Raising a Smart Baby: 6 Questions for John Medina
Kia Wood
It's the eternal question: How can you raise a baby to become a happy and successful adult? We found some answers from an unexpected source - developmental molecular biologist John Medina. In his book "Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five," Medina taps scientific data to unlock the keys to successful parenting. And they're not what you would expect.
Medina, the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University, has written extensively on how the brain reacts to and organizes information, including the New York Times bestseller "Brain Rules." In his newest book Medina, a dad himself, uses his brain expertise to address questions that many parents share - How do I get my kid into Harvard? What can I teach my baby in the womb?
The answer? Contrary to popular belief, the path to a successful adulthood isn't paved with expensive educational toys and DVDs. In fact, Medina says, having healthy emotional lives is the most important factor in a child's future success.
We asked Medina to fill us in on how science can help parents raise their children.
Most people want their baby to be happy and smart, but few see the connection between the two. What is the connection between intelligence and happiness?
It's important to understand that the human brain is not interested in learning. It's not interested in being a good little boy or being a good little girl. It's interested in one thing: survival. If you can create feelings of safety in a child, then regardless of what is going on in their life, they're going to turn out pretty well.There's a direct relationship between emotional stability and the ability to do well. What I like to tell parents is, if you really want your kids to do well in college, the best thing you can do is consistently, and with great joy, give them feelings of safety from early on. Tell them things like, "I'm never going to go away from you, we will always be together." If you don't communicate these feelings of safety, you can forget about your baby getting into Harvard. Kids who feel unsafe statistically don't do very well.