skills a child should learn from early childhood.
Among them, let's discuss 7 key skills
that are essential for the overall development of a child and what you can do to develop them.
Communication is beyond spoken or written words; for anyone, including a child, it's shared understanding and expression. It's an essential skill a child should have started developing since their birth. No way parents can overlook basic communication skill while talking about how to develop a child.
How to improve: |
Teamwork |
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Talk and listen- Encourage the child to express herself. Ask open-ended questions about what they care about, what are they feeling about something, more importantly, listen to them empathetically and engage in conversation to facilitate effective communication. Picture Storytelling- Picture-based storytelling is a fun way of learning communication. Show pictures to the child and assist them in creating a logical sequence of a story and, finally, form a story out of them. |
Teamwork is an essential skill that should be put into practice at an early age. Playtime with other children or helping parents or siblings with chores will help a child learn how to work as a team and play their role. |
How to improve:
Plan a game: Play a game where you can join in with your child. For example, you build a tower with blocks, while the child stacks the blocks, and reverse the role.
Scenario-based group play: act out stories and scenarios involving two or more kids. Children typically enjoy engaging as a team and acting out.
Although adaptability might seem an overwhelming skill for a toddler, it's crucial to foster it from an early stage of life. Parents must act more responsibly to ensure a child becomes more adaptable as they age.
How to improve:
Interactive- pretend play: In group pretend-play, children should be instructed to take into account the reactions of others to keep the scenario going and act out in a group setting.
Scenario play: Give children a scenario with imaginative limitations, and let them engage and act out in a changed case scenario.
Critical thinking skill for a child is the ability to receive and process information and determine the best ways to use it. We are talking about the essential intellectual capacity of a child. Again, it's playtime when parents can put the skill into practice or engage the child in an activity to foster critical thinking.
How to improve:
Ask open-ended questions- Offer the child opportunity to figure out the answer. Ask questions such as:
We all want our child to be a genuine problem solver. Parents can nurture problem-solving skills at an early age. Children with superior problem-solving skills are bound to be more successful than those lacking. All you have to do is encourage and instigate problem-solving ability.
How to improve:
Scavenger hunt: Pick a few objects and hide them around home or outdoors at a familiar place where you can control the environment. Offer clues to find the things. Make it easy to find at first to engage the child.
Practice with puzzles: Puzzles stimulate the brain, and solving them is rewarding. Allow your child with different puzzles. You can also search for educational apps that help you choose age-specific puzzles for a child.
While it's an argument between two kids or siblings, an outburst is a common reaction for a child. All the children struggle with self-control, more or less. But as a responsible parent, you can help build self-control by making some conscious efforts.
How to improve:
Play freeze dance: The child will dance to music; when you say "freeze," the music stops so do they.
Engage the child in an obstacle course: Design an obstacle course and create a specific route the child should follow.
How to improve: |
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Read out loud |
Play board games: |
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Engage the child to retell a favorite story or assist and ask what happens next. |
Play board games with a set of rules with the child, and ask the child what's the next step. |
Having said all, we must repeat that every child is unique and have own pace of development. When it's about developing skills, some child may lack or exceeds in one or two skills and later catch up. Still, responsible parents who are interested in how to develop a child should opt for effective parenting technique that consciously nurtures all the essential physical and life skills along with physical growth.
