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

by John Medina

The four biggest reasons you’ll fight

Sleep and eating times have no fixed pattern in the newborn brain; the behaviors are randomly distributed throughout a 24-hour period.

A predictable schedule may not make itself visible for half a year, maybe longer, though most babies show some kind of organizing pattern by 3 months old.

Even after a year, 50 percent still require some form of nighttime parental intervention.

Sleep-deprived people

About half of all new mothers experience a transient postpartum sadness that vanishes within a few days. These baby blues are typical. But another 10 percent to 20 percent of mothers experience something much deeper and infinitely more troubling. These women are dogged by feelings of deepening despair, sorrow, and worthlessness, even if their marriages are doing well. Such painful, bewildering feelings last for weeks and months. Afflicted mothers cry all the time or simply stare out the window. They may stop eating. They may eat too much. These mothers are becoming clinically depressed, a condition known as postpartum depression.

require intervention.

baby begins mirroring the

mother’s depressive actions. It’s called reciprocal withdrawal. These children become more insecure, socially inhibited, timid, and passive—about twice as fearful on average as children raised by mothers who aren’t depressed.

empathy works so well is because it does not require a solution. It requires only understanding.

Five ingredients of intelligence

Executive function is a better predictor of academic success than IQ.

Executive function relies on a child’s ability to filter out distracting (in this case, tempting) thoughts, which is critical in environments that are oversaturated with sensory stimuli and myriad on-demand choices.

Learning sign language may boost cognition by 50 percent

Babies need face time

baby’s brain needs interaction with you, in person, on a consistent basis.

Four brain boosters

makes babies smarter.

Speak to your children as often as you can. It is one of the most well-established findings in all of the developmental literature.

You can reinforce language skills through interaction: looking at your infant; imitating his vocalizations, laughter, and facial expressions; rewarding her language attempts with heightened attention.

Children whose parents talked positively, richly, and regularly to them knew twice as many words as those whose parents talked to them the least. When they entered the school system, their reading, spelling, and writing abilities soared above those of children in less verbal households. Even though babies don’t respond like adults, they are listening, and it is good for them.

Talking to children early in life rai...

IQ scores 1½ times higher than those kids whose parents talked to them the least

Remember, it takes a real live person to benefit your baby’s brain, so get ready to exercise your vocal cords. Not the portable DVD player’s, not your television’s surround-sound, but your vocal cords.

Parentese is characterized by a high-pitched tone and a singsongy voice with stretched-out vowels. Though parents

don’t always realize they do it, this kind of speech helps a baby’s brain learn language.

Praise effort, not IQ

What to say instead: “You really worked hard”

“I’m so proud of you. You must have studied a lot.”

Because they believe mistakes occur from a lack of effort, not from a lack of ability, the kids realize mistakes can be remedied simply by applying more cognitive elbow grease.

kids are really good at imitation.

What you allow into your child’s brain influences his expectations about the world, which in turn influences not only what he is capable of perceiving but his very behavior.

The fact is, the amount of TV a child should watch before the age of 2 is zero.

TV also poisons attention spans and the ability to focus, a classic hallmark of executive function. For each additional hour of TV watched by a child under the age of 3, the likelihood of an attentional problem by age 7 increased by about 10 percent.

After age 2, help your children choose the shows (and other screen-based exposures) they will experience. Pay special attention to any media that allow intelligent interaction.

Watch the chosen TV show with your children, interacting with the media and helping your children to analyze and think critically about what they just experienced. And rethink putting a TV in the kids’ room: Kids with their own TVs score an average of 8 points lower on math and language-arts tests than kids in households with TVs in the family room.

between physical activity and mental acuity. Exercise—especially aerobic exercise—is fantastic for the brain, increasing executive function scores anywhere from 50 percent to 100 percent. This is true across the life span, from young children to members of the golden-parachute crowd. Strengthening exercises, though there are many other reasons to do them, do not give you these numbers.

Fit kids score higher on executive function tests than sedentary controls,

The best results accrue, by the way, if you do the exercises with your children.

No two brains develop at the same rate

A child who is a math whiz at age 4 is not necessarily one at age 9. Einstein, arguably as bright as they come, is rumored not to have spoken in complete sentences until he was 3. (His family had christened him “the dopey one!”)

teach your children how to socialize effectively—how to make friends, how to keep friends—if you want them to be happy.

Empathy: The glue of relationships

The single best predictor of happiness? Having friends.

The attachment bond is made stronger and more intimate through a variety of experiences, many involving how attentive a parent is to the baby in the early years (though genetic factors appear to play a strong role, too). If the bonding process runs into turbulence, the baby is said to be insecurely attached. These kids don’t grow up to be as happy. Their scores on social responsiveness tests are almost two-thirds lower than those of securely attached children. As they grow up, they exhibit more

than twice the emotional conflict in their interpersonal lives as do securely attached infants. They show less empathy and tend to be more irritable. They also get the poorest grades.

Here are the six spices that go into this parental dry rub:

A demanding but warm parenting style

Responsiveness. This is the degree to which parents respond to their kids with support, warmth, and acceptance. Warm parents mostly communicate their affection for their kids. Hostile parents mostly communicate their rejection of their kids. • Demandingness. This is the degree to which a parent attempts to exert behavioral control. Restrictive parents tend to make and enforce rules mercilessly. Permissive parents don’t make any rules.

Responsive plus demanding. The best of the lot. These parents are demanding, but they care a great deal about their kids. They explain their rules and encourage their children to state their reactions to them. They encourage high levels of independence, yet see that children comply with family values. These parents tend to have terrific communication skills with their children.