Brain Rules for Baby

Just finished reading, "Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five" by John Medina.  I really enjoyed it and learned a few things that I'd like to put into practice.

Empathy:   This is something that does not come easily to me, and yet it is the main theme of this book.  Parents need to have empathy and teach their children how to be empathic.  It is the foundation for building lasting friendships (which is the main predictor of happiness).  To develop an empathy reflex, 1. Label the emotion, 2. Guess where it came from.  This helps you understand the action/emotion of others.

Label Emotions:  Explain emotions to children and help them understand what they are feeling.  This will help them act better when they have intense emotions.  Verbalizing emotions has a calming affect.

Be Present:  Parents must spend face time with their babies to encourage brain development.  They need to be responsive and engaged in their lives.  Parenting is very hands-on and messy!  It's okay to make mistakes, but love your kids and be active in their lives.  If you pay attention to their emotional needs and development, you will be less surprised as they change.  This also gets parents into a predictive mode, instead of reactive.

Praise Effort:  To foster a learning brain, praise the effort and not only the result.  This will encourage kids to try harder.

Read Together:  This seems to be the way to get a "smart" baby.  Talk somewhere near 2100 words per hour, and read together.  Babies learn from human interaction more than they do from a TV or CD player.  Along this line of thinking, it's better to have your child take music lessons than to play them music.  (He recommends 10 yrs of lessons!)

Really, if I want a happy and successful child, I need to help her become a good friend.