My Child's Brain

My brain is growing.
I recently reread the excellent book Welcome to Your Child's Brain by Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt.  This book is an impressive compendium of information and evidence-based tips about child brain development.  As I watch my son grow up (now 16 months old), it's fascinating to read about the underlying processes that make it all possible.  It's also nice to hear what science has to say about child development, which mostly had the effect of reducing anxiety.

Also, I'm reminded about how rare it is to find a resource for parents that is based on science and evidence rather than the opinion of some random "expert".  My wife and I experienced this first hand when friends suggested that we read On Becoming Baby Wise for information about how to get our son to sleep through the night, which we started to implement until we learned that the lead author didn't hold a college degree and had never conducted a study of the effects of the proposed program.  Of course, it's impractical to wait to try anything until a study has been done to validate but if evidence does exist then that should be the place to start.

My one critique of Welcome to Your Child's Brain is that it is a bit technical.  I was fine with that but I spent 6 years of my life reading neuro-jargon - for the uninitiated the book is weighed down by terminology.  

In the end, parents need more resources like Welcome to Your Child's Brain that are based on facts, not speculation.  As far as I know, no organizations exist that serves as watch dogs for bad parenting advice... Perhaps, we need one?  What do you think?

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