Now that we have a basic understanding of the building blocks of the brain and how it develops over time, it is important to understand how this knowledge can help us create brain healthy early childhood experiences for all children. The following section will discuss the importance of creating environments and interactions that help the brain grow and give it the best possible opportunities for cognitive and emotional outcomes.

Media and Screen Time

The developing brain needs positive interactions with caring adults in an enriched environment for optimal growth. Interactions with media or screens can be detrimental to this development as it deprives the brain of multisensory interactions which are necessary for neuronal growth. Media includes phones, television, computers, and anything with a screen. The Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has recommended limited media for all ages and adding emphasis on in-person interactions. Research by AAP has found that using:

A healthy Family Media Use Plan that is individualized for a specific child, teenager, or family can identify an appropriate balance between screen time/online time and other activities. It is also important to set boundaries for accessing content, guide displays of personal information, encourage age-appropriate critical thinking and digital literacy, and support open family communication and implementation of consistent rules about media use. (Chassiakos et al., 2016)

The Family Media Use Plan recommends none or very limited screen time for children under two years old. If media is used they suggest that an adult be present and interact with the child while watching and limit this to video chatting. For children ages two through five, they recommend a maximum of one hour per day of viewing. School age children should be limited to no more than two hours per day. They suggest adults co-view with all children so that they can reinforce lessons and point out stereotypes and bias that may be hurtful. I

t is also important to consider the type of media being consumed. Passive viewing has a different brain impact than creating content or interactive games. Adults need to select high quality programming for young children that is educational (Chassiakos et al., 2016).

The American Academy of Pediatrics shares important information about why limited media use for children is important. (Note that they use the term “behavior problems”; a strength-based way to reframe this would be to say “behavior challenges” or “unwanted behaviors.”) This guidance from AAP recommendations on media use for children (2016) is summarized below from EduResearcher (Marachi, 2016):

Overuse of digital media may place your child at risk of:

• Not enough sleep. Young children with more media exposure or who have a TV, computer, or mobile device in their bedrooms sleep less and fall asleep later at night. Even babies can be overstimulated by screens and miss the sleep they need to grow.
• Delays in learning and social skills. Children who watch too much TV in infancy and preschool years can show delays in attention, thinking, language, and social skills. One of the reasons for the delays could be because they interact less with parents and family. Parents who keep the TV on or focus on their own digital media miss precious opportunities to interact with their children and help them learn.
• Obesity. Heavy media use during preschool years is linked to weight gain and risk of childhood obesity. Food advertising and snacking while watching TV can promote obesity. Also, children who overuse media are less apt to be active with healthy, physical play.
• Behavior problems. Violent content on TV and screens can contribute to behavior problems in children, either because they are scared and confused by what they see, or they try to mimic on-screen characters. (para. 8)

The Common Sense media website has wonderful resources for parents and teachers and even has lessons for school age children to help develop positive media habits.

Social Emotional Development: The Limbic System

One of the first brain constructs to develop before birth are those that process emotion. Early emotional experiences form a kind of template that continued emotional development is built on. These experiences have a disproportionate importance in organizing the mature brain. Emotions develop in layers, each more complex than the last, as the child responds to their emotional environment. Emotional learning becomes ingrained as experiences are repeated over and over.

The prefrontal cortex regulates emotional responses and is developed and connected with the limbic system early, between 8 and 18 months of life. These neural pathways in the limbic system and prefrontal lobes provide the framework for emotional intelligence.

Peter Salovey (a Yale Psychologist) and John Mayer (a University of New Hampshire psychologist) first proposed that we also have emotional intelligence (1990). Daniel Goleman popularized this concept in his book Emotional Intelligence (1995).

Emotional Intelligence (EI)consists of a person’s abilities in five main areas or domains (Goleman, 1995):

1. Self-Awareness –the ability to recognize or know feelings as they are happening and using them to make life decisions you can live with. This includes pleasant, unpleasant and multiple emotions at once. It is critical we teach children about all their feelings and give them a wide range of emotional labeling (see Figure 3.12).
2. Mood Management –the ability to handle distressing emotions in appropriate ways to maintain our wellbeing.
3. Self-motivation –the ability to persist in the face of setbacks and channeling your impulses in order to pursue your goals.
4. Empathy – the ability to recognize and share another’s feelings.
5. Social Arts – the ability to interact with others in positive and socially acceptable ways.

Emotional Intelligence is important because studies have shown that higher emotional intelligence is a better predictor of success in children than IQ (Durlak et al., 2011). Kids who participated in social emotional learning (SEL) programs at school had significantly improved social and emotional skills, attitudes, behavior ,and academic performance.

In order for emotional intelligence to develop, children need to feel secure and that their needs for survival are being met. The fundamental task of an infant is figuring out how to get their needs met in their world. Children need to feel loved and emotionally secure. It is essential that they have a consistent, nurturing relationship with the same caregiver early in life in order to develop a secure attachment.

Attunement is critical to the development of emotional intelligence. This is when a child’s inner feelings are accepted and mirrored back to them by caregivers. “The brain uses the same pathways to generate an emotion as to respond to one” but “if emotions are repeatedly met with indifference or a clashing response,” they may “fail to strengthen” or be eliminated (Begley, 2010, para. 15). Feelings mirrored back to children help them develop self-awareness, the foundation of emotional intelligence. It is important to teach and help label a wide range of feelings when interacting with kids. Using a feelings wheel in your classroom is a great way to expand the range of feelings you teach.

Stress and Trauma

The Impact of Stress

Stressis defined as a “physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation” (Merriam-Webster, 2024). Stress is a normal part of life and our brains are capable of handling stressful events in a positive way if given the right experiences in childhood. In general, there are two types of stress: positive stress or eustress and negative stress or distress. Which type of stress we experience, how much and how we interpret it all impact how damaging stress is to our systems.

Neural pathways run from the eyes, ears and other sense organs to a central clearing house deep in the brain called the thalamus. The thalamus works with the hypothalamus and amygdala to pass on the information to the higher levels of the cortex. They act like a gate to pathways that run to the cortex and are activated by how we feel about the information being processed by the limbic system (Zhang et al., 2019).

When we experience a positive emotion, are actively engaged, or appropriately challenged, while retaining a sense of control, we experience eustress. The thalamus opens the gateway, or upshifts, to the cortex where higher level thinking takes place.

When a threat is perceived, we experience distress. The thalamus quickly sends a message to the amygdala that there might be danger. The amygdala, acting as an alarm company, activates a cascade of chemicals (neurotransmitters and hormones) involved in the stress response: freeze-flight-fight-fawn. This distress closes the gate to the main road to the cortex and the brain downshifts to the lower survival brain, resulting in freeze-flight-fight-fawn responses instead of higher level problem solving (LeWine, 2024). The good news is that at the same time, another slower pathway moves up to the cortex– like a detour route. We can now access the prefrontal lobes to modulate our emotional reactions. This helps us make a rational decision about how to respond to an emotional trigger.

Some emotional reactions bypass the cortex and can be formed without any conscious or cognitive participation at all. The degree of control we perceive we have over the threatening situation determines whether this hi-jacking will take place. If the brain continues to perceive the situation as a threat the stress hormone cortisol, is released and keeps the body revved up and on high alert. When the threat passes, the cortisol level will decrease.

New research is finding that the [pb_glossary id=686]vagus nerve[/pb_glossary] plays an important part in how the body interprets sensory input and reacts with fight/flight/freeze/fawn. If the vagus nerve senses threat the child becomes deregulated and the parasympathetic response takes over. It is important to help the child regulate their body by helping them to calm the vagus nerve. You can do this through movement and breathing activities along with other sensory experiences like playing with playdough. Co-regulating with the child when they are younger and even as they age, can help them to build the ability to regulate themselves as they get older (Bornstein & Esposito, 2023). Co-regulation is the interactive process by which caring adults 1) provide warm supportive relationships, 2) promote self-regulation through coaching, modeling, and feedback, and 3) structure supportive environments (Rosanbalm & Murray, 2017).

Research by Kelly McGonigal of Stanford University found that how we view stress makes a difference in how harmful it is. There are three ways to change our perception of the stressor effectively: 1) View your body’s stress as helpful and energy you can use; 2) view yourself as capable of handling and learning from the stress, and 3) view stress as a common problem everyone deals with (as cited in Parker, 2015).

Children need experiences that help them develop a strong stress-response system so that they recover from stressful situations quickly and build stronger pathways between the limbic system and prefrontal lobe in their brain. The main way adults can help build this healthy stress response system is a process called serve and return The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University (2019) suggests five steps to build positive brain pathways through serve and return practices:

1. Notice the serve and share the child’s focus of attention. It is important to pay attention to what the child is focused on and follow their lead on the interaction.
2. Return the serve by supporting and encouraging. Offer comfort when they are distressed, play with them, be curious about what they are doing. Mirroring their thoughts and feelings lets them know they are seen and understood.
3. Give it a name! Name what a child is seeing, doing, or feeling will make important language connections in their brain, even before they can talk or understand your words. This helps them understand the world around them.
4. Take turns…and wait. Keep the interaction going back and forth. Make sure to take time to let the child respond to you as you take turns interacting. They need time to form responses as they are learning so many things at once.
5. Practice endings and beginnings. Sharing focus with a child helps you know when they are done. Did they turn away, fuss, or walk away? Let them take the lead and be sensitive to when they are ready to start something new.

Think back to the opening story of the baby in the high chair. This loving exchange between the adult and baby is a practice of serve and return.

When children are experiencing extreme amounts of stress and are not getting the positive interactions to mitigate it, they are experiencing what is known as toxic stress.

Adverse Childhood Experiences

Too much toxic stress in a child’s life can damage the developing brain and lead to life-long problems in learning, behavior, and physical and mental health. Toxic stress can come from extreme poverty, repeated abuse, or severe maternal depression. These situations or experiences are also called [pb_glossary id=686]Adverse Childhood Experiences or ACEs[/pb_glossary] and are a cause of prolonged toxic stress. Many studies have confirmed the negative impact of ACEs on the health and wellbeing of children and adults (Webster, 2022). The Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University has a wealth of information about the impact of toxic stress and ACEs; there is also evidence of how racism is connected to poor outcomes for children due to the impact of this as a toxic stress on child development (n.d.-b). Toxic stress impacts a growing brain’s development by causing neurons to have fewer connections in the limbic and prefrontal cortex, the areas of the brain that control emotional reactivity. Keep in mind that ACEs scores are not meant to be diagnostic and should not be used to make clinical decisions (Pondiscio, 2020).

Cortical Modulation

When a child experiences toxic stress or ACEs, the higher regions of the brain become less developed since the brain is constantly activating the pathways to the lower, survival regions of the brain. Neuroscientist Dr. Bruce Perry (1997) developed a model for understanding the functioning of the layers of the brain in connection to each other called cortical modulation. In other words, how do the higher layers modulate the lower levels of the brain? He has demonstrated that most brains that have experienced high ACEs will not function as optimally as  the brains of children who have had adults help them develop a strong stress response system. When looking at the number of connections in each of the layers in children’s brains we see a difference in their function based on their experiences.

In a healthy brain where a child has low ACEs, the higher levels or cortical areas of the brain have the most connections, and higher ratios. The thinking part of the brain is the strongest and therefore a child would have a strong stress response system developing. The brain of a child with high ACEs will have a ratio where the lower regions of the brain (brain stem, etc.) are bigger than the higher thinking regions (cortex). In these brains the lower regions of the brain have more connections and thus downshifting happens in the brain more readily (Perry, 1997).

Resilience

Some children who experience ACEs and toxic stress can develop brains with better ratios than others, even within the same family. We consider these children to have resilience. Resilience requires supportive relationships and opportunities for skill building. These relationships can be outside of the family, for example a teacher or coach, and are the active ingredient for developing resilience. If children experiencing ACEs have access to these positive experiences, their brain can reverse the ratio and develop a greater ability to handle the stress in their lives. These experiences are called “Positive and Adverse Childhood Experiences,” or PACEs, and have a mitigating impact on ACEs, leading to the best developmental outcomes for children who become adults who are flourishing (Audage, 2021). A child’s temperament can also be a factor in developing resilience (Center for Child & Family Well-Being, n.d.).

Trauma Informed Care and Education

Understanding how the brain develops and what can happen if children do not get positive, caring experiences at home, helps teachers create classrooms that will benefit all children. One of the keys to creating trauma informed care is understanding what the brain needs in order for a more optimal outcome. We need to move from blaming the child to understanding them. Providing consistent care and attachment with a teacher who is loving and compassionate is essential. Classrooms must be built to allow for healthy, developmentally appropriate experiences that provide an enriched environment for young brains to flourish.

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) programs in schools are helping children develop skills to build strong pathways between the limbic and cortex layers of the brain (Calhoun et al., 2020). These programs have demonstrated success in building a child’s resilience and emotional intelligence.

Elements of Trauma Informed Care (TIC)

According to Erdman et al. (2020), there are several elements that are an essential part of helping kids overcome trauma and develop resilience. The first element is a safe and inviting environment that includes structure, a variety of materials, and providing thoughtful choices for children’s activities. Secondly, children need strong, loving relationships with adults and their peers. These can be fostered by following a child’s lead and implementing training in mindfulness.

The third element is an awareness of the importance of play for a child’s optimal development and also for helping them learn to effectively manage stress. Lastly, they stress the importance of connecting with families to create supportive partnerships. The researchers stress that we must not just treat individual behaviors but the whole child and to remember that creating a trauma sensitive classroom benefits all children.

Attributions

1. Figure 3.11: Limbic System by Laura Dahl is released under CC BY-NC 2.0
2. Figure 3.12: The Feeling Wheel by Feeling Wheel is released under CC BY-SA 4.0
3. Figure 3.13: Illustration of brain regions in the Public Domain; The NIH Image Gallery on Flickr provides images that are free to use with credit. Materials produced by federal agencies are in the public domain.
4. Figure 3.14: Illustration of brain regions by NIH Gallery in the Public Domain; The NIH Image Gallery on Flickr provides images that are free to use with credit. Materials produced by federal agencies are in the public domain.
5. Figure 3.15: Toxic Stress Changes Brain Architecture by Radley et al. in the Public Domain; Use of original, raw data is permitted under copyright law as raw data is considered discoverable facts and cannot be copyrighted.