Welcome to Your Child's Brain: How the Mind Grows From Conception to College (2 page)

Welcome to Your Child’s Brain
, by Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang, is an important antidote to all of this misinformation. As befits authors who have forty combined years covering neuroscience—Aamodt as the editor of
Nature Neuroscience
and as a science writer, and Wang as a professor and researcher at Princeton—this book is encyclopedic in its coverage. I expect it to become an invaluable reference book to help families and educators explore children’s development, whenever questions and
issues arise. Importantly, it can counter some of the myths that have arisen as a result of almost two decades of misinterpretations and misinformation. For example:

Does listening to music make children smarter?
The authors state that there is no scientific evidence for this idea. However, they note that there can be some benefit from playing music because it can help children learn to focus.

Can we multitask?
The authors write: “The brain cannot concentrate on more than one thing at a time.” They go on to say that “the cost of chronic multitasking may include diminished performance when single-tasking.”

Can babies learn from the media?
The authors report: “No reliable research shows that TV watching has any benefits for babies.” For older children, the benefits depend on what they are watching and how much time they are spending doing so.

Does birth order affect personality?
The authors write: “Sorry, firstborn readers, but there is little credible evidence that birth order influences personality.”

Having spent the past ten years reviewing many of the same studies the authors review for my own book,
Mind in the Making
, I wholeheartedly agree with their conclusion that the “best gift” you can give your children is self-control. They note that self-control and other executive functions of the brain (like working memory, flexible thinking, and resisting the temptation to go on automatic) “contribute to the development of [children’s] most important basic brain function: the ability to control their own behavior in order to reach a goal.” Noting that self-control underlies so many capacities, from socialization to schoolwork, they state that “preschool children’s ability to resist temptation is a much better predictor of eventual academic success than their IQ scores.”

It was a very similar realization from my own review of the research that led me to postulate seven life skills to help children succeed emotionally, socially, and intellectually. All of these life skills are based on executive functions of the brain. Importantly, Aamodt and Wang bust another myth when they report that we promote self-control not by making children sit still, chained to their desks, but by encouraging them to play. They write, “It probably doesn’t matter exactly what excites your children; as long as they are intensely engaged by an activity and concentrate on it, they will be improving their ability to self-regulate and thus their prospects for the future.”

Welcome to Your Child’s Brain
is a very welcome addition!

—Ellen Galinsky,
author of
Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential
Life Skills Every Child Needs
and president of the Families and Work Institute

Quiz
HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR CHILD’S BRAIN?

1)
Which of the following is a good way to get your child to eat his spinach?

a. Cover the spinach in melted cheese

b. Start the meal with a few bites of dessert

c. Feed him with soy-based formula as an infant

d. All of the above

e. None of the above

2)
Which action by a pregnant woman poses the greatest risk to her baby?

a. Drinking a beer one evening

b. Fleeing from a hurricane

c. Eating sushi for dinner

d. Flying in an airplane

e. Walking three miles

3)
What fraction of the calories eaten by a five-year-old go to power her brain?

a. One tenth

b. One quarter

c. One half

d. Two thirds

e. Nearly all

4)
How do your child’s genes and his environment interact during development?

a. His genes influence his sensitivity to environmental features

b. His environment influences the expression of his genes

c. His genes influence how you care for him

d. His genes and his environment are inseparably entangled

e. All of the above

5)
Which of the following increases a baby’s intelligence?

a. Breast-feeding during infancy

b. Eating fish during pregnancy

c. Listening to Mozart

d. All of the above

e. None of the above

6)
If you cover a doll, then remove the drape, what will a baby be most surprised to see?

a. Two dolls

b. A toy car

c. An upside-down doll

d. A stuffed octopus

e. A cheeseburger

7)
Which of the following activities is likely to improve a child’s school performance?

a. Studying with a friend

b. Listening to music while studying

c. Taking breaks from studying to play video games

d. All of the above

e. None of the above

8)
What kind of dream experience is not yet within the capacity of a three-year-old?

a. Seeing a dog standing around

b. Playing with toys

c. Sleeping in the bathtub

d. Watching tropical fish

e. Looking at an empty room

9)
What accelerates the ability to understand what other people are thinking?

a. Learning a second language

b. Having an older sibling

c. Parents who talk about emotions

d. All of the above

e. None of the above

10)
Which of these activities reduces a child’s risk of nearsightedness?

a. Eating fish

b. Playing outside

c. Learning a musical instrument

d. Getting enough sleep

e. Resting her eyes

11)
Which categories can an infant distinguish?

a. Male faces from female faces

b. Major chords from dissonant chords

c. The mother’s language from a foreign language

d. All of the above

e. None of the above

12)
Which of the following interventions has the largest effect?

a. Ballet lessons improve gender identity

b. Etiquette lessons improve empathy

c. Moral lessons improve behavior

d. Music lessons improve math ability

e. Drama lessons improve social adjustment

13)
What increases a child’s likelihood of becoming autistic?

a. Being born prematurely

b. Having an unresponsive mother

c. Watching too much TV

d. Receiving vaccinations

e. Having older siblings

14)
How does Ritalin improve focus in kids with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder?

a. By altering the structure of brain circuits

b. By sedating the child slightly

c. By activating the same brain cells as cocaine and amphetamine

d. All of the above

e. None of the above

15)
Which of the following activities improves self-control?

a. Pretending to be a fireman

b. Being breast-fed

c. Watching baby videos

d. Sleeping with parents

e. Having cross-gender friendships

16)
Brain imaging can do which of the following?

a. Diagnose behavior disorders

b. Predict reading and math ability

c. Determine when a criminal is lying

d. All of the above

e. None of the above

17)
Which of these experiences is most associated with future reading difficulties?

a. Being deprived of children’s books as a toddler

b. Writing letters backward at the age of four

c. Having difficulty identifying spoken sounds

d. Speaking two languages

e. Not hearing enough children’s music early in life

18)
Which of the following is most likely to improve a shy child’s future life?

a. Having parents who read science books

b. Playing with toy trucks

c. Growing up in China

d. All of the above

e. None of the above

19)
Where did the disciplinary concept of time-out originate?

a. The rules of organized sports

b. Frustrated parents

c. Computer engineering

d. Military slang

e. Studies of learning in laboratory animals

20)
How do children who learn a second language compare with monolingual children?

a. Better at self-control

b. Better at taking the perspective of other people

c. Experience decline in intellectual sharpness later in adulthood

d. All of the above

e. None of the above

Key:

1)
d,

2)
b,

3)
c,

4)
e,

5)
b,

6)
a,

7)
c,

8)
b,

9)
d,

10)
b,

11)
d,

12)
e,

13)
a,

14)
c,

15)
a,

16)
e,

17)
a,

18)
c,

19)
e,

20)
d

Introduction
THE BRAIN THAT BUILDS ITSELF

Moms and dads ask a lot of questions. My son says video games make him smarter—is that possible? How essential is it to breast-feed the baby? Is it okay to eat fish during pregnancy? Are vaccines safe for kids? My preschooler is writing her
R
s backward—is she dyslexic? And why can’t I drag my teenager out of bed?

Call us geeks, but when we hear such concerns, we think about neuroscience. All of these questions involve the brain and how it develops. Childhood is a period of dramatic brain growth and behavioral change, and parents have a front-row seat. If you find this process as fascinating as we do, or if you’re simply looking for some answers, this book is for you.

We cover the entire period from conception to college—because brain development goes on a lot longer than the first three years, where many other books stop. The growth and maturation of a child’s brain is an intricate process taking decades, in which the brain grows and adapts to the surrounding world. The job won’t be entirely finished until your child is in college. So whether your child is an infant, a toddler, or a teen, read on.