Becoming an Early Learning Nation
At the Bezos Family Foundation, we are driven by a core belief: Every child has immense potential, and every person in that child’s life can help them realize it. From parents and caregivers to local providers to shopkeepers, we all have a role to play in supporting the healthy brain development of our youngest community members.
This belief may sound idealistic. But what may surprise you is that it’s based on groundbreaking scientific research. The foundation is currently funding some of the nation’s top neuroscientists working on early childhood development to continue filling the pipeline with this crucial information.
Through this research, we now have proof of what we’ve intuitively known.
The most important factor in stimulating healthy brain development is the quality of interactions between young children and the people around them.
And the impact of those interactions is astonishing.
Pioneering, non-invasive brain-imaging technology shows that when a parent or caregiver interacts with a child, hundreds of new neural connections form every second, laying the foundation for all future development.
Seeing these results, the challenge for us became how best to bring that science out of the lab and into the home. We knew that the answer wasn’t going to be found in more expensive programs or complicated learning tools. Instead, we needed to find a simple way to help parents and caregivers understand the powerful potential that exists in every moment they already share with their children. That’s why we created Vroom.
Vroom is an initiative that provides a series of tools and tips that empower parents and caregivers to turn everyday activities, like mealtime and bathtime, into brain-building moments. Vroom tips come in many forms, from a mobile app to physical cards. Through the app, parents can access age-appropriate, personalized tips based on whatever activity they’re doing with their child, and Vroom shows them how to transform it into a brain building moment. Each tip comes paired with a “Brainy Background” that explains the scientific rationale behind the activity.
I’ll share one of our tips with you. This one is called “Copy Cat.”
Like you, children experience many different emotions everyday. Make faces that mirror how your child seems to be feeling. Talk to him or her about why you’re making those faces. “You are smiling and seem happy, and I am smiling and happy, too.”
And here’s the “Brainy Background” behind that tip:
When you imitate the face that your child is making, you’re helping them express what they’re thinking and feeling, even though they can’t speak yet. These “conversations without words” begin to help your child learn about others’ feelings and emotions!
This is a very simple activity, yet it has the power to fundamentally change the quality of that interaction between parent and child.
Building on these exchanges, our goal is to catalyze a culture shift in which communities around the nation prioritize this kind of development for children.
And we believe everyone has a role to play in helping make that happen. Together, we can grow the national conversation and build an early learning nation.
To that end, we’re working with cities, states, non-profits, and companies who are coming together to support this brain building revolution. From putting up Vroom Tips in the barber shop, to placing them on household products, to spreading the word to parents in the grocery store checkout line, this movement will take all of us. For us to truly become an early learning nation, we need to see ourselves not only as parents, caregivers, leaders, executives, and business owners, but also as brain builders. That’s the title we should be most proud to carry.
