Love is the key to brain development in children

Love is one of the most powerful environmental factors when it comes to developing, growing and staying healthy. For this reason, educating children from Affection constitutes the fundamental pillar of growth from the earliest childhood.

By assuming this educational responsibility we will offer our children the possibility of controlling their chemistry and brain development; That is, we will be preparing them to control their biology through the influence of their emotional capacities.

Therefore, we have in our hands the possibility of enhancing their psychological and physical well-being for the rest of their lives. It is enough to offer them our affection and for them to perceive it so that the most wonderful connections flourish in their brain.

Loving children will protect them for life

A study carried out in the Washington University School of Medicine provided evidence about the importance of love, attention and affection in brain development in children.

According to the magazine Proceedingswhich originally published these findings, the specialists carried out the study grouping those parents who were solicitous to their babies’ complaints on the one hand and those who tended to ignore these situations on the other.

Years later, researchers were able to see through MRI images that Those children who had been treated affectionately had more developed hippocampi in relation to those who had not been treated with so much love.

It should be noted that having small hippocampi constitutes a greater risk of problems such as depression, stress or dementia such as Alzheimer’s. Therefore, We can get the idea of ​​the advantage that growing up in a loving environment means for a child.

You might be interested…

A smile as an umbrella for life

To understand this we must know that what we understand by emotions is the translation we make of the biochemical changes that occur in our brain together with the psychophysiological behaviors that they generate in our body.

In this sense, we must know that serotonin is one of the chemical substances responsible for producing our emotional reactions. It is known that it plays a great role in balancing our mood as well as when facing stressful situations.

As a consequence we will obtain a better capacity to manage conflictive situations.a reduction in impulsivity and aggressiveness and even the correct regulation of body temperature, blood pressure, digestion and sleep.

Knowing this we are able to understand why a simple smile can serve as an umbrella for a child. Specialists point out that when you smile, the temperature of the cerebral cortex decreases due to the contraction of the blood vessels that surround the facial muscles and, as a consequence, more serotonin is produced.

Keys to educating our children with love

It has already become clear that by treating our children with love we will contribute not only to their correct emotional development, but also to their physical, social and cognitive development.

Taking this into account We must prioritize certain supports, help or attitudes that help our children feel loved and worthy of love. Let’s look at some keys.

1. A child should never feel that the love you have for him depends on his actions

Children should know that love is not conditional. That is, we must avoid messages of the type “If you do that I will stop loving you but if you don’t I will love you more.”

Since mistakes will always be part of his life, a child cannot grow up thinking that this will make him more or less valuable. Definitely, Children should feel that they are loved for who they are and not for what they do.

2. Help them adapt better

If we help them understand that the world is not a Disney story, they will be able to understand and face reality. of the environment in which they live, a place where stress and restlessness prevail in the same way as affection and love.

In this way we will prevent them from growing up naive, unaware of everything they will encounter as they grow. Making them aware that stress and problems exist (always according to their level of understanding) will help them develop neural pathways that allow them to better adapt to the world.

3. Help them maintain control over their emotions

Like all types of education, emotional education requires that you lead by example. That is why we must teach our children that there is no invalid emotion or feeling. Jealousy, envy and anger are normal and natural, you just have to manage them so that they do not interfere and do not overflow.

4. Talk to them about their emotions

As we have commented on other occasions, Words only account for 10% of the true meaning we obtain through emotional communication. That is why we must help them understand how their emotions manifest themselves in their tone of voice, in their body language, in their posture and in their facial expressions.

You might be interested…