"Brains Aren't Born, They're Built."

The saying "brains aren't just born, they're built" has always been my outlook when working with children. When we are born, we don't just know everything we do as adults the moment we enter the world. Our brains are built as we grow and learn new things everyday! When we learn a new skill or imbed information into our brains we stimulate neurons. We develop so many neurons throughout our lifetime that when we stop practicing a skill or hobby, the neuron we developed will slowly lose their connections. Refer back to when you started your first job and you had no clue what anything was or how to do anything. Now you're a pro because you have most likely learned all of the "ins and outs" of the position of the company you work for! You developed tons of neurons in your brain from learning and memorizing the requirements of your job.

We tend to forget sometimes that the children that surround us are all needing our patience and support when figuring out right from wrong, just like the managers that trained you at your job had patience and supported you.

As children grow their "neuron garden's" in their brains, it is up to us caregivers to provide a safe, healthy and stable environment. Positive stresses in life such as, starting at a new school and meeting new friends, nerves from public speaking and etc, can prepare children for natural life stresses that occur in adulthood. Some children may experience tragic events like a death in the family, or a natural disaster but with a healthy support system and proper guidance the child wont have a long lasting negative brain impact. Negative stress on the other hand can lead to long lasting impacts on the brain. When a child is surrounded by harmful surroundings such as abuse, addictions or neglect the child is most likely to be in the statistics for Adverse Child Experiences (ACE's). That child subjected to that surrounding during the brains developing stages can lead to them having serious health problems later in life caused by the high amount of hormones and adrenaline in the body as a child.

The community that had surrounded us as our brains developed patience and took time to teach us. It is now our turn as adults to provide our possible future leaders a healthy support system for long lasting positive effects.

- Sarah