The Power of Presence: How Cayman's Parents Can Shape Brilliant Brains

It’s a common refrain: you need a licence to drive a car and screening to adopt a pet, yet any Tom, Dick or Harriet can become a parent with little to no experience, qualifications or even aptitude. And so, it goes. With every newborn child, a parent is born too, often armed with little more than instinct, circumstances and fragments of their own upbringing to guide them.

Yet, with breakneck advances in neuroscientific, psychological and educational research, never has there been greater recognition of the power of parents to shape their child's brain, with its incredible level of neuroplasticity and receptiveness. Hence, LIFE’s latest campaign: to elevate the role of parents in supporting their child's language, communication, cognitive, social-emotional and physical development.

According to Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child, what surrounds us shapes us: “Beginning before birth, environmental conditions influence how children develop by shaping their experience and exposure.” In the first few years of life the brain undergoes unparalleled development. A staggering one million new neural connections form every second and these connections are shaped largely by early interactions with parents and primary caregivers. In fact, the quality of these infant-carer interactions are a key predictor of future achievement.

With so much at stake, local charity Literacy is for Everyone (LIFE), is working to support parents and caregivers by equipping them with the knowledge, confidence and skills to climb aboard the revolutionary brain train and embrace their role as 'influencers-in-chief' for the Islands’ future generations.

LIFE's Work

Since 2012, LIFE’s mission has been to raise literacy levels in the Cayman Islands, however, for the last three years its focus has been on getting it right from the start, by building foundational literacy and language skills in children from birth to age five. The largest donor of books in Cayman, its latest tally shows the organisation tantalisingly close to having donated 100,000 books into Cayman’s schools, early learning centres and homes. Still, like neighbouring countries in the region, the Cayman Islands continues to experience the grave educational and socio-economic impacts of poor literacy and intergenerational illiteracy which, in turn, affect employability, earning potential, health outcomes and criminality.

As such, LIFE’s latest call to social development and education leaders is to embrace a paradigm shift away from costly remedial interventions and towards the transformative, life-changing potential of quality early childhood programmes and provision. As Erica Dell'Oglio, LIFE Executive Director says, “LIFE works shoulder-to-shoulder with Cayman’s early childhood educators to help provide stimulating early learning environments and meaningful interactions for our young children. If we are to succeed fully in optimising brain development, we must acknowledge the vital role of parents/primary caregivers. It is what parents do, or don’t do, in those first critical days, weeks and months of a child’s life that forever impacts a child’s brain capacity, language acquisition and social-emotional wellbeing. Whether they know it or not, parents are, quite literally, the brain architects of tomorrow."

Thrive By Five

Thrive By Five, LIFE's signature Early Childhood pilot programme, was first rolled out in 2022, and now operates in a total of eleven early learning centres across Grand Cayman, with more planned. All Thrive By Five centres receive donations of hundreds of curated children’s books exploring themes from the Cayman Islands’ Early Childhood Curriculum Framework, as well as access to a range of professional development and training programmes for staff members.

In addition, LIFE initiatives seek to enhance learning by funding in-class support for children, provided by speech and language specialists from the Speech Studio. They do this by supporting reading through their LIFE volunteer reading programme, as well as free vision and hearing screenings generously donated by Optical Outlook and Cayman Hearing Center.

“Yet,” says Tracy Galvin, LIFE’s Programme Manager, “even with strong efforts to help centres build meaningful connections with families through targeted parent engagement sessions, we saw an opportunity to do more.

"In the wake of COVID, we recognised that some parents had become less involved in their children’s learning—but this also opened the door to reimagining how we engage families in new and more effective ways.

"We donated hundreds of beautiful books to centres to foster early literacy, and while some children didn’t yet have access to books or reading support at home, this highlighted just how important our continued investment in family engagement and resource sharing truly is.”

In response, having an Education and Outreach Coordinator in the team enables LIFE to increase scope for primary caregiver workshops and other support initiatives, providing the tools and knowledge necessary for families to engage actively with their children’s learning journey from the very start.

Responsive Caregiving

In his latest book, 'The Daycare Myth', early childhood expert Dr Dan Wuori addresses the misconception of the artificial divide between early care and early education, positioning responsive caregiving at the fore of optimal brain building. He goes on to discuss the myth that preschools operate more for parental convenience than children’s education; that practitioners simply provide daycare and a place where children ‘get ready to learn.’

Recognising the input of primary caregivers, Dr Wuori says, “Everything is education. Children are learning in utero. They come into the world learning.” With emphasis on the fundamental importance of the period before birth to age five in constructing the brain’s architecture, he calls on governments and parents alike to make proactive, high-quality investments in young children, rather than footing the bill for inaction, begging the question, just what can parents do to support early brain, communication and language development within the home?

Unlike other large mammals that walk and seek food within hours or days of being born, human infants are helpless at birth. Born with only 25% of their brain capacity in place, newborns are hardwired for connection, instinctively seeking their mother at birth. They require the love, nurture and care of a primary caregiver to survive. What many parents fail to recognise, however, is that this moment of attunement to the physical and emotional needs of their child activates not only the most astonishing period of brain development in the human lifespan but is the first step in a lifetime of responsive parenting.

During the first three years of life, babies’ brains can form three quadrillion connections as neural pathways are established, stimulated and reinforced.A parent’s role is a precarious balance of shielding their child from harm while simultaneously fostering curiosity, exploration and growth. However, over-protection and tightly controlled environments can rob them of critical opportunities for development. Children learn through their senses, taking in the world around them and experiencing every aspect of the human condition by observing, mimicking and doing. Sometimes this looks messy. Sometimes this looks frustrating. However, assuming the role of encourager, cheerleader and comforter, as opposed to director, helps wire children’s brains for delayed gratification, persistence, motivation and cognitive flexibility, while allowing them to grow in self-esteem and confidence – all skills they will need to succeed in life.

Nurturing Language in Children

There is little doubt that the ability of people to participate fully in modern life is predicated on the ability to read, write and understand the world around us. Often heralded as the gateway through which we access all education, literacy was, in fact, recognised by former secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan as, “the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realise his or her full potential.”

Focus in on our tiny island paradise, LIFE’s proactive early childhood strategy models an innovative, evidence-based way forward for education in the Cayman Islands. It is based on the idea that if we are to improve future learning, happiness and wellbeing, we must first invest in early childhood, and if we are to support young children, we must also support parents and families who have long been the missing pieces of the social and education puzzle.

Look at any research on parental influence in the early years and it shows that when deeply engaged adults nurture stable, responsive relationships based on the serve and return model, neural pathways are formed and reinforced, creating the basis for their development. Serve and return is like a tennis match. It means back and forth, child-adult interactions that are simply about making everyday moments fun. Whether it’s going grocery shopping, playing peekaboo, or sorting laundry together, chat with your child. Narrate what you are doing, tell silly jokes or ask them questions. The more you speak to your child and the more words they hear, statistically, the better they will do at school by age ten.

Harvard University’s Center for the Developing Child suggests that parents and caregivers use the following five steps to practise serve and return interactions with children:

Notice your child’s ‘serve’ and share the child’s focus of attention. Is the child looking or pointing at something? Making a sound or facial expression? That’s a serve. Look for small opportunities throughout the day like getting them dressed or waiting in line at the shops.

Return the serve by supporting and encouraging. You might offer children comfort with a hug and gentle words, play with them or make a sound or facial expression like saying, “I see!” or smiling and nodding to let the child know you are noticing the same thing.

Give it a name! When you return a serve by naming what a child is seeing, doing or feeling, you make important language connections in their brain, even before the child can talk or understand your words. If a child points at their feet, you can also point to them and say, “Yes, those are your feet!”

Take turns… and wait. Keep the interaction going back and forth. Give your child time, 5-15 seconds, to process and respond. Waiting is important and helps keep the back and forth going.

Practise endings and beginnings. Children will let you know when they are finished with an activity or moving on to something new. Sharing a child’s focus means following their lead by noticing the end of interest and the beginning of a new activity.

Get out and about with your child by going for walks or to the beach together. Each new experience, all the things they see, hear, touch, taste and smell, gives you lots to talk about. It’s also important to give your child plenty of praise and encouragement along the way. Listen attentively; notice what interests them and use this to prompt conversations and lay the groundwork for language, communication, confidence and lifelong learning. Point out print wherever you go, from cinema posters and political billboards to logos and restaurant signs, and encourage children to show you signs and symbols and help them ‘read’ the ones they recognise.

Get ‘caught reading.’ Having parents who read is an important part of creating a stimulating, print-rich home environment. “Reading role models are important for children as is immersing them in the full range of language" says Tracy Galvin, LIFE’s Programme Manager, "from supermarket flyers and restaurant menus to shopping lists and billboards, parents can encourage children to enjoy the world of words.” And while she extols the virtues of home reading routines and bedtime stories, she is quick to point out the inherent value of Cayman’s oral storytelling tradition. “Sharing stories is part of what it means to be human. Whether it’s talking with your child or sharing books, these moments can teach empathy and give them the best start in life.”

Playing with sound while reading or singing develops phonological awareness and aids comprehension as does repetition, repetition, repetition. Whether you read 'We’re Going on a Bear Hunt' for the first or five-hundredth time, pull out all the stops. Make the sound of the wind and the swishy swashy grass; adjust your pace to create excitement or calm; and be sure to deliver an Oscar-worthy performance every time! Soon, your child will be telling you the story. Oh… and don’t forget to go on an imaginary bear hunt of your own around your garden or local park!

Nevertheless, it’s not just stories that engender a love of language. Children are naturally attuned to rhythm and rhyme, so singing songs like Old Macdonald (with animal sounds) and nursery rhymes like Incy Wincy Spider (with actions) from an early age or playing simple clapping games taps into children’s imaginations, exposing them to exciting new vocabulary. Once a child knows the song, pause and omit a word and see if they fill in the gap. But mostly… have fun!

“We want parents and caregivers to recognise their vital role as their child’s first teacher,” Galvin explains. “Home really is the first, and arguably most important, classroom. By providing them with the tools, resources and support needed to create language-rich home environments, we join the dots between home and school. It is this that creates a blueprint for all future learning.”

Play – the Work of the Child

While Maria Montessori called play, “the work of the child," Albert Einstein called it, “the highest form of research.” Through secure attachments to primary caregivers, children cultivate the sense of safety and security needed to explore their environment confidently through play. Today’s early childhood education may look different to when you were young, but thanks to research, we know now that it is through child-led play that children learn vital skills to make sense of the world around them, to solve problems independently and extend skills they have already mastered by experimentation, exploration and risk-taking.

It's through play that language acquisition organically occurs. As higher cognitive functions come online in the brain, playing helps children learn to communicate needs, regulate emotions, negotiate, take turns, share and make friends. Engaging with children during this time allows caregivers the perfect launchpad to add new ‘sparkly’ words to extend vocabulary (for example ‘ecstatic’ instead of ‘happy’). Ask open-ended questions or make ‘I wonder...’ comments about subjects beyond the child’s direct experience (for example ‘I wonder where chickens go to sleep’). Children’s vivid imaginations can transform a sock into a snake, an empty kitchen roll into a telescope or a twig into a magic sword to fight off dragons. Providing lots of props and dress-up clothes at home—adult shoes, bags, hats and cardboard boxes to make gravity-defying race cars—supports imaginative play. Join in by following your child’s lead. Get down on their level, add language at every turn and, most of all, HAVE FUN!

Parents as Partners

By the time a child is five years old and just starting school their brain is already 90% developed, demonstraing the importance of parents in shaping the emotional, physical and cognitive development of a child. When the time comes to select the right early learning environment for a child, making informed decisions is essential. Investing in a preschool that partners with parents to nurture healthy brains, lays the foundation for a lifetime of learning and wellbeing, building a bridge between home and school. Rather than only doing a tour, spend time in classrooms and observe the adults: are they down at the children’s eye level? Are they observing, supporting and extending the children’s experiences? Following their lead? At home time, are the children squeaky clean, clasping perfect ‘cookie cutter’ works of art, or are they dirty, sweaty and proudly showing off their own unique masterpieces?

When we know better, we do better, and Cayman’s parents may well be lighting the way towards a newer, brighter future for all. As primary caregivers are becoming more present in the lives of children, they take up the mantle of co-creators of young minds; brain architects of future generations. By participating fully in the early years, they fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle, creating real potential to transform Cayman’s educational woes to wins.

Happy, well-balanced, confident and competent children grow into the adults holding positions in our workforce and who assume leadership roles in our country. So maybe, just maybe as UNICEF says, “if we change the beginning of the story, we change the whole story.”