Brain Development and Executive Functions
The brain consists of several different parts that control everything that is done. A baby’s mind requires a strong foundation, and it is achieved through everyday experiences. Parents should interact with their children through facial expressions, gestures, and respond with similar vocalization and gestures. When the baby cries, the parents should have a quick response to them by nurturing, soothing, and cuddling them. The practice helps new neural connections to form in all different areas of the brain (Bahari, 2016). By doing this, the brain area that is responsible for emotions grows out positively. A parent should spend time interacting with the babies and be focused and attentive on the baby’s behavior.
There are several activities that responsible adults should do to strengthen and support brain development in newborn babies. The robust architecture of the brain depends on the foundation built by caring parents. While performing the daily activities, one should make service to the baby’s legs and arms and also react to the facial and sounds made by the baby. The infants are always happy when they serve returned through sweet words. Helping the children play, acknowledging them, and giving them soft hugs makes them develop a positive attitude to the infants (Bahari, 2016). It helps the babies also built curiosity and strengthen the relationship with the parents.
Interaction between the baby should be back and forth by taking turns in every activity that the baby is involved (Bahari, 2016). Parents should support and encourage the babies by playing with the through providing particular sound together with their corresponding objects. However, there are activities that parents should avoid to stop damaging the standard brain architecture in an infant. Learning how to cope with moderate stress is essential for child development. The practice helps to moderate the body reactions towards the physiological effects and health stresses.
There are behaviors that children can teach themselves if they are freely allowed to play old-fashioned games rather than play the structured games offered by parents. The responses are referred to as Executive functions. The governance of children without any assistance or outside influence is referred to as self-regulation (Bahari, 2016). While children are playing alone, they try to talk to themselves on how thons are done without adult supervision, and this helps develop their brains faster. There are several self- regulation activities that children are involved in. For instance, conversations and stories, active games, imaginary plays, songs, and quiet games.
The importance of these activities helps children to practice self -control skills, improve their memories, and focus on being attentive. Responsive interaction with their parents is the foundation for strong self-regulation skills (Bahari, 2016). Parents should allow the children to decide on how long to play and choose for them the game to play. Executive functions also provide essential support for learning and development. Children develop different skills when introduced to executive functions. They include; working memory, which is the ability to retain information and using it. There is also inhibitory control, which is the ability to master thoughts and impulses to show resistance to the kind of nature. We have cognitive flexibility, which is the ability to adjust to changing demands and consider the priorities of quality.
There are activities in school and at home that can prevent the healthy development of self-regulation and private speech. Punishing children will frustrate them hence preventing them from expressing themselves (Yoshikawa, Leyva, Snow, Treviño, Barata, Weiland & Arbour, 2015). It causes a challenge to their behavior and can lead to distancing from their parents and teachers. When parents and teachers manage their stress, they help in building and supporting up the children hence being good role models to them. They should also stay calm and model self-regulation and be encouraging and supportive to their children. Through this, children see a lot of care and understanding as they keep on learning to adapt to life. According to Spiegel, the way most children today spend their time has changed from the past (2008). He gives evidence of research that was done in the 1940s on how children aged three-seven years were told to stand still and perfectly without making any movements, and the three-year-old could not do it while the one aged from five-seven years succeed to do it.
References
Bahari, G. M. (2016). Concept Analysis of Self-Regulation in Health Behavior. International Journal of Nursing and Health Science, 3(3), 15.
Spiegel, A. (2008). Old-fashioned play builds serious skills. National Public Radio.
Yoshikawa, H., Leyva, D., Snow, C. E., Treviño, E., Barata, M., Weiland, C., … & Arbour, M. C. (2015). Experimental impacts of a teacher professional development program in Chile on preschool classroom quality and child outcomes. Developmental psychology, 51(3), 309.