All parents want their children to develop into smart, healthy adults.
Manufacturers of “baby einstein” type products have taken advantage of this and have lead parents to believe that by investing in products such as fancy flash cards, Mozart CDs, glossy activity books and language DVDs their child’s development will be greatly accelerated.
Brisbane-based author of new book Nurturing a Healthy Mind, Dr. Michael Nagel says that trying to advance your child’s development with the use of ‘enrichment’ tools or programs before they are ready can actually do more harm than good.
“Trying to have children do too much too soon by performing certain tasks or producing certain results may engulf children in undue stress beyond their limited coping abilities. This stress can actually turn off thinking processes and may even hinder development in other important regions of the brain which can prove detrimental to later learning.”
Much of these “baby genius” products stem from research conducted on rats whereby it was found that rats who lived in cages full of stimulating toys had smarter brains than rats who lived in empty “dull” cages. Sounds convincing right?
What they didn’t take into account was that further studies proved that rats who lived in their natural environments full of the types of challenges that can only be encountered outside of any cage had even better brains than their ‘enriched’ counterparts playing with toys.
So what’s the solution to helping your child develop into a smart, healthy adult? Dr. Nagel says it’s not as complex as it may seem.
“Children feed their brain through the environments they experience. When you let children be children – running around outside, playing, socialising with other children – and provide them with a loving, safe environment at home, that’s all a child needs for healthy development.”
Nurturing a Healthy Mind:Doing what matters most for your child’s developing brain
RRP $32.99
www.exislepublishing.com.au
