10 Guidelines to support children's healthy brain development

According to pediatric neurologist Julie Griffith, M.D. from Children's Hospital Boston of Harvard Medical School, healthy brain functioning is required to prevent the development of emotional, learning, and/or behavioral problems.  Parents can use the following guidelines to help their children be successful throughout life:  

1. Sleep:  Sleep is brain restoration time.  Children's brains develop with normal sleep biorhythms, and the brain has to sleep in order to learn and form memory.  Decreased sleep decreases the ability to pay attention, to memorize, and to process and manage emotions.  According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), children who do not get enough sleep tend to do poorly academically and socially.

2. Nutrition:  A balanced diet is important for brain growth and development.  Try to feed your children organic fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads and cereals, and lean, free-range meats (chicken, turkey, fish).  Try to avoid foods with high fructose corn syrup, which is found in some breads/cereals, peanut butters and juices, and in most sweets and sodas.

3. Exercise:  Exercise and physical work stabilizes the brain's systems, especially the emotion processing systems and the mood regulation systems.  Exercise also enhances the attention systems and improves the brain's ability to learn.

4. Nature:  The sky, the trees, fresh air, the mountains, the flowers; being in the outdoors improves a child's mood, attitude, and outlook.

5. Chores & responsibility:  Teach your child how to work.  Work keeps a child connected to the reality of life and helps the brain develop; specifically, work helps the child develop prefrontal attention systems. Learning to work is crucial for a child to develop reality-based thinking, a sense of responsibility and self esteem.

6. Privileges:  Link privileges to responsibility to help keep a child connected to the reality of life and what life requires for success.

7. Structure and routine:  Children need a structured, every day routine.  A child's attention/executive brain systems develop in a structured environment. and family meals are a great way to anchor a family. Research shows that children who sit down with at least one parent for five meals or more a week, for a minimum of 20 minutes for each meal get better grades, are less likely to abuse drugs/alcohol, are less likely to develop eating disorders, and show fewer depressive symptoms (The importance of family meals). 

8. Forgiveness:  Teach forgiveness for others and forgiveness of self.  Learning to forgive helps keep the brain's emotion systems positive.

9. Acceptance and tolerance:  Teach your child to accept and respect those who are different.  This helps a child understand and relate to others in a positive, non-judgmental way.

10. Reading and limited TV:  It is recommended that parents read to their infant, every day, for the first two years, and as much as possible after the first two years.  As stated in the article Reasons to turn off the TV and read with children, "turning off the TV and reading to a child from early infancy positively affects a child's intelligence and well-being."  The repeated and continual exposure to violence in the media (TV, videos, video games, movies) activates the primitive emotion circuits (fight/flight systems) at the expense of higher thinking executive systems, indirectly causing more emotional and behavioral problems. 

And always try to make plenty of time to really listen to your children (Raising an emotionally intelligent child) .

Contact Sara Shaw, M.S., MFT for a parent consultation at sara.shaw@alumni.northwestern.edu