The study says that activities such as...
- shopping
- painting
- arts/crafts
- being read to
- being encouraged to tell stories
all increase different areas of brain function (movement, social skills and talking ability) and can even increase children's happiness levels. Passive things such as looking at picture books and watching TV don't.
Professor Paul Anand of the Open University explained that watching the process of mum and dad choosing items and paying for them is ‘particularly significant in relation to child
happiness’.
He continued, ‘Children are getting visual stimulation, they’re getting out of the house and into a new environment, they’re bumping into other families where social skills come into play and they may get the chance to do something physical in a shop like run around.’
happiness’.He continued, ‘Children are getting visual stimulation, they’re getting out of the house and into a new environment, they’re bumping into other families where social skills come into play and they may get the chance to do something physical in a shop like run around.’
Prof Anand added, ‘There does seem to be a connection between the kinds of activities that are taking place and the skills that are being developed.
I'm all for stimulating Bubbah's brain but I must admit I never viewed shopping in that way! Recently, he's taken to grabbing random items and dropping them into the trolley. My best example of this is when I'd put a bag of bananas in the trolley, turned around to grab some tins of soup, turned back and found Bubbah had added six bags of bananas into the trolley. So, not quite there with supply and demand as we would never get through seven bags of bananas in a week. That's a lot of banana bread!
So what do you think, does accompanying you food shopping make your toddler smarter?
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