Ways

to
Stimulate
Brain
 Development
in Children
 Ma. Carlea Lourdes G. De Castro

As a young child’s brain develops, trillions of connections are formed between brain cells
and developed through such stimuli as light, color, smell and sound. These connections are vital
to learning: The more connections a child has, the faster he or she can process information.
Many experts believe that by stimulating an infant’s senses through an enriched environment,
you can quite possibly increase his or her IQ. Here are 14 ways to create a mentally stimulating
environment for your child: 

1. Hold your baby frequently. In a recent research study, the findings showed that the more a
baby was touched by the parent, the less likely that infant would develop attention deficit
problems later in childhood. 

2. Use expressive facial gestures. Infants respond to parents whose facial expressions are more
animated. In one experiment, babies turned away from mothers with dull facial expressions, but
turned toward those whose faces were more expressive.

3. Do wordplay games in the form of rhymes or songs that you make up with your child. This
activity encourages the development of language skills.
4. Cut the captions off cartoons; create new captions with your child in order to boost thinking
skills and creativity.

5. Have your child read age-appropriate stories out loud from newspapers or magazines.

6. At least once a week, take your children to the library, where they can read on their own or
attend storytelling groups. Have your children get their own library cards so they can learn
responsibility for taking care of books and returning them on time.

7. Take your children to appropriate cultural events throughout the year, such as plays and
concerts.

8. Limit your children’s computer time, unless they are doing schoolwork that requires the use
of the computer.

9. Travel to new places, including local museums. While on vacation, take them on tours of
interesting sights even if they don’t expect to like going.

10. Use dinnertime for mental stimulation. Encourage your children to talk about their day and
express their viewpoints.

11. Sing lullabies to your infant; these stimulate the development of brain connections,
particularly during the first three years of life.

12. Use complex, multi-clause sentences when talking to your children, such as, “I’m going to
the grocery store because we need cereal for breakfast,” as opposed to simple, single-clause
sentences such as, “Drink your milk.” Children who are exposed to more complex grammatical
structure show a higher degree of language development.

13. Enroll your children in dance classes (if they show an interest), since dancing requires the
memorization of specific movements — a mental activity that helps build brain connections.

14. Provide stimulating age-appropriate toys that invite interaction and thought. For infants,
look for toys that engage as many of the five senses as possible (color, texture, sound, sight and
smell). Toddlers benefit from balls, blocks, cars, pull toys, simple puzzles, musical instruments,
and stuffed animals and dolls. From ages 3 to 5, children begin to use their imaginations, so
encourage them with construction sets, washable crayons or markers, and modeling clay. From
ages 6 to 9, building self-esteem is important. Hobby sets, sports toys, computer software,
construction toys and books with uplifting messages all make good playthings, so do
educational toys that promote problem-solving skills, such as counting, math games and more
challenging board games. From ages 10 to 12, children need to develop independence,
responsibility and self-expression. Your best bets are complex construction sets, age-
appropriate board games, science kits and artwork kits.
Modified excerpt from Family First: Your Step-by-Step Plan For Creating a Phenomenal
Family by Dr. Phil McGraw (Free Press, 2004).’

Shower Love and Affection: Ensure that you shower utmost love and affection on your child.
Appreciate them from time to time to spruce up their emotional platform. Ensure that you are
setting up a caring, concerned and loving environment within your home. Make sure that you
are inducing an encouraging environment in your home.

Result and Outcome:

 Better and quick memory and recall

 Efficient thinking, reasoning and problem solving skills

 Better and proper behavior patterns

 Better learning ability

Regular Breakfast and Nutritious Food: Breakfast is obviously the most important source of
nutrients. Skipping breakfast is dangerous to your child's health; in fact, it can lead impaired
memory and inferior academic performance. Among other effects of bad nutrition are decreased
attention span and learning ability, lapsed concentration levels, reduced body energy levels, less
enthusiasm and overall poor brain development. Better nutrition can easily provide a number of
benefits; oatmeal is perhaps the best breakfast cereal with its amazing nutritional properties.

Result and Outcome:

 Increased or enhanced ability to learn and understand

 Better comprehension and understanding of issues

 Superior cognitive abilities

 Superior and sharp spatial memory

 Enhanced logical abilities

Enough Sleep: Your children need adequate sleep to get the required amount of rest. Adequate
sleep ensures memory enhancement, better performance in subjects like math and arts.
Sleepless nights may result in tiredness and lethargy.

Result and Outcome:

 Well controlled emotional management

  Scholarly academic performance

 Superior learning skills

 Absence of behavioral problems

Creative Play: Creative playtime assists your children in learning and mastering a number of
core academic skills and abilities that are so important for reading, comprehending writing,
phonetics and problem solving. You can allow your children to engage themselves in a number
of creative games and activities.

Result and Outcome:

 Quick development of spatial and logical thinking

 Acquisition of important hand to eye coordination

 Better creativity and inquisitiveness

Culture and Arts: Music teaching, extra-curricular activities and painting are three of the most
desirable activities that can develop your child's brain. Study of a foreign language is another
activity that provides an opportunity to develop cultural relationship.

Result and Outcome:

 Appreciable academic achievement

 Enhanced spatial thinking and reasoning skills

 Enhanced problem solving skills

Brain building in children is a specialized activity that needs lot of preparation and hard
work from your side. As a responsible parent, you should allot enough time to educate your
children in all aspects of brain development. Available research studies suggest us that we can
easily influence our children's brain power, though the care and support we give, the games we
play and activities we do with them, the nutrition we provide them and the sum of positive
choices we make for them. Never ever, forget the importance of feeding the right type of brain
foods like Omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, green leafy vegetables, nuts and seeds and a range
of other foods that help in the increased production of phospholipids, fatty acid molecules that
lead to the development of brain's messaging network.