Brain Development Through Bilingual Education and Activities Requiring Self-Control

How To Help Your Child’s Brain Grow Up Strong (NPR):

- “Kids who learn two lan­guages young are bet­ter able to learn abstract rules and to reverse rules that they’ve already learned,” says Aamodt. “They’re less like­ly to have dif­fi­cul­ty choos­ing between con­flict­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties when there are two pos­si­ble respons­es that both present them­selves. They’re also bet­ter at fig­ur­ing out what oth­er peo­ple are think­ing, which is prob­a­bly because they have to fig­ure out which lan­guage to use every time they talk to some­body in order to communicate.”

- “This is real­ly crit­i­cal because there are so many things par­ents want to do when they read par­ent­ing books,” he says. “They take steps to teach their chil­dren math or read­ing … but a big thing we can do for our chil­dren is to do the best to fos­ter the devel­op­ment of self-con­trol and willpow­er. Self-con­trol and the abil­i­ty to restrain impuls­es is asso­ci­at­ed with suc­cess at every age, whether it means being able to read at age 4, or being able to restrain impuls­es at a lat­er age, or even what your peers think of you in high school. At all of these ages, willpow­er and self-con­trol is a stronger pre­dic­tor of aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess than IQ.”

- “When chil­dren are young, they can learn self-con­trol by focus­ing on any fun activ­i­ty — whether that means study­ing mar­tial arts or play­ing with dolls and plan­ning a make-believe tea party.”

To learn more:

About SharpBrains

SHARPBRAINS is an independent think-tank and consulting firm providing services at the frontier of applied neuroscience, health, leadership and innovation.
SHARPBRAINS es un think-tank y consultoría independiente proporcionando servicios para la neurociencia aplicada, salud, liderazgo e innovación.

Top Articles on Brain Health and Neuroplasticity

Top 10 Brain Teasers and Illusions

Newsletter

Subscribe to our e-newsletter

* indicates required

Got the book?