Carol Stovold Quality Kidz qualitykidz.co.nz Tauranga

Last week I discussed the magic of the brain and some brief information on how knowledge is consolidates.

This week I am exploring the primary motivators for the human brain and associated biological factors for children's growth and development.

In order for humans to survive the brain evolved to develop an incredible transcript which provides two prime directives – procreate and protect! A newborn baby is completely vulnerable, unable to move, speak, feed or clean themselves – unlike a foal which can stand, feed and run around within hours of being born. To survive past birth, the central need is for babies to form an attachment to the person who is going to protect them.

Biologically this means mothers are flooded with oxytocin (the love or cuddle hormone) when their child is born. Oxytocin is a hormone that acts primarily as a neurotransmitter in the brain. Oxytocin is released in large amounts during labor, and after breastfeeding. It also crosses the placenta and induces a switch to silence the fetal brain for the period of delivery. This ‘love drug' helps babies to attach to mothers and mothers to bond with babies.

Babies are born with only 15 per cent of their brain ‘wired up' to control the auto pilot functions located in the brainstem. These are all the things we require for survival, like breathing, heart rate, body temperature, fight, freeze or flight reactions etc.

The other 85 per cent has to be connected. This happens by way of neural pathways and synaptic connections formed through sensory experiences in the next three years. The first sense to develop is touch, then balance, smell, taste, hearing and finally sight.

The brain develops and functions from the base of the brain up. Significantly, if the brainstem is aroused through stress or anxiety, other brain functions are suspended - affecting the ability to learn.

In other words, we need to feel safe and calm in order to learn effectively. Children develop the mid-brain next, which is concerned mostly with motor development or movement functions, and then development of the limbic system or emotional centre of the brain occurs between ages two to three. This performs a central role in the ability to interact with others and communicate. At about the age of three, the brain moves into the cortex where the ability to think logically begins to emerge. Those ‘terrible twos' are when the child is learning about their emotions but have very little control over them, until their cortex begins to ‘kick in'.

Most importantly your child's development is accumulative and designed to occur when the baby is biologically ready. Often we are so eager to prepare children for the next stage, we don't celebrate where they are currently at.

A lovely analogy is that ‘a baby is like a flower; open the petals too soon and you can spoil the bloom'.