Healthy Baby, Healthy Brain: Videos to share with parents
Parents and caregivers play an important role in the healthy development of a baby's brain. This website is full of helpful
videos to share with parents to help them understand how they can support their baby's healthy development.
Infographic: What is epigenetics and how does it relate to child development?
Epigenetics explains how early experiences can have lifelong impact. Science tells us that environmental influences—including the experiences we provide for children—actually affect the expression of their genes. This means that the old idea of Nature vs. Nurture is no longer a debate. It's nearly always both! To understand more about
epigenetics and how it affects child development and long-term health outcomes, check out this new infographic.
What Is Early Childhood Development? A Guide to the Science
Healthy development in the early years (particularly birth to three) provides the building blocks for educational achievement, economic productivity, responsible citizenship, lifelong health, strong communities, and successful parenting of the next generation. What can we do during this incredibly important period to ensure that children have a strong foundation for future development? The Center on the Developing Child created this Guide to Early Childhood Development (ECD) to help parents, caregivers, practitioners, and policymakers understand
the importance of early childhood development and learn how to support children and families during this critical stage.
A Guide to Executive Function
Executive function and self-regulation skills are like an air traffic control system in the brain—they help us manage information, make decisions, and plan ahead. We need these skills at every stage of life, and while no one is born with them, we are all born with the potential to develop them. But, how do we do that?
Here's a Guide to Executive Function to walk you through everything you need to know about these skills and how to develop and practice them.
Children need to be active, so Have a Ball!
Physical activity is essential to healthy child development, and the early years are the best time to give kids an active start. But where do you begin? The
Have a Ball Together website will give you the tools you need to be able to promote and encourage physical activity for children 0-6.
5 Steps for Brain-Building Serve and Return
Child-adult relationships that are responsive and attentive—with lots of back and forth interactions—build a strong foundation in a child’s brain for all future learning and development. This is called "serve and return." Harvard Centre on the Developing Child has
a quick video that explains "serve and return," and 5 important steps to follow when you're interacting with children.
10 Activities to help young children express and label feelings & emotions
Children can have a difficult time understanding their emotions and the way certain events make them feel in the early years of life. As educators, it is our responsibility to help and support them to manage their emerging and often confusing emotions. Here are
10 strategies and 10 activity ideas for helping children express and manage their emotions.
VIDEO: What is “Self-Reg”?
Have you ever wondered what it means when someone talks about "Self-Reg"? Here's a 1-minute video that explains
Self-Reg: A 5-step method for reducing stress.
What is Developmentally Appropriate Practice?
Developmentally Appropriate Practice (also known as DAP) is a teaching perspective in early childhood education where a teacher nurtures a child’s development (social, emotional, physical, and cognitive) based on theories of child development, the needs of the individual child, and the child’s cultural background (community, family history, and family structure).
VIDEO: What is Executive Function and Self-Regulation?
The Centre on the Developing Child at Harvard University has a new,
5-minute video that explains how we use executive function and self-regulation each and every day to manage ordinary, and sometimes challenging tasks. It also shows how science offers an explanation for how we navigate tasks successfully, and what can send us off course.
