Mom can make or break Mr. Future Executive.

If you want your child to have self-control and develop good thinking and decision making skills, pay attention to how you interact with him as a baby. Canadian and U.S. researchers say, mom plays a key role in how her child develops executive functioning.
Researchers at the University of Montreal and University of Minnesota found the way a mother interacts with her child affects how the child develops this set of advanced cognitive functions — including mental flexibility and the abilities to remember things and control impulses — integral to the ability to make goals and reach them.

Lead author Annie Bernier of the University of Montreal and a team of researchers observed 80 pairs of middle-income Canadian mothers. They noted observations on how these mothers interacted with their year-old babies while playing and solving simple puzzles.

Researchers found that a certain set of moms had children who performed better at ages 1-and-a-half to 2-years-old on tasks that call for executive functioning skills. What did these moms do right? They answered their babies’ requests for help quickly and accurately; talked about their children’s preferences, thoughts and memories during play; and encouraged successful strategies to help solve difficult problems.

“The study sheds light on the role parents play in helping children develop skills that are important for later school success and social competence,” Bernier said in a statement. Results of the study were recently published in the journal Child Development.

The results make complete sense to me. What better way to teach your baby to think than to ponder memories, make comparisons and connections using their everyday experiences. Even if you just talk about mundane things like a day at the park or the zoo, there’s a lot of neurons being fired up in their growing little minds. Like we’ve talked about before, a little small talk with the small people in our lives can go a long way.

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