While most of us believe that the brain drives our body, the reality is that the body can and does influence the way our brain shapes up! The reason we can retrain our brain is because the brain’s neural networks are changeable according to our experiences, perceptions, thoughts and emotions.
Neuroplasticity is the human brain’s capacity for change in response to our experiences and activities. The fact that we can train our brain is perhaps the most useful and optimistic bit of information any of us can have. It especially opens up a plethora of opportunities for parents.
Refer to the image below to view the stages of brain development and how parents can help.
From conception on, the human brain grows at an explosive rate which is continually on a descending scale.EXPLOSIVE and DESCENDING. When the child is five the growth of the brain is 80 percent complete. The whole process is essentially complete by the age of six.
Even more importantly, synapses are formed at a faster rate during these years than at any other time. In fact, the brain creates many more of them than it needs: at age two or three, the brain has up to twice as many synapses as it will have in adulthood.
The excess of synapses produced by a child’s brain in the first three years makes the brain especially responsive to external input. During this period, the brain can “capture” experience more efficiently than it will be able to later.
A child’s senses report to the brain about her environment and experiences, and this input stimulates neural activity. Speech sounds, for example, stimulate activity in language-related brain regions. If the amount of input increases (if more speech is heard) synapses between neurons in that area will be activated more often.
This essentially means that the first 6 years of your child's life are the golden years where the brain is hungry for stimulation.Since all of the brain's inputs are through our five senses, it's absolutely imperative for us to provide all kinds of sensorial stimulation to the child. Children are truly like sponges, absorbing whatever comes their way.