Build a Better Brain--Play with your kid today

My wife and I often obsess about how to help our children’s brains flourish. We’ve been to all the classes, purchased all sorts of toys and listened to all sorts of music. Through it all we have had a nagging sense of guilt that we weren’t doing enough to stimulate their brains. Sure we play with our kids all them time, but don’t we have to read to them all the time, too? And what about sorting games and patterns and talking to them and with them? And what about playing the “right” music? What about television? Is their time too structured or not structured enough? A new policy paper bottom lines it for us: "The key issue is the nature of kids' relationships with the important people in their lives. It's not about the toys, it's about the human connection." That is according to the paper’s author Jack P. Shonkoff, MD, chair of the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. Play with our children; bond with them; provide them with a secure relationship. That’s it.