This weeks’ blog is about love.
You may well ask what love has to do with literacy and learning. A lot, as it turns out.
Our booklet Love Grows Brains explains how the experiences we give our children in the first three years of life lay the foundation for lifelong learning. It describes how loving care is not only important, but is necessary, for a baby’s brain to grow.
This is one conclusion that all the research on early childhood development agrees on. When a baby feels safe, secure, and loved, all her senses are open to the world, and her brain grows.
What does love look like? It looks like the everyday things most people naturally do with their child, such as cuddling, rocking, cooing, playing, reading, talking, and singing. It’s a mother smiling at and talking to a newborn baby. It’s a father holding his baby and telling him about his day.
Sometimes, when our lives are too busy, or we don’t have enough food, or we feel hurt or overwhelmed, it may be hard to show our love. That’s when we need the support of family, friends, and community. That’s one reason “it takes a community to raise a child.”
Yellowknife hosts the NWT Wellness Conference this weekend. The keynote presentation is “Walking the Four Directions of Love”, by Pahan Pte San Win (formerly known as Rita Chretien). We can always learn to love more. We owe it to our children.
The NWT Literacy Council will have a table at the conference, where we will have free copies of Love Grows Brains and many of our other resource materials. If you are not in Yellowknife, you can download Love Grows Brains or call us to have a printed copy mailed to you.
If you're not in Yellowknife, consider having a wellness conference in your own community. This weekend’s conference is organized and run entirely by volunteers. Except for the keynote speaker, all of the presenters are from the NWT. The conference started small. Give it some thought.
-- Marianne Bromley
