Molly Wright, a second-grader from Queensland, Australia is an aspiring wildlife warrior, performer, and budding social activist. At the age of seven, she uses the most unusual “weapon” to change the world “” the game of …

Molly and the leading scientists in the field of brain development advise parents and caregivers to serve and return. Like in tennis, but slightly modified: Molly dubs this a “grownup” phrase and prefers to translate it to “” connect, talk, and play with children! That’s all they want! How often should you serve and return? The answer is simple: early and often. The human brain develops faster in our early years than at any other time in our lives, creating up to one million neural connections every second. In order to reach our full potential, says Molly, our healthy development depends on these top five things:

• connecting,
• talking,
• playing,
• a healthy home,
• community.

“Copycat games build imagination and empathy. Naming games build vocabulary and attention. And games like peekabo “” yep, peekaboo “” actually build memory and trust.” 

Molly Wright, TED Talks Ideas Worth Spreading

Molly urges parents to serve and return early and often because “it not only builds and strengthens our relationships and mental health, it actually teaches us some of the most important life skills, from making friends to taking the test, to getting a job, to one day maybe even starting a family of our own.” 

Every moment together is an opportunity to connect, talk and play. Imagine the difference we could make if everyone everywhere did this. To us, the children, it’s so much more than just a game. It’s our future.

The mission of the Novak Djokovic Foundation is to provide every child in Serbia with access to quality early childhood education. Through our programs and projects, we are reshaping today’s system “” and, consequently “” the future of the entire society. Serve and return interaction is a part of our Support, NOT Perfection program that our Foundation is implementing with the aim to empower parents. Thank you for being with us on this mission and for seeing early years as an essential funding priority.

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This unfolds across a lifetime, to the point where those who’ve experienced high levels of trauma are at triple the risk for heart disease and lung cancer. An impassioned plea for pediatric medicine to confront the prevention and treatment of trauma, head-on.

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If you are looking to give your child an academic boost, start with a second language. In spite of previous notions that learning a second language at an early age could actually be detrimental to a child’s cognitive abilities, recent psychology studies added to the growing body of evidence that being bilingual has a profound positive effect on the brain. Initial brain imaging studies of bilingual individuals demonstrated that both language systems in the brain are active, even though only one system is in use. At first, researchers interpreted this to be a handicap, but they were wrong.

Over the last fifteen years, neuroscientists, psychologists, and educators have amassed a wealth of information demonstrating numerous advantages of growing up bilingual. What researchers failed to realize when they first studied the bilingual brain was the seemingly distracted brain, with multiple activated regions, was actually a brain in training. Just as training regimens strengthen our muscles, repeatedly sorting out conflicts enhances the brain’s ability to process new material.

As a result, bilingual children are often out performing their monolingual counterparts in a number of cognitive skills. Comparatively, bilingual children often have more developed executive functions, that is, they are likely to excel at planning, problem solving and other mentally demanding tasks. But what gives bilingual children this edge above their monolingual classmates? While the mechanism underlying these results is not clear, researchers believe that bilingualism enhances a child’s attention to their surroundings and augments their experience in adapting to those changes.

Copyright: Syda Productions

If increased executive functions were not motivation enough to support bilingual childhood education, than consider the health benefits. Alzheimer’s disease is an increasing issue for the developed world. By 2025, it is projected that over 7.1 million Americans will suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. Neuropsychologist at the University of California, San Diego have revealed a potential solution to this impending public health crisis with bilingualism. Their evaluation of 44 elderly Spanish-English bilinguals established a link between the age of onset and language capabilities; with increased bilingualism came later ages of Alzheimer’s disease.

Social Skills of Bilingual Children

The benefits of bilingualism don’t stop at elevated cognitive function or protection from neurodegenerative diseases. It is not surprising that learning a new language boosts the number of people with whom you can converse, but the latest round of research confirms that bilingualism changes how you communicate with others. Psychologists at the University of Chicago took to documenting the social skills of bilingual and monolingual children. They found that the monitoring skills that were benefiting the executive functions of bilingual children could also be given them an advantage in the social realm.

Monitoring social situations often results in a better understanding of the context in which conversations take place, reveal details about interpersonal relations, and link places with conversation. Those contextual cues that bilingual children noticed but that monolingual children missed facilitated their conversations with adults ¾ after all, the majority of our communications are non-verbal. Moreover, understanding context and relationships took bilingual children one-step closer to advanced social skills.

Copyright: takasu

A recent follow-up study, also completed by Katherine Kinzler of Cornell University and her colleagues at the University of Chicago, showed that bilingual infants understood the idea of perspective. In their test scenario, infants were presented with two bananas, one that was visible to an accompanying adult and one that was not. When adults asked the infants for a banana, bilingual children were more likely to reach for the banana that was visible to the adult. On the other hand, monolingual children were equally likely to reach for either, or both bananas at the same time.

The Benefits of Being in a Multilingual Environment

Being bilingual is not the only way to gain some of these benefits. Simply being in a multilingual environment is a step in the right direction. Children in a multilingual environment are still observing the contextual cues that are responsible for the improved social skills of bilingual infants. In that respect, association alone is sufficient to give infants an advantage in the social arena. Unfortunately, that is where the benefits end. When the executive functions of children who were a multilingual environment were compared to those in a monolingual environment, no discernible differences were found.

Overwhelmingly, the benefits of learning a second language are clear for early childhood education. Not only will bilingual students be able to perform executive functions better, and likely for a prolonged period of neurological health, but they will also be more adept in conversation and social skills. Bilingualism not only expands the ability to interact with the world, but it also promotes the ability to perceive the perspective of others and to act accordingly.

Copyright: Oksana Kuzmina

Yet, even 15 years after the initial research demonstrating the neurological benefits of bilingualism were published, many education systems still lack effective language programs. In the United States, for example, language education primarily takes place in high school. Even so, only ten states required foreign language study for high school graduation in 2010. Bilingual education, however, has existed in some regions for decades. For example, in the 1990’s Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Austria, and Finland expanded their previously established bilingual education programs to all students in general education. In an increasingly global and competitive market, it would be wise to follow this lead.

So perhaps the next time we think about what we can do for our children, we should really be asking €œQu’est-ce que nous pouvons faire pour nos enfants? € or €œlo que podemos hacer por nuestros hijos? € €¦

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We all know that our childhood and adolescent experiences can shape our adult personalities and characters. Adults frequently exhibit mannerisms and patterns that are remnants of their past: if a woman has fond memories of childhood camping trips, she will likely continue to find comfort and peace in nature; if a man grew up on the music of his parent’s generation, he’ll probably listen to the same genre and style of music throughout adulthood.

But just how early do we start being affected by our experiences and circumstances? How early do we begin exhibiting the consequences of unstable environments? How do these types of situations manifest themselves later in life? And what are the implications of this data?

Mental health in early childhood

Mental health problems and their symptoms as they pertain to adults and even teenagers are often discussed and heard. However, far less visible is the significance of mental health in early childhood. Serious behavioral issues are often chalked up to a simply undesirable personality, rather than symptoms of a larger problem. In fact, significant mental health problems do exist in young children – attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder”¦ But due to the unpredictable and uncertain nature of all children, it is difficult for even professionals to diagnose, let alone for the average parent or caretaker to perceive. Still, mental health problems in young children must be addressed, as they pose greater risks as the child matures.

Copyright: ISchmidt

So what is the cause of mental health problems in children?  

Certainly, genetics play an important role in determining whether a child will exhibit issues. However, genes are not the only cause. Contrary to popular belief, genes are only blueprints. They contain instructions, but those instructions can be affected by the experiences and circumstances that children endure.

In the first few years of a child’s life, the brain develops at an incredibly rapid pace. Between 700 and 1000 connections are formed every second in the brain during this time. However, these connections are reinforced by experience and repeated use, and weaker bonds are soon broken once pruning begins, which is when the brain discards connections that seem irrelevant to increase efficiency. As such, experience and genetics play equal roles in determining the mental health of children.

Early childhood plays a critical role in building the foundation for lifelong good mental health

The experiences of a child’s first few years shape the architecture of the brain. A child’s relationships with parents, caregivers, teachers and peers are especially significant in providing a strong basis for later behavior, be it good or bad. If the child’s environment is strong, these relationships will provide a buffering effect when he or she is forced into a stressful situation. However, if he or she is surrounded by significant adversity, such as domestic violence or parental substance abuse, the child’s biological response to stress will become overactive, and he or she will be especially susceptible to mental health problems.

Copyright: CandyBox Images

When a child is in a persistently traumatic environment, a form of stress that is especially destructive, called toxic stress, begins to damage the architecture of the brain. This is due to the damage caused by long periods of high stress levels when biological stress response systems are activated for extended amounts of time. These adverse experiences predict the emergence of both physical and mental health problems later in life, such as heart disease and diabetes, as well as depression and anxiety. Furthermore, toxic stress also damages the child’s cognitive, emotional, and social development, impairing his or her ability to learn and relate to others. If left untreated, this will continue to develop, leading to abnormal hormone levels that can affect school readiness and later academic achievement, as well as elevating the risk of the emergence of physical and mental problems in adult life.

It is incredibly important to diagnose and treat mental health problems early

Fortunately, the certain actions when taken early can mitigate the damaging consequences of early childhood toxic stress. It is incredibly important to diagnose and treat mental health problems early, as it is both easier and more cost-effective to alleviate these issues when spotted early. Symptoms of potential mental health problems do not always become disorders, and these disorders can be prevented by providing access to the right combination of appropriate, high-quality care. Though the children who are most at risk of developing mental disorders – ones that grow up in poverty or are plagued by domestic strife – are often those that have the greatest difficulty accessing the services they need, it is possible to protect the children living in such threatening environments. Indeed, it is frequently necessary to focus on the needs of a child’s caregiver when trying to meet the needs of the child. By coordinating services that focus on the entire scope of the child’s environment, we can mitigate the dangers of destructive environments to ensure the long term mental health of the child.

Copyright: Iakov Filimonov

The implications of this information are incredibly significant. By reducing the onset of mental health problems in early childhood, not only will we be increasing the quality of life for a number of children, but we will also be targeting the roots of substance abuse and other problems that pervade society. Early childhood mental health is an immensely important issue, and preventing its manifestation could make a huge positive impact on our society.

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• Regarding the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil, will you please tell us why you encourage collecting stickers and how this activity can influence the development of intelligence?

Before I explain why collecting stickers is good for kids, I would like to note that parents often make mistakes and provide their children with totally useless things to play with, or even let them do some harmful things, thinking they are doing something useful. Unfortunately, nowadays there are more and more children with developmental disabilities, dyslexia, and dyscalculia. Furthermore, almost every second child is suffering from a speech disorder, and it seems that the situation is getting worse. We have to educate parents, since they are the first and most important teachers.

Collecting stickers is a very useful game and I would recommend every parent to get their children involved in this activity, regardless of whether they are boys or girls. Let me digress, and mention that development of intellectual abilities depends on genetics and environment. It seems that we have forgotten this, as we think less about the environment of our children. However, the most important thing that we need to pay particular attention when we think about child’s environment is the fact that the connections between the brain cells extensively develop after birth, up to the age of five, and even up to the age of seven and twelve. After this period, new connections in the brain are still being formed, but not as fast and dynamic as in the childhood. There is medical evidence that intellectual abilities depend on the number of these connections (synapses), so it makes sense why childhood is an important period for child’s development.

Interesting enough, collecting stickers can help a lot in creating synapses (in my lectures people often wonder why I encourage collecting stickers so much, as if I worked for PANINI company). It’s worth noting that the development of mathematical and logical thinking is influenced by the classification games  (when the child has to sort blocks according to colors – blue, green, white…) and seriation games (when the child arranges different blocks according to size – from the biggest to the smallest…). In most countries, these games are played in kindergarten, but they are designed in the way that the child has to look at the toys and do the task. This is a specific classification and seriation. In NTC Learning System  that has already been implemented in 16 European countries. We introduce abstract classification and seriation, where collecting stickers play an important part.

The child who collects football stickers can learn a lot of things. For example, he can learn names of the players, countries they come from, and clubs they play for, apart from their national teams. Every day children look at the album, counting how much more stickers they need in order to complete the collection. They also exchange duplicate stickers with their friends. Sometimes they take home 2-3 extra stickers, or lose 2-3-4 stickers during the exchange. Thus, it makes them happy or sad, but that’s all part of this nice and useful game. Or, when they are exchanging stickers they can estimate the value of particular stickers. For example, if the child needs just 5 stickers to complete the album, he is ready to give much more stickers in exchange, in order to get these five missing ones etc.    

•  In lectures you often explain why parents shouldn’t buy too many gifts for their children. In your opinion, how often should we buy stickers to our kids, every day or less frequently?

Unfortunately, parents can spoil this game. I had similar experience with my son, four years ago when he was collecting PANINI stickers (FIFA WORLD CUP 2010). He was seven then and one afternoon he came to me asking: “Dad, I’m sorry for interrupting, but I want to ask you something“. I’ve noticed he interlaced his fingers, holding his hands as if he was washing them. But, he immediately said:”Never mind, I don’t want to ask you that. I’m sure it will make you angry“. I said he could feel free to ask me anything he wanted, but still he turned away and left. Shortly after, he came back saying that he will not ask me anything. This is my fourth child, so I have a lot of experience, and I realized that he tried to manipulate me, and I let him go. After two minutes, there he came again. This time I put aside the newspapers I was reading, ready to answer any question he wanted. Then finally, he said quickly: “I know that’s not true, but I still keep thinking that Igor’s dad loves him more than you love me“.

I’m sure it’s not easy for every parent to hear such a thing. If he told such thing to his mother, she would probably have cried and fulfilled the wish of her “sad and unhappy” child, so she could  show him love. Fortunately, his mom was not present so I asked Danilo why he was thinking like that. He said that Igor has already completed his album thanks to his dad who bought him 20 packs of stickers every day. He thought it was because Igor’s dad loved Igor very much. I put him in the lap, hugged him and tried to explain that Igor wouldn’t be able to tell the names of the footballers and clubs they were playing for, nor other important details, such as when and where they were born. However, Danilo still insisted on buying more stickers. Until then we had a deal to buy one pack a day. I’ve decided to change that by saying he would still have one pack a day, except on Saturdays and Sundays, when he could get two packs instead of one. My kid was collecting stickers for two months. Every day he looked at his album, counting how much stickers were missing. He always had 20-30 duplicates to exchange with other children. He knew that some stickers are worth more and that by exchanging them he could get 2 or 3 extra ones. Sometimes they played games, hoping to win some more stickers. Thus, depending on the situation, they were very happy or sad if they won or lost a few duplicates.

During these two months he was developing mental classification and seriation during all day, playing with stickers and developing fine motor skills. On weekends he exchanged stickers with other children at the playgrounds to get the missing ones.

It is better to have this process last for a month or even longer, instead of completing the album in 10 days. We should not demonstrate love for our children by buying them lot of stickers, toys, and the latest tablet of video games. In fact, many toys won’t stimulate child’s development.

I’m not a psychologist, but if a child gets all that he wishes for he can develop even some negative character traits (selfishness, self-centered characteristics, with a low patience threshold if the parents refuse to buy him what he wants. These children learn how to manipulate their parents).

• Why flags, symbols, colors, different nationalities and races of players – promote intelligence? Why is this important?

Being able to recognize flags and players is just the small part of the bigger picture. There are still a lot of games that encourage development of intellectual abilities, especially playing with marbles, collecting napkins, cars, etc…

Recognizing symbols is the basis for development of mental classification and seriation, which we know can help develop mathematical logical thinking.

Stickers are very good tool for such development, since parents can ask the child: “which flag has blue color on it” or “which flag has a cross” or to buy a globe and see where are the countries he has learned about by collecting stickers. When he finds the place where a particular country is located (on a globe or atlas) then parents can ask questions such as: which country is bigger, Brazil or Italy, or they may even ask to line up three or four largest countries without looking at them (Belgium, Brazil, Bosnia, Germany). Parents should also encourage their children to exchange duplicate stickers, to learn how to play some of the games we used to play as children (throwing stickers, turning over the front images of the stickers with palms, odd €“even and similar). This part of the program is just 10% of NTC seminar, conducted by the Association of Educators of Vojvodina and the Association of Teachers of Serbia. We have also published the book “Child’s IQ €“ parents’ concern” with useful tips for parents to help them raise their children in safe and creative way and avoid making mistakes that can damage child’s development.

*This is an interview Mr Ranko Rajovic did for Slovenian national TV, which he enriched with some further explanations for our blog.

Featured photo:  Beto Chagas / Shutterstock.com

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It has long been believed that the key milestones in a child’s development are achieved automatically, purely as a result of the child’s growing older over time and/or the baby’s genetic make up.

This theory dictates that the child walks at age one due to some kind of built-in mechanism””rather like an alarm clock set to ring at twelve months that triggers the ability to walk.
Simultaneously the alarm clock for talking rings, and he begins to say words. The same theory postulates a preset alarm clock for each and every significant stage of development. This theory suggests that the mere passage of time leads to the development of human ability and that the acquisition of ability is as inevitable as the sunrise and the sunset.

This is called “readiness.” For example, the alarm clock rings at six years of age and the child supposedly has “reading readiness.”

If reading readiness takes place at six years of age as the conventional thinking says it does, then how can we explain that thirty percent of the children in school system in the United States will fail to learn to read properly by the age of eighteen? Why did their alarm clocks fail to ring at age six or seven? Why has it still not gone off by the time they are eighteen?

It is even harder to explain the thousands of brain-injured children who have actually learned to read by the age of three. They were more than ready. They think reading is the greatest invention since mothers.

Why did their reading “alarm clocks” ring early?

It is true that at twelve months of age the average child will walk. But is this a cause-and-effect relationship? Is it the passage of time that has brought about this new ability?

Obviously not.

After living night and day with well children who were given a superb environment in which to develop from birth, we had to ask ourselves, Why do they walk and talk and use their hands earlier than their peers?
Do they all just happen to have better genes?
Why do their alarm clocks go off before they are supposed to do so?
Why are they learning earlier?

One of the most exciting discoveries we were to make was that the process of growth and development is a product of the amount of stimulation in the child’s environment. It is not determined by a preset alarm clock or superior genes.

We therefore began to look for every way we could to “set off the alarm clocks” for brain-injured children, and we have found hundreds.

We discarded the model of the preset alarm clock. What we had discovered was a simple and elegant truth:

The brain grows by use, not a preset alarm clock.

Brain growth can be speeded by increased stimulation at any point in life, but most especially at those times when it is growing fastest: in the first six years of life.

The first six years of life are precious because during this time the brain grows at a tremendous rate. Brain growth is most dramatic in the first year.

The development of the newborn’s visual pathway offers clear proof of the dramatic growth of the brain in the first year of life.

A well newborn is, like other little creatures, functionally blind in a practical sense. He can see only light and dark. He has a “light reflex.” This means that if we shine a light into his eyes, the pupil will constrict to prevent too much light from entering the visual pathway. If we turn off the light, the pupil will again dilate to allow an acceptable amount of light to enter his visual pathway.

The significance of gaining the ability to see earlier is far greater. The average baby is trapped in a visually ordinary room at the very moment when his brain is growing at its fastest rate. He is capable of taking in a tremendous amount of information but his visual pathway is not sufficiently developed to do so.

The newborn who is stimulated, and thereby gains the ability to see weeks or even months earlier, has the wonderful opportunity to see everything that is around him during the period when his brain is growing so very rapidly.

This visual ability then leads to the maturation of other pathways. Once he can see, he begins to understand more easily what we are saying to him. When he can see, his need to move is hugely increased. As a result, he tries harder to move and moves more. This movement both stimulates his sense of touch and helps to further develop his vision. His increased movement helps his chest to grow and as a result his respiration improves. This better respiration allows him to make sounds more easily so he can communicate his needs better.

Thus begins a happy cycle of events, each one touching off yet another spark, each spark igniting yet another new ability.

The more the brain is used the more it grows, and the more capable the baby becomes. This is the very definition of using the brain.

This stimulation should be done on purpose, not by accident.

The brain-injured child cannot afford to be stimulated by accident and, in truth, neither should the well newborn baby.

The ability of the child is a product of stimulation and opportunity, not of a preset alarm clock or a predetermined genetic design.

The reality of how the brain really develops turns out to be much better than the old idea of how the brain develops. The truth turns out to be much better than the fiction.

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