Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five

by John Medina

Studies show that, compared with controls, kids allowed a specific type of open-ended playtime were: • More creative. On tests of divergent thinking (which measure alternative uses for familiar objects), they came up with more than three times as many creative options as did controls. • Better at language. The children’s use of language was more facile. They displayed a richer store of vocabulary and a more varied use of words. • Better at problem solving. This is fluid intelligence, one of the basic ingredients in the intelligence stew. • Less stressed. Children regularly exposed to such activity had half the anxiety levels of controls. This may help explain the problem-solving benefit, as problem-solving skills are notoriously sensitive to anxiety. • Better at memory. Play situations improved memory scores; for example, kids who pretended they were at the supermarket remembered twice as many words on a grocery list as controls. • More socially skilled. The social-buffering benefits of play are reflected in the crime statistics of inner-city kids. If low-income kids were exposed to play-oriented preschools in their earliest years, fewer than 10 percent had been arrested for a felony by age 23. For children exposed to instruction-oriented preschools, that figure was more than 33 percent.