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How Do Childhood Experiences Affect Brain Development? 

Early experiences can have a lifelong impact. As a result, it’s crucial that children gain positive and nurturing experiences and that their relationships are strong and stable. 

How early experiences affect the developing brain 

The mind and body connection is far stronger than we have realised. It’s especially the case during the children’s first five years. This is the period when their brains go through the most rapid development. It’s this crucial period when their core brain architecture is being built. 

Early experiences can make that core brain architecture sturdy or fragile. That’s because the children’s rapidly developing brains are still highly sensitive to external experiences. We can think of their early years as the period when children are starting to form and set their expectations about the world around them. If their early experiences are filled with trauma and chronic stress, their overall brain activity and development are also being affected. Decreased brain activity might even result because of extreme adversities. These adversities can interrupt healthy brain development. 

Early adversities and chronic stress are actually toxic to children’s rapidly developing brains. That’s because chronic stress leads to the overproduction of cortisol (the body’s main stress hormone or our built-in alarm system). This overproduction of cortisol actually disrupts the development of key brain circuits (which in turn disrupts overall brain development). 

Because overall brain development is being affected by chronic stress and early adversities, it has become crucial to focus on the children’s first five years in life. This has led government agencies and educational institutions to rethink and improve the entire curriculum about early childhood education. One such approach that resulted from those initiatives is the Early Years Learning Framework (with a special emphasis on play-based learning and positive learning experiences). 

Whether at home or early learning centre, children should always receive support and nurturing in their early years. Always note that early experiences can have a lifelong impact. With positive early experiences, children can undergo healthy brain development and better prepare them for the challenges in the big school and beyond.