Raising Smart Children

Can you raise a smart kid? Or is it just pure genetic chance whether your child will be bright?

Research is continuing to show that while heredity does play a role, other factors ones parents can control do influence how smart a child will become.

The quality of parenting, child-care, nutrition, stimulation and environment all affect a child’s neural development.

Throughout the incredible time of childhood, windows of opportunity allow children to learn to speak, read, write and understand language at an accelerated rate. They can pick up second languages and master musical instruments with ease.

New insight into a child’s potential to learn has governments looking to fund education programs to help parents and caretakers make the most of the early years.

And hundreds of products from videos to books to stuffed animals have hit the market, all designed to help parents raise “smarter” children.

With so many products available, and so much focus on the issue, raising smart kids has never been easier or more confusing.

Come, explore with us your child’s intellectual development and ways to help him build a strong foundation for lifelong learning.

As a toddler bustles from one room to another his brain is processing information and connecting neurons at hyper-speed.

We’ve always known that babies are busy. But the latest research paints an amazing picture of the continual neural cell activity and growth that occurs through age 3. During this time, babies who have good care and an interesting environment will amass strong, branching neurons that will provide physical and intellectual advantages that last a lifetime.

“They (babies) are born with really more than they will ever use. There are thousands and thousands of connections and only those that are stimulated and used remain. The ones that aren’t really just disappear,” says Patti Correll, infant and toddler specialist for Head Start, an early education program that serves low-income preschoolers.

Dick Boysen, executive director of the Guild School, a neuromuscular center that works with special needs infants and toddlers, says, “By the time a child is three, 90 percent of their entire neurology is developed.”

It is during these early years when environment can make or break a child’s future, says Boysen.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to maximize a child’s brain potential, just an attentive adult. Researchers found the simple act of holding an infant stimulates the developing brain to release important growth hormones.

“They are learning that you’re a warm person to be with and that you love them. I can’t overstate the importance of meeting those basic needs,” Boysen says.

Correll agrees.

“We really find that babies are born wanting to see a face. The relationship that develops between a parent and child is really the foundation for developing future cognitive ability,” Correll says.

Experts recommend reading books and talking to babies. As infants hear sound patterns, their brains busily wire themselves for language. In fact, babies begin listening, learning and paying attention to sound while still in the womb.

Anthony De Casper, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, pioneered a technique for testing sound preferences of newborns less than 2 days old. The device allows babies to choose between sounds played through headphones by sucking quickly or slowly.

Sixteen pregnant women volunteered to read “The Cat in the Hat” to their fetuses, six weeks before delivery. After birth, the infants were given a choice between listening to two stories. The babies overwhelmingly preferred “The Cat in the Hat.”

Donald Shetler, emeritus professor at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, experimented with playing classical music to fetuses. He found that babies who were exposed to music before birth talked 3 to 6 months before their peers, could memorize music earlier and had heightened language skills as toddlers.

It’s research like this that’s fueling a huge market of products designed to make our wee ones smarter.

Prenatal musical classics, ABC videos for babies, special colors, patterns and geometric shapes on infant toys are just a few examples.

But is a child’s IQ dependent upon number of dollars spent or is parenting smart kids a skill rather than a cost?

Margo Long, director of the Center for Gifted Education at Whitworth College, says objects can’t replace personal interaction. “If you give your child an interesting environment and a chance to interact with their environment, I don’t know if you need that stuff,” Long says. “I’d hate to think that those things would substitute for good parenting skills.”

Stefanie Himelspach tried two instructional videos designed to teach babies shapes and the alphabet on her 1-year-old daughter.

“Hailey liked them if we were sitting right there and we were pointing at it and acting excited.” When her parents participated, the toddler attempted to say the words. Without her parents’ involvement, Hailey quickly lost interest and walked away.

Himelspach said the slow pace of the tape made the experience laborious. “If adults have the patience to sit and watch the videos with the kids, it could definitely benefit them.”

But even if these products do stimulate brain development and learning, will this generation of super-babies be better prepared to succeed in society as children and adults?

“I don’t know if the first child to sit up in a group is the better child. I think living is a process, it’s not a group of skills,” says Long.

Boysen believes people need more than IQ smarts to succeed. “The new buzzword is emotional intelligence. When you look at someone’s ability to function within a culture, emotional intelligence is the ability to get along with people, to have empathy, to have good manners, to basically handle yourself in appropriate ways.”

So, how do parents enhance a child’s abilities without going overboard and burning them out on education?

Correll recommends simple parent/child activities. “During that first stage of security, the parent has to bring the environment to the child and take the child to the environment. You might take the child outside and let them feel the bark on a tree.”

Additionally, infants need freedom and space.

“What we are finding now is because of the popularity of the infant seat and car seats, children are spending far too much time strapped in. They need to be on their backs in a safe place and on their tummies in a safe place,” says Correll.

As infants develop mobility, allow them to explore their surroundings. “They need to touch things, they need to smell things, they need to hear interesting sounds,” say Correll.

Around age 2, when the child becomes aware of his own identity, give them choices that will help them develop a sense of identity, Correll says.

As they become preschoolers, experts recommend enrolling them in a quality preschool or a parent/ child co-op so they can interact with other children, expand their boundaries and develop socially.