Study: Parents’ Affection Helps Kids Brains Develop

February 3, 2012 at 7:45 am , by Holly Lebowitz Rossi

ΩUnder the inspiring headline “Nicer Moms Have Smarter Kids,” CafeMom.com reports on a new research study that finds showing affection to children actually helps develop the part of their brain that is involved with stress, learning, and memory:

This research came from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. It says that school-age children whose mothers, fathers, and caretakers “nurtured them early in life have brains with a larger hippocampus,” which is the part of the brain that aids in learning, memory, and your response to stress.

The author of the study, Joan L. Luby, M.D., says it best:

I think the public health implications suggest that we should pay more attention to parents’ nurturing, and we should do what we can as a society to foster these skills because clearly nurturing has a very, very big impact on later development.

Image: Mother holding baby, via Shutterstock.

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