Children’s brains make significant developmental strides between birth and three years. Brain development is crucial since it impacts all elements of the child’s growth. With brain development, there are usually four main areas: language and communication, cognitive, social and emotional, and motor or physical. The formative years in a child’s life are monumental for learning and development. Many parents always seek ways to enhance their child’s brain development. Here are a few ideas for boosting your child’s brain development:
Play with them
Playing is an essential aspect of helping the development of a child’s brain. Play for your little one may be in the form of talking or singing to engage the baby’s brain. Engage them with peek a boo and hold out colourful toys to draw their attention and help in brain development. Talk to your baby when doing activities. Try to engage them in pretend play and building block games. These games help them boost their imagination and fosters creativity. When they are older, engage them in puzzles that will get them thinking. Games like Checkers and chess will help them make decisions, think ahead, and recognize patterns. The icing on the cake is that it will be loads of fun!
Encourage multi-sensory learning
Multi-sensory learning is an ingenious element of cognitive development. Multi-sensory learning engages several brain regions, allowing them to stay active. Your kid will retain more when multiple senses work simultaneously. You can incorporate multi-sensory learning by encouraging hands-on activities. Watch documentaries and movies that engage both auditory and visual perception.
Read to them
Reading is an effective way to promote brain development in children. Start the reading way before they can recognize letters or words. It will help to kickstart language and communication skills. A child will connect words and pictures as your read to them and show them pictures in the books. Reading the same book encourages recognition between words and images. When they are grown, you can ask them to point to picture on the page.
Get toys that encourage exploration and interaction
Purchase toys that encourage your baby’s reasoning. Games like blocks will help them learn cause and effect. They will know that stacking too many blocks without arranging them causes them to fall. Buy them infant development toys that will stimulate brain development. Try to spare some time in your day to help them play with the toys.
Baby talk
When the baby coos, respond with vocalizations. Engage the baby in a high-pitched voice and exaggerated facial expressions. Turning up the baby talk will encourage the child to take in the sounds of the language you speak. It will stimulate the part of the brain in charge of understanding speech and producing language.
Build their trust
A secure child is confident enough to try out activities that encourage brain development. Build their trust by being attentive and focused when interacting with them. Avoid scrolling through social media when hanging out with them. Interact with them when they play and comfort them when they feel sad. A child with impeccable emotional development will be happy to explore, learn and discover.
Wrapping up
Learning boosts your child’s brain development. Encourage a love for learning instead of emphasizing just performance. Help your child understand that mistakes are a normal part of learning. Make things fun so that they enjoy trying new activities.