Mothers are responsible of connecting 200 billion brain cells
Child psychiatrist stresses need for educating parents in the use of positive non-violent discipline techniques
The latest scientific research confirms that 90 per cent of the growth of the human brain occurs in the first five years of life. Newborn babies have approximately 200 billion brain cells but have very few connections between these cells in their forebrain. How these connections are formed will determine the emotional and social intelligence of the child, and it is over these connections that mothers and other carers have a great deal of influence.
Dr.Hala Hammad, consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist addressing a Bepanthen Women Only seminar for mothers held at the Cultural Palace (Qasr Al-Thaqafah ) in Sharjah earlier last week. Dr.Hammad, who has been on several TV shows discussing parenting and children emotional and behavioural problems helping to raise awareness in the Arab world stressed that understanding a child’s behaviour was the key to moulding all aspects of their development and socialisation.
The seminar, sponsored by the Supreme Council for Family Affairs and General Administration of Children and Girls Center and Bayer HealthCare, aimed to educate mothers on understanding their child’s behaviour and cognitive development, particularly during the crucial first five years of life.
She said: “Families frequently hurt and abuse their children in the misguided belief that they are guiding and disciplining them.” According to a World Health Organisation study about violence against children, 80 to 90 per cent of all children suffer varying degrees of physical punishment in their homes, of which a third or more is inflicted with instruments. The worldwide study said that over 50,000 child in 2002 died from homicide.
Over the coming weeks Dr .Hammad will be giving similar lectures to mothers across the Middle East in the Bepanthen Women Only road-show, which has been organised and sponsored by Bayer Healthcare, manufacturers of the Bepanthen range of skin healing and protection products.
