Gifted Toddler?

If you've noticed how smart your little one is and want to know the best ways to nurture their intelligence, you may also feel confused about how to proceed. There's a lot of conflicting parenting information online and elsewhere.

Here's some advice from a child development specialist with 5 decades of hands-on experience and a couple of degrees.

Read the experts, but trust your instincts.

When in doubt, talk to friends and family. Weigh what they say carefully, but still, trust your instincts.

Here's why. It turns out that after decades of studying the minds of the very young, the conclusions academia is arriving at are the same as much of the old school wisdom.

In a nutshell. Pay attention to your little ones from day one. Connect with them and learn to trust each other. Communicate with your eyes, your body movements, and your smile. That's how infants are wired to learn, and that's what is featured in the serve and return method promoted by the Harvard Center on the Developing Child.

But serve and return's only the first of 4 problem-solving techniques featured in our free Baby Brain Toolkit/Curriculum.

Parents, teachers, providers, grandparents, nannies, and all other caregivers can use this presentation to guide their activities and ensure their babies' brains get exactly what they need to reach their full potential.

All the techniques and activities suggested in the presentation are well-researched, with citations included, and broken down into simple steps that are fun for you and your child. It takes only 10 minutes to read, yet it offers an infinite number of open-ended activities to stimulate your child's learning.

Since you've read this far, we respect your interest and don't want to lose you by asking for your email address, even though we'd love to stay in touch.

So here's our little secret: when you visit our website, just click on the heart or the little black star to see a copy of the toolkit without signing up for our community. Then go ahead and sign up later if you

want to stick around.

That way, you can see our 10-minute presentation right away and start using the techniques with your little ones. We don't mind if you share it either. We just want to see it used to support those who support our youngest.

You can visit our nonprofit website here and get your free copy of the Baby Brain Toolkit/Curriculum and more!

Nanci J Bradley is an early childhood and family educator, author, teacher, family aerobics instructor, and all-around fun-loving person. She believes in the power of sleep, healthy eating, lifelong learning, and most of all, PLAY!  (click on the word) She studied early childhood education at Triton College and received her BS in education from NIU in 1986. She received her MA in human development from Pacific Oaks College in 2011. She lives and teaches in Madison, WI.