Modeled after the work of a world-renowned and highly influential psychologist, Lev Vygotsky, and modern cognitive neuroscience. Our method combines the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD Zone of proximal development – Wikipedia), with the established concept of the foundational importance of play in determining a child’s developmental, cognitive, and social trajectories. We loop in everything we can get our hands on as related to what the exploding field of Neuroscience is teaching us. And we do this all while being real parents, who understand real life, with children in today’s world.
The Philosophy: The Zome of Proximal Development (ZPD) bridges the gap between current and potential abilities, by reaching just beyond the child’s abilities. With this method, the parent plays an active role in helping the child reach just beyond their level of understanding, advancing one level at a time. The parent helps advance the child out of their comfort zone, into an exciting state of rapidly learning new skills. This not only benefits the child cognitively, but also creates a beautiful opportunity for bonding between parent and child. The child also continues learning through extensive independent play.
The Science: Neuroplasticity is THE key to building the brain, at any age. Childhood is a time of peak neuroplasticity – rapidly making new brain connections that are responsive for the cognitive, physical, and social-emotional future of your child. PLAY is well established as the main method of advancing cognitive and other areas of child development, especially in the early years. Play also buffers against stressors in a child’s life, setting up the foundation for healthy brain development even in adverse circumstances. By consciously cultivating your child’s play, you are setting a priceless foundation for the future.
The Practical Side: All parents are busy. Fortunately, neither nature nor nurture expect of us to be engaged in constant (yes, sometimes even exhausting!) interaction with our children every second of the day. A child who can entertain themselves is a priceless gift to any family, all while building highly sought-after creativity. However, in today’s world, parents are too often giving their young children a device, like an iPhone or an iPad, to keep them occupied. The truth is, this one action backfires at SO MANY levels. It keeps your child from learning to play alone. It thwarts creativity. It stifles the development gains that rely on creative play for their neuroplastic trajectory. And, like the proverbial snowball, it leads to addiction to the devices, which just makes this problem seem to grow bigger and more insurmountable as the days go on.
You know by now that play is so much better for your child’s brain than screentime. Play is the foundation for advancing fine motor development, language and social skills, and gross motor skills. These developmental domains are highly predictive of cognitive development and all the great things that follow from there. Harness the power of Personalized Play to maximize learning and relationships. Curated for you and your child, made simple for every family
0 Comments