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Key reason no.2: ‘Hard-wiring’ the brain for social competence
During the first 1000 days a baby’s brain grows from 300grams to 1.2kg. For that to occur it needs lots of the right sort of stimulation. But it needs something else too.
The baby also needs a loving, secure relationship in which to develop a strong emotional attachment and learn to trust and love. Did you know, for example, that -
- Early relationships and experiences influence the architecture of the brain.
- Infants are most susceptible to having lifelong consequences associated with trauma in the first three years.
- During the first year an infant learns how to form an emotional attachment – or not.
- The circuits involved with forming an emotional attachment have pretty much done their work before the age of two.
- Infants are not able to manage their stress alone and in the early years minimal levels of stress may result in high levels of cortisol.
- Infants are dependent on adults to regulate their stress levels. When this occurs satisfactorily, infants’ biological stress management systems develop appropriately.
- These systems need to be made within the first 18 months before the window of opportunity is lost.
- Failure to develop satisfactory biological stress management systems leads to problems in many areas in later life.
The over-stressed infant grows up unable to establish firm trusting relationships with other humans, likely to be socially incompetent and have lower teacher ratings of educational competence and other outcomes in teenage years.
Check out Key reason no.3.