081 - Three Surprisingly Simple Ways to Boost Your Child's Brain Development

Welcome to another enriching episode of the Discerning Parenting Podcast! Today, we're diving into a topic that's close to every parent's heart—boosting your child's brain development.

Contrary to what you might think, you don't need elaborate methods or costly tools to give your child's cognitive abilities a significant boost. Over the course of this episode and the next, we'll be uncovering six remarkably simple yet highly effective strategies to support your child's mental growth. In today's session, we'll introduce the first three of these strategies.

Stick around—you'll be amazed at how practical and achievable these tips are. Let's get started on this exciting journey to nurture and enhance your child's brainpower!

If you have a baby or child below three, check out our book, Toddler Talking: Boost Your Child's Language and Brain Development in Three Easy Steps. You’ll get powerful, science-backed, and yet practical strategies to boost your baby’s language and brain development.

⭐ Our book Learning by Heart: Teach Your Child to Read, Stress-Free is now on Amazon! Click here to learn more about Dr. Victoria Nolasco's books.

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The Discerning Parenting Podcast is a free informational resource for parents. As a valued listener, you acknowledge that any information you get from this podcast is for your general guidance only, and ​​must never be considered a substitute for the advice provided by a doctor, therapist, or other qualified medical professionals who know your child specifically. Read our full disclaimer policy here.

Transcript

Boosting your child's brain development doesn't require complex methods or expensive tools. In this episode and the next one, we'll explore six surprisingly simple yet powerful ways to support your child's cognitive growth, and we'll discuss the first three today. Stay with us. You might be surprised by how practical and doable these tips can be. 

Welcome to Discerning Parenting, the podcast for parents of kids age 12 and under who have learned the hard way that a one size fits all approach to parenting won't shift the needle for you, your child, or your family. Together, We'll explore intentional strategies that see both you and your kids thrive. 

Parenting strategies based on well conducted research in the areas of child development, brain science, and neurodiversity need practical for you.  What if you let go of perfect and embrace discerning parenting in your family instead?  If you feel like you've been stumbling your way through. And you're ready to leave behind fight or flight mode parenting.

Then this is the podcast for you.  I'm Dr. Victoria Angolasco, developmental and behavioral pediatrician and positive parenting coach, on a mission to help you release your parenting guilt,  so you can become laser focused on what will truly work for you.  

 In today's episode,  we're diving into the first three tips to boost your child's brain development. As parents, we're always looking for ways to give our kids the best start in life, but it doesn't have to be complicated or stressful. By the end of this episode, you'll have three easy to implement strategies that can make a big difference in your child's brain development, and you'll get three more next week. I love these three strategies that I share with you today, and number three is both the easiest and it's also my favorite. So let's get started.  Number one, encourage playtime. Playtime is more than just fun. It's crucial for brain development.

When kids play, they learn to solve problems, they interact socially, they learn very important skills like taking turns. waiting, they learn to handle frustration, they develop creativity.  Sometimes it can be structured play with rules, it can be free play, it can be some independent play,  or it can be play with you or with other kids.

All these different types of play are fantastic ways to boost their cognitive skills.  And if you want to learn more about this, I have an entire course about toddler learning through play. So head over to discerningparenting. com slash everything where , you're going to see our free guides as well as our courses, including our courses about learning through play, sensory play, and we also have a free toolkit that has activities. 

So, we can encourage free unstructured play and simple brain building games are also great  instead of planning kids activities all the time. We can encourage what we call free and unstructured play. Now, when we say this, it doesn't mean letting the kids destroy the house, do whatever they want without limits,  but it means allowing them to use their creativity and imagination.

instead of dictating how they play.  Why is this so important? Because research has shown that unstructured play builds various parts of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex. And the prefrontal cortex is one of the major parts of the brain that we need for what we call executive functioning. Now executive functioning, these are skills that kids and even adults need.

Whether it's in school or at work or for the long term, in everyday activities. These are skills including planning, working, stopping themselves from doing something that they're not supposed to do. All of these need executive functioning.  And to build executive functioning, you need the prefrontal cortex, which is built by free and unstructured play.

And simple brain building games are also great. These are all no prep activities that don't need a lot of effort from you. So, what are some examples? Language games such as Bring Me for toddlers and young preschoolers. So, not only is this a fun way to build language skills, but it also practices their attention and their task completion.

Games like I Spy, 20 Questions, Complete the Story, they're among my favorite activities too. For more activities like these, head over to discerningparenting. com slash toolkit, and the toolkit includes a week of language boosting activities for toddlers.  And there are also pretend games. They build creativity and imagination, and they're important for cognitive development.

 In fact, we've worked with kids who are unable to do pretend play, and one of the first things a therapist does with them is to actually teach them how to do pretend play. That's how important it is.  And there are also games where kids practice starting and stopping. Let's say they're doing freeze dance.

They're also helpful for building executive function skills. Or games where they practice turn taking, like playing tag. And as a bonus, when they move around while playing tag, they move around. And movement and exercise are necessary for healthy brain development. These ideas may seem simple, but they can be even better for your child's brain than a worksheet or academic activity.

So the next time your child is playing, remember they are also learning valuable life skills.  Number two,  read together daily.  Reading together is a powerful way to enhance your child's language skills and cognitive development. It introduces them to new vocabulary, expands their world. It helps them understand complex concepts and emotions.

Even if the books that you're reading may seem simple,  these It can be relatively complex for them, and it still expands their world.  That's why reading is one of the best ways to boost brain development.  It can help with social and emotional skills. They see how characters react to different situations, and they can take on the perspectives of different characters. 

It gives them a gadget free hobby that they can enjoy, not just today, but if you build a love for reading, even as they grow older. So we don't need to worry about constantly entertaining them if they love reading and they can pick up a book and read.  It broadens your understanding of the world.

 Remember, reading together, it's not the same as teaching a child to read. You can read to a baby or a toddler, no matter how young they are. But when it comes to reading lessons, we need to wait for signs of readiness. And we'll talk about reading readiness in a future episode, and we have a book on this coming up soon.

So, I'm so excited about that book. It's in the final stages already. Now, even kids who already know how to read will still enjoy reading with a parent. Then, when they are older and they read completely independently, then we can also discuss their favorite books with them. And Reading, or a love for reading, is a lifelong habit that we can create starting in childhood.

You can also, in addition to reading to them, have a variety of books available throughout the house within the child's easy reach so that your child can get a book and enjoy it. And my child loves doing this. I often find him sitting on the floor surrounded by a pile of books and he's really absorbed in them.

And this is, something that has grown and developed as he grew older. And while e books are popular, print books are still better because they provide a richer sensory experience, and several researches have shown better comprehension and memory from print compared with e books, even for adults, and all the more so for kids.

To broaden their world, we can choose books that celebrate diversity, those that feature people of all abilities, from different cultures of all races, and in this way, we're expanding our kids world. So that's the second way. To read to them, to read with them, enjoy books with them.  Number three, connect and simply be with your child without any plan or agenda.

Again, This third one is so important. If you only do one tip, do this one. Connect and simply be with your child without any plan or agenda.  Recently on social media, I saw so many posts of parents saying that they don't enjoy playing with their kids. They don't see themselves in the picture. Playing with the Paw Patrol toys that their kids love so much.

And if that's you, don't judge yourself for feeling that way. You don't have to be a Paw Patrol fan to connect with your child. Instead, try this experiment. Observe your child.  Listen to what they say. Look at what they do. And do this even for just 10 minutes. Then see what happens. Remove the pressure from yourself, even to make silly noises, or to imitate the videos of parents playing with their kids on YouTube.

Simply be you. That wonderful person and parent that you are without the unrealistic expectations created by social media.  Then make eye contact.  Really look at them.  Our lives can get so busy that we forget to do this.  Involve them in family conversations. I know I'm guilty of this. I've asked questions, then not even stopped to hear what my child says.

Or sometimes I'm talking to them, and then I don't even look at them.  And then listen. Even if some of what they say may sound like gibberish. No matter what age your child is, Just have conversations with them and you can do this at any age.  We can have conversations. Conversations can be back and forth communication exchanges, even with babies who haven't learned to talk.

When you talk and smile at your baby and then they coo at you or they babble, that is a conversation.  Then we continue this. Until the toddler in preschool years, until our kids go to school, and it becomes a habit all the way until they become teenagers and even adults. And if we do this today, we continue building brain connections, and these connections help our kids stay resilient and build our relationships with them, even when they grow older.

 I hope these three simple tips have given you some easy yet effective ways to support your child's brain development. Today, just choose one and try it. Remember, it's these small actions that make a big difference. In our next episode, we'll explore three more surprisingly simple ways to boost your child's cognitive growth.

Last, a bonus tip and you won't want to miss this episode.  Before we wrap up, I want to invite you to check out my book, Toddler Talking, Boost Your Child's Language and Brain Development in 3 Easy Steps. It's packed with practical tips and strategies to help you support your child's development effectively.

And don't forget to subscribe to the Discerning Parenting podcast. 📍  You don't want to miss the next episode where we'll continue this discussion with more actionable insights that you can start using right away.  Thank you for joining me today. Keep nurturing, keep discovering, and keep discerning. Until next time, happy parenting.