Shape young Kiwi minds
their children during their first three years can seriously boost their brain power. screening system that accurately identifies antisocial behavioural traits in kids at just three years old, work designed to help prevent them going off the rails as teens and adults.
MumAleshia Rough knows that talking to her two young children is crucial to their development.
She started listing everything she saw during walks with her son Johnny, 3, and one-year-old daughter Daisy, even though it drew a few perplexed looks from strangers.
‘‘I found out when they turned into toddlers, that they started narrating their own walks. Even at one, my daughter can say the grass is green, there’s a letterbox, there is a dog,’’ Rough said.
Tyler-Merrick said her work was influenced by the Dunedin Study, which has found that adults’ risk-taking behaviour can be accurately predicted from their behaviour as small children, and 1995 research that recorded every word spoken at home between parents and children from the age of seven months to three years old.
She encourages parents to talk to children as early as when they are in their mother’s womb, talk to them as soon as they are born, laugh and sing to give them greater vocabulary they can draw upon later in life.
‘‘Let’s remind parents that those simple interactions every day make a huge difference for their child’s pro-social pathway in life and success in life,’’ she said.
An expanded vocabulary gives children the ability to express themselves clearly as well as giving them a leg-up when it comes to reading and writing at school.
Rough, whose family will star in the Love Grows Brain campaign, says parents may feel rushed and stressed, but there is no better time to help their kids’ development.
‘‘We’ve always tried to show love and be responsive, even when we’re so tired and we don’t want to respond,’’ she says.
‘‘We always respond, every time, and as a result the kids, they themselves, are responsive to other children at kindergarten and at daycare.’’
Wright Family Foundation chief executive Chloe Wright said the campaign was inspired by research that highlighted the first years of a child’s life. ‘‘Parents as first teachers have the most influence in future outcomes for the child – by singing, reading, talking and interacting with your baby, you are setting the stage for your baby’s lifelong health and intellectual development.’’