The 2 Most Effective Ways to Boost Intelligence and Build Resilience in Children 0-3 According to Peer-Reviewed Research

Everyone wants their kids to be smart. And happy. There are a few things that neuroscientists know that others may not.

one

Start Early

Too many people wait too long to start. It's not that the experts think we could prevent all mental and physical challenges. Of course not. Genetics and trauma count.

However, they do agree that we can develop resilience to challenges by forming new neural pathways as needed. Those pathways are strengthened by repetition. Those pathways develop the fastest early on. Here's a quote from the Harvard Center on the Developing Child.

In the first few years of life, more than 1 million new neural connections form every second. After this period of rapid proliferation, connections are reduced through a process called pruning, which allows brain circuits to become more efficient. In light of these findings, focusing on early childhood only makes sense. -Center for the Developing Child, Harvard University-

The infant brain, however, isn't ready for ABCs and 123s. It's about learning how to learn and approach everything in life. So what can we actually do to help them at such a young age?

The experts say that for the first few years, we should work on forming emotional connections with them and building on those connections.

How?

Communicate with them, read to them, listen to them. Social learning leads to cognitive learning for many reasons.

two

Play

Let them learn the way their brains are wired to learn. Through play.

Have a great time with your child. Rather than "working" on skills, PLAY!   more. Laugh more. Explore! Those things actually work to increase their intelligence.  

Allow them large blocks of time to play freely. It helps with communication. The back-and-forth, right-to-left movements inherent to play enable their brains to form stronger learning connections.  If they ask you for a lot of help with their play, try giving them a little instead and see how they do.

Sometimes kids need to feel bored to come up with good ideas. That kind of problem-solving transfers over to creativity and innovation.

Play works to increase intelligence because it is a multisensory activity. It combines visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and other senses to create a fully immersive learning experience. Multisensory activities help the brain form connections between regions. This is what the young child's brain needs to learn and develop efficiently.

If you want more information about how play supports learning, the Harvard Center on the Developing Child, has articles, videos and examples when you Click Here.

Caution

When play is chaotic, overstimulating, and underegulated, as it is in some environments, the brain shifts into survival mode, operating in a fight-or-flight state. In this state of mind, higher-level cognitive connections may be underdeveloped. When play is violent or frightening to a young child, their brains may be forming and reinforcing negative connections.

Although using physical force is a natural progression of socialization for many children. It should never be allowed to continue unchecked. Environments need to feel safe in order to be conducive to learning. Environments that allow children or adults to be physically or mentally abusive aren't positive learning environments.

So how do we create the best learning environments for the children we care for? What do we actually do with them to boost their development when they're that young? That's a good question, and luckily, science has already answered it.

This true story from a center in my town shows how bad it can get when children are considered "diaper babies" that don't need much of anything in particular until they get older.

During COVID, many child care centers lost enrollment because parents were working from home, keeping their children with them to stay safer. One of the popular, licensed and accredited centers in town that serves many hospital employees had to lay off several teachers.

Since centers typically assign the more educated teachers to the preschool rooms, the infant teachers were the first to be laid off. The preschool teachers, now in charge of the infants and preschoolers in a mixed-age classroom, didn't know what to do with the infants, since they weren't trained in infant care and weren't parents. So, according to an inside teaching source, they just did nothing.

In order to fill in the gaps between what academia knows about early child care and education and what is actually happening to children on a daily basis, Early Childhood Rocks, a nonprofit organization, has identified 4 simple techniques that can be used to boost intelligence and to build resilience to adversity during the first few months and years of life.

These techniques are all supported by peer-reviewed research and can be used daily by parents, teachers, caregivers, grandparents, and nannies, among others.

We touched on the first couple of techniques in this article, but if you want to learn more about #3 Supported Playtime and #4 Setting Boundaries Without Blame, you're in luck: our program launched last week and is available now.

We believe these techniques should be free and accessible to anyone who cares enough to use them, so, at least for now, you can access them immediately after signing up. You can sign up in a quick second here, and it's free.

If you're already a community member of this site, hit the back button and go to the email where you found this article and read your copy now.

PS. Don't be afraid to share. Everyone needs this information, and we don't want money to be an issue for anyone.

This site is supported solely by donations from users like you. Visit our donation page to see how you can get cool gifts by donating just a few dollars to our nonprofit.

If you're not a community member, join now and get Problem-Solving I Love You instantly for free!

Nanci J Bradley is an early childhood and family educator, author, teacher, family aerobics instructor, and an all-around fun-loving person. She believes in the power of sleep, healthy eating, lifelong learning, and most of all, PLAY!  She studied early childhood ed at Triton College and received her BS in education in 1986 from NIU. She received her MA in human development from Pacific Oaks College in 2011. She lives and teaches in Madison WI and is the founder of early childhood rocks, a non-profit org dedicated to creating change through early childhood education.