Kim Arrington Johnson in BabyParenthood

Raising a Smart Baby

Clever kid reading a heap of different books

Seeing the world through a child’s eyes is one of life’s most precious joys, and it is my hope that by the end of this list, you will see that raising a smart child is not about preparing him for the Ivy League. It’s about instilling a wonder of the world, a curiosity, and a love of learning that will last a lifetime.

The following list is full of rich and meaningful learning tips. Entire books have been condensed into single bullet points; however, this is not to promote shorter attention spans. Rather, I want to expose parents to all types of research and literature to broaden their own libraries and scope for child development.

For a deeper look at specific topics, please reference the “Sources” at the end of the article.

Start with the idea of “It’s never too early.”

Learning begins the day your child is born, and a child who is nurtured with love and attention at a very early age will develop more readily in later years.

Take your child to museums, concerts, shows, and other events.

Admission is likely to be free for children age two and under. Try not to underestimate your child’s ability to grow from an experience but also have an exit plan in case the stimulation is too much. Getting out to an art museum or street festival is probably not a bad idea for a housebound new parent, either.

Enjoy every day experiences.

Every outing doesn’t have to be extraordinary. Any old place is new and interesting to a baby. A trip to the grocery store or a walk to the park is novel and exciting for baby.

Bond with baby. Hold baby often. Make her feel loved and protected.

The human brain is wired for survival first. If it doesn’t feel safe and secure, it can’t learn. Studies on education gaps for children in poverty have shown this for decades (prolonged, severe, or unpredictable stress in early childhood alters brain structures, impacting a child’s social, emotional, cognitive, and physical growth for life.)

Whereas, bonding activities, such as skin-to-skin contact, holding baby, reading to baby, wearing baby, and regulating negative emotions in the presence of your child will build up baby’s sense of safety and security.¹⁵⁴

Try not to share your stress with baby.

Anxiety is contagious, and baby strongly depends upon emotional cues from his parents. The part of the brain most affected by stress early in life is the undeveloped prefrontal cortex, which is critical in self-regulating activities.

Prefrontal cortex: This area of the brain is directly tied to executive function, including the abilities to make complex decisions, manage time and attention, plan and organize, and regulate inappropriate speech or behavior.

Breastfeed your baby.

Whether it is increased mother-baby bonding, natural DHA-ARA intake, or both, research is adding up to support breastfeeding and higher IQ.

In two studies involving more than 3,000 breast-fed infants in Britain and New Zealand, breastfeeding raised intelligence an average of nearly seven IQ points, if the children had a particular version of a gene called FADS2 (about 90% of the population carries the FADS2 gene variant). ¹⁵⁵ Note: To scale seven points, IQ tests typically use a standardized scale with 100 as the median score. A score between 90 and 110, or the median plus or minus 10 indicates average intelligence. A score above 130 indicates exceptional intelligence, and a score below 70 may indicate mental retardation.

In 2013, another large study found that breastfeeding longer can make children smarter. Researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital followed 1,312 babies and mothers from 1999 to 2010 and concluded that babies who were breastfed longer had better cognitive development later in life (controlling for mother’s IQ and child’s upbringing). A full year of breastfeeding could boost a child’s IQ by four points over that of a child who did not breastfeed.¹⁵⁶

Make learning fun with a warm, loving learning environment

In the 1980s psychologist Benjamin Bloom conducted a groundbreaking study of world-class scientists, athletes, and musicians. In the study, Bloom’s team interviewed 21 concert pianists, who were renowned for winning prestigious international competitions. What Bloom’s team uncovered was somewhat unexpected. There was a remarkable absence of raw talent or genius during the pianists’ early years. As it turned out, the members of this group were hardly Beethoven virtuosos. Most of them didn’t stand out on national, regional, or even local levels. The common thread among this talented group was simple—they all described a “warm, loving, and supportive environment” for learning during their first experiences with music.¹⁵⁷

Move over Tiger Mom. Bring in Dolphin Dad.

Happiness researcher and quick-witted TED talker Shawn Achor asserts that instead of tiger parenting, parents might consider dolphin parenting.¹⁵⁸ Dolphins are playful, social, and intelligent. Parents should smile more and encourage their children, not by falsely inflating their actions, but through striving to be “rationally optimistic.” Children raised by authoritarian or tiger parents may struggle with depressive symptoms, anxiety, and a feeling of alienation from others.¹⁵⁹

Nurture the whole child (too much emphasis can be being placed on early academic skills)

Being smart goes beyond IQ. Raising a smart child includes teaching cognitive skills (ABCs and 123s), social-emotional cues (good behaviors and self-control), and non-cognitive skills or character traits (setting rules, emphasizing effort over results, asking questions rather than telling answers, and teaching perseverance by allowing your child to fail). The best predictor for academic success is not IQ. The best predictors for success are traits such as self-control and grit.^{154, 160}

Praise your child’s effort rather than his personal qualities.

Researchers have found that toddlers ages one to three years who receive praise for their efforts (e.g., “You worked really hard on that”) rather than praise based on personal characteristics (e.g., “You’re a good girl” or “You’re really smart”) are more likely to prefer challenging tasks later and believe that future performance can be improved through hard work.¹⁶¹

Be a good role model for your child’s development.

Children mimic their parents’ behavior. If you react dramatically to small events, expect overreactions from your child. If you hit or yell when frustrated, expect your child to hit and yell. If you complain about mundane activities and give up quickly on challenging tasks, expect a child to follow your lead.

Let baby explore, experiment, and make a mess.

Encourage curiosity and independence early on in a safe environment. This concept can be challenging for first-time parents.

For example, let baby climb stairs while supervised at six to nine months, and they’ll be safer on them later.
Let baby eat independently, even though he makes a mess, and you will eat in peace sooner.
Don’t be too quick to help baby “figure out” toys, such as shape sorters or nesting cups, and they will learn to persevere themselves.

Limit plastic toys with lights and noises. Buy simple “open-ended” toys or use household items for play.

Everyone receives plastic, hand-me-down toys or gifts, and children love things that light up and make noises. However, when you are thinking about new toys for birthdays and other occasions, consider simple toys that encourage imagination: shape sorters, building blocks, nesting blocks, toy cars, balls, costumes for dress-up, kitchen food for role play, arts and crafts, play dough, sand boxes, and any toys to encourage play outside.

Listen to music.

You don’t have to play Mozart around the clock; however, show baby that music is fun. Get silly, bang on pots and pans, or make some simple instruments. Get baby moving and grooving to different musical styles and sounds.

Narrate your day to baby.

Point to objects, sing songs, and describe whatever you are doing. Exaggerate vowel sounds and repeat yourself often. Allow baby to see your mouth, lips, teeth, and tongue as you form words. Moderate this process for your own sanity, as needed.

Use your pointer finger.

Research indicates that if you point to objects with your index finger as you are saying a word babies will learn language faster.

Teach Baby Sign Language

Keep in mind that receptive language develops much earlier than expressive language (i.e., baby may be able to understand words but will not be able to say them.)

Teaching baby sign language can help fill this gap and reduce frustration for communicating needs. While your child may not be able to form his lips, teeth, and tongue yet to ask for more food, he will likely be able to press his fingers together vigorously to get what he wants. More, please!

Expand your vocabulary; the number of words that you use matters.

Doctors Betty Hart and Todd Risley noticed that at the University of Kansas lab school some preschoolers were advanced and some were far behind in their testing. What was causing these differences so early? After analyzing 23 million bytes of data collected from 1,300 hours of visits with 42 families, the researchers discovered that while child care routines were similar across socioeconomic groups, the number of words introduced to the children varied significantly. Researchers grouped the families into three socioeconomic categories based on the parents’ occupations and income. ¹⁶²

Professional family: This child will have heard 45 million words before kindergarten.

Working-class family: This child will have heard 26 million words before kindergarten.

Welfare family: This child will have heard only 13 million words before kindergarten.

All three children will show up for kindergarten on the same day, but one child will have heard 32 million fewer words. To get this child caught up, a teacher would have to speak 10 words per second for 900 hours to reach the 32 million mark by year’s end. Further testing of the same children supported that academic success at ages nine and 10 was attributable to the amount of talk heard from birth to age three years.

This study is often criticized because it contains a small sample set and does not show correlation to language use or parental interest. Other similar research indicates that access to high-quality early education programs largely explains early reading discrepancies.¹⁶³

Read aloud to your baby.

Jim Trelease, author of The Read Aloud Handbook, says there is perhaps no single act that a parent can do for a child’s education that is more effective than reading.¹⁶⁴

Reading aloud to children promotes language development, forges a bond between parent and child, encourages longer attention spans, and provides a head start in the foundation of all knowledge: reading. Math requires reading. Science requires reading. Writing requires reading.

Fill your child’s bookcase with used books and take her to the library often. Let your child know that when she comes to you with a book, you pay attention.

Make reading fun. The sillier, the better. There is a good reason why Green Eggs and Ham, Everyone Poops, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Pinkalicious, Moo Baa La La La, and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom are some of the best children’s books out there: they’re fun! So don’t be quick to discount Captain Underpants and Fancy Nancy as frivolous when they get your child away from the TV and excited about reading.

Still not convinced? When asked to explain how he went from a poor, fatherless, inner-city home led by a mother with a third-grade education to being a world-famous brain surgeon, Dr. Ben Carson points to two factors: his mother’s religion and “the pivotal moment when she limited [my] TV viewing and ordered [me] to start reading.”¹⁶⁵

Introduce a foreign language.

The brains of young children are hard-wired to learn language. Experts estimate that we begin to lose the ability to hear and say new sounds by ages eight to 12 years. So why not take advantage of this window of opportunity? You don’t even have to speak a second language yourself. Learn with your child using apps, audio files, or language videos, and keep it light and fun. Children who learn a second language:

Do significantly better at tasks requiring divergent thinking, problem solving, and creativity¹⁶⁶
Score higher on standardized tests in language arts, reading, and math than students not enrolled in foreign language programs¹⁶⁷
Display more openness to cultural diversity¹⁶⁸

Seek culturally diverse books and children’s media.

Shankar Vedantam, author of The Hidden Brain, notes that for every fifty mentions of the word “tolerance” by a teacher or parent, there are several hundred implicit messages of racial bias that children absorb through culture, including books, television, and attitudes of those around them.^{169, 170}

Think about how you introduce stereotypes in your home.

Maybe this is too advanced for the baby stage; however, new moms and dads can always begin thinking about how they want to parent for the future. Research on negative stereotypes leading to adverse outcomes for women and minorities is plentiful. Social psychologist Claude Steele, best known for his work on “stereotype threat,” discovered that the mere knowledge of stereotypes can be enough to negatively affect performance. For example, if you remind an Asian female that she is female before a math test, expect her to do worse. Remind her that she is Asian and expect her to do better. One’s environment (and the encouragement or discouragement surrounding her) makes a difference. ^{169, 171, 172}

Use Repetition, Repetition, Repetition to baby’s advantage.

Japanese violinist Shin’ichi Suzuki observed that children across the globe learn their native tongue with ease because of one simple concept: repetition. Whatever is important to your family can be cemented with daily repetition at dinnertime or bedtime or anytime, whether it is reciting prayers, saying poems in a parent’s native language, or telling stories about cultural or religious traditions. Children love hearing familiar stories over and over, and they will learn what matters to your family through repetition.¹⁷³

Practical tips from real parents: Early education for babies and toddlers

Put baby on a schedule. This will help him know what is coming up next.
Try not to compare your baby to others. It’s nearly impossible to avoid this temptation; however, kids develop at their own pace. Some are faster and some slower. Keep in mind that “developmental ages” are just a guideline. Note: This input is from a mother of five children.
Don’t pay any attention to comparisons about whose baby crawled when or whose baby walked early. Rolling over, crawling, and walking are not steadfast markers for intellectual development.
Read aloud to your baby at least once per day, in addition to bedtime stories. Make reading part of baby’s everyday life. Start a library. Show picture books to distract baby during tummy time.
Use sign language early and often. Learn simple sign language from YouTube videos, apps, and resources online.
Count blueberries and Cheerios for early math recognition.
Point to body parts while bathing or during diaper changes.
Visit your local parks and playgrounds often. Kids learn quickly from watching other kids.
Pretend to be animals. It is fun, and you can teach them facts about the animal while you are growling and mooing at one another.
If you must choose between going to a farm and heading into the city with a baby, go to the farm. Babies love animals, and their first words after mom and dad are animal noises.
Try to link book concepts with hands-on learning. Read about animals and then go to the zoo. Point to foods in a picture book, then visit the grocery store.
Don’t be so obsessed with colors, shapes, and ABCs-123s that you forget to teach your child to use his imagination. Talk to your child about how many things a cardboard box can be: a racecar, a rocket ship, a boat, a bed, etc. Play construction site in the sand and dirt, stock a box of dress-up costumes, have picnics and tea parties, make soldiers’ forts out of pillows, or build a train with chairs.
Talk about your child’s feelings and your reactions to good and bad behaviors as they occur. Good behavior must be taught.
Consider purchasing an activity book for toddlers around baby’s first birthday to inspire inexpensive activities that will stimulate brain development. Recommendations include: Slow and Steady Get Me Ready, Gymboree Baby and Toddler Play books, and The Toddler’s Busy Book.
Understand that ages recommended on toys are often listed more as legal and liability disclaimers rather than actual developmental recommendations. Most toys are age appropriate before the age listed.
Play child-friendly music in the house and car. Do not think that your children are oblivious to explicit lyrics and bad language on the radio. They are little sponges.
Play “brain games” in the car such as I Spy, the rhyme game, or counting games, or simply ask your child questions while driving, even if they do not respond.
Keep track of your baby’s milestones and developing personality traits by emailing yourself a real-time running commentary about your child. Maintain a unique and consistent subject line so that you can find these emails easily and record them in your child’s baby book. Siblings will have a blast comparing what they were like as babies later.

Modern Parenting: Comparing Milestones of Children

Finally, on the subject of modern parenting and child development, try hard to focus on encouraging curiosity and instilling a love of learning, and worry less about comparing your child to others (Parents with older kids will assure you that all kids have gifts… and things we are working on!)

This can be particularly challenging in the presence of parents who consistently think their baby is advanced, gifted, or at least above average for every type of feat imaginable (Look! She’s a tummy time prodigy. Wow, he’s pouring sand into a bucket at seven months—he’s a genius! Meanwhile, your baby is eating the sand.) In social psychology, this is called illusory superiority, a cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and underestimate their negative ones. So be prepared when a well-meaning mom or dad tries to “one-up” you at the sandbox, but know the occurrence is normal and not exclusive to parents. College professors (94% think they are above average), financial markets traders, engineers, and drivers young and old all suffer from the same issues—they are nearly all above average.^174-177

For more high-quality baby content, try the following articles:

Sources

154. Tough, P., How children succeed : grit, curiosity, and the hidden power of character. 2012, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. xxiv, 231 pages.

155. Caspi, A., et al., Moderation of breastfeeding effects on the IQ by genetic variation in fatty acid metabolism. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2007. 104(47): p. 18860-5.

156. Belfort, M.B., et al., Infant feeding and childhood cognition at ages 3 and 7 years: Effects of breastfeeding duration and exclusivity. JAMA Pediatr, 2013. 167(9): p. 836-44.

157. Grant, A.M., Give and take : a revolutionary approach to success. 2013, New York, N.Y.: Viking. 305 p.

158. Achor, S., Before happiness : the 5 hidden keys to achieving success, spreading happiness, and sustaining positive change. 2013, New York: Crown Business. xviii, 252 pages.

159. Kim, S.Y., et al., Does “Tiger Parenting” Exist? Parenting Profiles of Chinese Americans and Adolescent Developmental Outcomes. Asian Am J Psychol, 2013. 4(1): p. 7-18.

160. Medina, J., Brain rules : 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home, and school. 1st ed. 2008, Seattle, WA: Pear Press. 301 p.

161. Gunderson, E.A., et al., Parent praise to 1- to 3-year-olds predicts children’s motivational frameworks 5 years later. Child Dev, 2013. 84(5): p. 1526-41.

162. Hart, B. and T.R. Risley, Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. 1995, Baltimore: P.H. Brookes. xxiii, 268 p.

163. Dupere, V., et al., Understanding the positive role of neighborhood socioeconomic advantage in achievement: the contribution of the home, child care, and school environments. Dev Psychol, 2010. 46(5): p. 1227-44.

164. Trelease, J., The read-aloud handbook. 6th ed. 2006, New York: Penguin Books. xxvi, 340 p.

165. Carson, B. and C. Murphey, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story. 1996, Grand Rapids, MI: Harper Collins/ Zondervan.

166. Landry, R.G., A Comparison of Second Language Learners and Monolinguals on Divergent Thinking Tasks at the Elementary School Level. The Modern Language Journal, 1974. 58(1-2): p. 10-15.

167. Garfinkel, A. and K.E. Tabor, Elementary School Foreign Languages and English Reading Achievement: A New View of the Relationship. Foreign Language Annals, 1991. 24(5): p. 375-382.

168. Carpenter, J. and J. Torney, Beyond the Melting Pot, in Childhood and Intercultural Education: Overview and Research, P. Maloney, Editor. 1973: Washington DC.

169. Steele, C., Whistling Vivaldi : and other clues to how stereotypes affect us. 1st ed. Issues of our time. 2010, New York: W.W. Norton & Company. xii, 242 p.

170. Vedantam, S., The hidden brain : how our unconscious minds elect presidents, control markets, wage wars, and save our lives. 1st ed. 2010, New York: Spiegel & Grau. x, 270 p.

171. Carr, P.B. and C.M. Steele, Stereotype threat affects financial decision making. Psychol Sci, 2010. 21(10): p. 1411-6.

172. Steele, C.M. and J. Aronson, Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. J Pers Soc Psychol, 1995. 69(5): p. 797-811.

173. Suzuki, S., Ability development from age zero. 1981, Secaucus, N.J. xi, 96 p.

174. Dunning, D., Self-insight : roadblocks and detours on the path to knowing thyself. Essays in social psychology. 2005, New York: Psychology Press. xiv, 225 p.

175. Svenson, O., B. Fischhoff, and D. MacGregor, Perceived driving safety and seatbelt usage. Accid Anal Prev, 1985. 17(2): p. 119-33.

176. Cross, K.P., Not can, but will college teaching be improved? New Directions for Higher Education, 1977. Spring(17): p. 1-15.

177. Odean, T., Volume, Volatility, Price, and Profit When All Traders Are Above Average. Journal of Finance, 1998. 53(6): p. 1887-1934.

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