Developing Healthy Childhood Brains: A Guide for Parent and Teacher Partnerships

What happens to the brain in early childhood years--at school and at home--can have a direct influence on the rest of a person's life. Developing Healthy Childhood Brains is designed to help teachers and parents work together for the benefit of young children, when their young brains are undergoing crucial phases of development. It provides a simple framework designed to give parents and teachers what they need to participate together in a child's neurological development. Neuroscience has demonstrated that a poorly developed child's brain can cause serious problems in adulthood. How do we prevent those problems from happening? What is within the control of parents and teachers? Despite their crucial role in childhood brain development, the adults who design home and school environments for children rarely have a common, unified approach. And, importantly, parents and teachers rarely have a common, factual guide for designing environments that foster healthy brain development. This book, reviewed by a neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology, will address some of the primary factors that influence healthy brain development in the context of schools and homes. It is designed to be used collaboratively by parents and teachers, so that there is alignment and unity between school and home environments. With everyone working together and using the same framework, we can prevent many problems during childhood and prevent tragic outcomes in adults.