The brain develops the most rapidly during the first five years of life.
During your child’s earliest years, their brain makes over 1 million neural connections—every single second. That’s a lot of brain-building! The latest science shows that when kids share positive, engaging experiences with caring adults (that’s YOU), their brains grow strong and flexible.
- Positive Connections. Vroom Tips™ help turn ordinary, everyday, and otherwise ‘busy’ moments into brain-building moments that emphasize the positive and uplifting connection you have with your little ones.
- Serve-and-return interactions. The real magic of brain-building happens in the back-and-forth (and back-and-forth) between you and your child, helping build their brain in ways that impact their health, behavior, learning, and relationships—right now and in the future. Vroom helps you do MORE with your shared moments together.
- Building “Life Skills.” Vroom helps you build and stretch your child’s mind to be ready to take on life’s challenges that will require focus, self-control, and problem-solving skills. Research shows that these foundational life skills will impact your child’s readiness for school, life-long health outcomes, and even financial stability into adulthood.
The Brain Building Basics™
So how do you become a better brain-builder? First, you can download the free Vroom app and try a Vroom Tip today with your child. Also—learn about the science behind Vroom, summed up in what we call the Brain Building Basics.
Click here to watch a short video about Brain Building Basics
Look
Yes, look at your baby! Research shows that when we look into our baby’s eyes, their brains light up with synaptic connectivity, which is great for brain-building!
Follow
Now, look where they’re looking. Do they notice something in the room? Are they watching the clouds go by? Is a toy catching their eye, or are they really paying attention to your phone screen?
Chat
Talk to your baby about what they see (ESPECIALLY before they can talk). It doesn’t have to be the most interesting conversation ever, but trust me—your baby is hanging on your EVERY WORD and their brain is growing and stretching with every conversation, no matter how one-sided!
Take turns
As your baby listens to you, give them a chance to “talk” back to you. Before they can talk, they will respond in the other thousand ways humans communicate without words. Don’t worry, they’ll be talking your ear off soon enough. If you’re in this stage of parenthood congratulations, you’re already an expert!
Stretch
Now see how long you can get those back-and-forth interactions to last! By stretching interactions like rolling a ball back and forth for babies and toddlers or discussing every tiny detail from that Daniel Tiger episode, you’re building the foundations for skills they’ll need for the rest of their life.
Here’s what you need
Take a look at this video for everything you’ll need to be a great brain-builder to your kids. Everyone has what it takes to be a brain builder video.
You’re all they need
There is no better time than the first five years of life to create a strong foundation for life-long learning. And the stuff that matters most—talking and playing—don’t require any extra time, money, tools, or toys. They just need you.
You know what’s best for your child, so Vroom takes the best science out of the lab and puts it into your hands to inspire you to turn those everyday moments you already share together into brain-building moments that impact your child for the rest of their life.
You’re all they need, and you already have what it takes to build their brain—for those right-now moments, those down-the-road moments, and every moment in between.
Happy brain-building!
Travis Allred is the Early Learning Project Manager at Envision Utah. Learn more at envisionutah.org.
