SEATTLE - Inside the tiny head of a newborn, a powerful brain is hard at work.
"Unbelievable amounts of activity are occurring in there, said Dr. John Medina.
Medina directs the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University and also teaches at the University of Washington.
His specialty is the human mind, including how babies learn and think.
"One question that's always asked of me is 'How do I get my baby into Harvard?' It really pi**es me off, by the way," he said.
Dr. Medina dislikes that question, even though he can answer it, because there's so much more to a kid's brain than academic performance.
"It's not memorizing your ABC's. And, it's not reading Russo by the age of 4," he said.
What Dr. Medina knows about a baby's brain comes from breakthrough research, some of it conducted right here in Seattle.
At the University of Washington I-Labs, Patricia Kuhl and Andrew Meltzoff discovered babies are born learning.
They have incredible memories and can comprehend sounds from foreign languages long before they utter their first words.
Additional studies from Seattle's Gottman Institute shows relationships are crucial to learning. A baby's brain needs attention and a stable environment to grow and evolve.
"What I really tell parents is you want to get your kid into Harvard, really want to get them in Harvard? And if it's the husband who's saying that, and it's the husbands who for some strange reason who do, I look at them and say 'Go home and love your wife.'? One of the single greatest predictors of academic success that exists has to do with a baby's perception of safety," said Dr. Medina.
In a home free of conflict, full of interaction, kids feel more confident and secure, making it easier for them to learn and mature.?
"Just interacting, the small things, the big things, you don't have to put up the flash cards, you don't need Mozart, what you need is lots of contact time. Now that usually incites a tremendous amount of guilt and I understand that with two-parent households that work and lots of things, but nonetheless, just because two people need to work outside the home it does not change the social requirement of this organ and for proper development at some point you are going to have to have lots of variations, wonderful, exploratory, human loving interactions in order to abide and abet learning. That's why I often say, you know, if you really, really want to get your kids into Harvard not only do you have to love your wife, you have to love your kid," said Dr. Medina.
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