Children

From the moment a baby is born, every experience taken in by the five senses helps strengthen the connections that guide development. No two brains are alike! Each child’s brain creates individual pathways of connections based on specific experiences. Here are some general tips you can use to help wire the brain for success.

Over the first months of life, babies build relationships with the adults who care for them. These early attachment relationships matter. Babies who form warm, loving relationships feel secure exploring and learning. Babies who live in an unpredictable world tend to form insecure attachments. They learn that the world is unreliable and expect later relationships to be negative. Here’s what you need to know about attachment and what you can do to help your baby build secure attachment relationships.

All parents want their children to be smart and successful. Researchers have found that a child’s brain continues to develop long after birth. Parents can do many things to support their child’s healthy brain development, beginning before birth and continuing until their child is an adult. This publication explains some of the things you can do to ensure healthy brain development for your child.

The developing brain thrives on repetition. When a baby experiences the same things over and over, the pathways of connections in her brain become stronger and more complex. One of the best ways to provide repetition for the developing brain is to create consistency in the child’s world. This publication explains the components of consistency and what you can do to create a positive and predictable environment.

Child care providers play an important role in nurturing children’s healthy brain development. When it comes to supporting healthy brain development, the type of child care is less important than the quality of care a child receives. This publication will help you understand the components of quality child care and the effects of low-quality child care on brain development.

Children who live in unpredictable worlds, who do not have the opportunity to form a secure attachment with a caregiver, or who live in an unsafe physical environment live in a constant state of heightened stress. This severe, chronic stress can have profound and long-lasting negative effects on brain development. Buffering children from toxic stress and helping reduce that stress to more tolerable levels are important ways adults can support early brain development. This publication explains what stress is and gives ways to can help young children deal with stress in a healthy way.

If you’re like most adults, learning a new language can be challenging. But the average baby learns a new language relatively easily. Babies learn language by hearing other people speak around them and by practicing making those sounds. Here is some information on how babies learn language and ways you can help your baby.