Supporting Cognitive Development

In our early childhood education class I first learned the term "cognitive development" and how the synapses that connect neurons (core components of the nervous system, including the brain) grow at the fastest rate in a human's life from birth to about three years old. As we grow older, the synapses that have been active - the ones that have been stimulated by language, music, physical activities, food and so on - strengthen, while the unused synapses die off. So the theory goes that the more enriching an environment we raise our children in, the better their brain development and the smarter they'll be.

I was fascinated by information presented in the video our class watched, but a short ten-minute clip had also overwhelmed me. All I could think about is how Oliver is screwed because I don't sing to him enough. Some section of his brain is going to die off at age three because I can't carry a tune, can't play an instrument, can't remember the words to any songs other than The Wheels on the Bus or Take Me Out to the Ballgame and, frankly, don't even enjoy singing.

Aside from anything musical, I felt like I wasn't doing enough for Oliver period. What if I wasn't talking to him enough? Or reading to him enough? I suddenly felt guilty about the classes I thought would be both fun for me and beneficial for Oliver - baby sign language, Music Together, a bring-your-baby yoga class - but that I had opted out of mainly because of the cost (meaning not free for this frugal one). Sigh. Out of all the types of mommy guilt I could have predicted before I had kids, cognitive development wouldn't have made the list.

In our discussion afterward, the teacher assured us that we're all doing the right things just by doing what we've been doing all along with our kids throughout the course of their daily loves. We tell them we love them, we play with them, we fill their diets with healthy fats to grow their brains, we make sure they get enough sleep, we read to them, we sing to them (sigh, the guilt is still there). Eventually, out of necessity, I've had to lighten up (there's only one of me and so few waking hours in Oliver's life) but a chapter in the book American Parent: My Strange and Surprising Adventures in Babyland about research on cognitive development and our obsession as Americans to do anything possible to help our kids grow up to be geniuses, finally provided me the proof and rational I didn't know I had been seeking.

He explains, "If the synapses in the brain grow rapidly only in the first years of life, and if the synapses that aren't actively used die off, then it takes only a small leap to arrive at the idea that the more our brains are stimulated in the first years of life, the more synapses we will have, and the more powerful our brains will be." I guess that's where my logic was heading after seeing the video in class, but really, being kind of a pessimist, I was already making the leap to lack of stimulation creating a stunted brain.

The author writes about an experiment performed in the 1960s where one eye on a kitten was covered by a patch for the first three months of its life. Not only did that eye remain permanently blind, but when the researchers dissected the cat's brain, "they saw that without incoming date from the eyes, the visual cortex failed to develop properly." Even if scientists weren't trying to make a connection between "blind kittens and the intelligence of babies," that hasn't stopped parents from acting as if "children didn't receive the right stimulation in the first years of life, their brains would forever be as useless as the eyes of those blind-folded kittens."

But the author spells out what the media failed to explain in its pieces on infant development on ABC news or in articles in Newsweek or Parents magazine. "The research had found only that complete sensory deprivation could impede development. There has never been good evident that extra stimulation - beyond the sights and sounds that all babies hear in the course of daily life - enhances infant development."

Deep down I know we're doing alright. Oliver's day may not be filled with exciting activities, but I'm comforted realizing that spending two straight days in his pajamas, skipping the only playdate scheduled for the week because of a nap schedule gone array or banging away at the same set of toys while I try to do meal cleanup, general housekeeping and dinner preparation is not going to make him stupid, or worse.

And part of me is secretly placing a bet on the theory that Oliver's low-key babyhood is actually healthier. With few exceptions, his sleep and meal schedules have been directed by him, not by daycare or his parent's work schedules. We go to our early childhood education class on Thursday evenings - admittedly a taxing time of day for Oliver's early-to-bed routine - but that's the only scheduled activity we have all week. Everything else is kept simple. We have a calendar full of playdates through my moms groups we can take part in - when the timing works out. Until Oliver's nap schedule shifted, we hit up story time once a week, but even without that for the time-being, the library is only a 15-minute walk away and makes the perfect, "what do we do with our time now" kind of excursion. I keep my eye out for other activities outside the home that I think would enrich Oliver's development and be fun for him (and for me), but otherwise, I hope I'm setting the pace for a relaxed babyhood.