Brain Stages: How to Raise Smart, Confident Kids and Have Fun Doing It

Brain Stages is a go-to manual for the research savvy modern parent of children grades K-5th. Co-authored by Jacqueline Frischknecht PHD, and Patricia Wilkinson, teacher, author and parent, this resource presents the wisdom and habits of raising healthy, happy elementary aged children.The book includes information on brain anatomy and chemistry. For parents who are health-wise, the authors reinforce this knowledge with this brain research, how differing levels of sleep, hydration, and nutrition effect the academic outcomes and behavior of the young child. This is knowledge you can apply!Mrs. Wilkinson’s practical and no-nonsense language to parents is reminiscent of the wisdom of Ann Landers in its sound advice about healthy choices, relationships, and communicating with the child’s teacher. I have praise for both the format and the content of this K-5 guide. If you have a third grader, simply turn to the Chapter 6 to learn about your third grader’s brain, their improved memory, how their social traits begin to change, to tune into the changing relationship between you and your child, how third grade academics have changed, and several pages of games to keep your child’s skills sharp.As a retired teacher, now private tutor, I found “Names for 10 Game”, under the First Grade Chapter. Using this game, I successfully retaught Addition facts for 10 to a struggling second grader who quickly caught on to this fun and functional math concept. There are hundreds of useful games, word and book lists, and other helpful ideas for parents to make parenting an elementary child easier, more rewarding, and most importantly…successful!

Brain Stages is filled with valuable information to help my Grandkids grow up intelligent and well balanced, yet the technical info is mixed in with games to play and cute personal stories, so it's easy to read and enjoy while learning good ideas.There's plenty of encouragement for busy parents too, time efficient ways to teach your children important skills while visiting and playing with them in the car, while waiting in a doctor's office, or in the evening at home. I highly recommend this book and decided to buy a few copies for gifts to my staff at work who have young children,

I loved this book. It is chock full of useful information and is fun to read. I wish I had this as a resource when my children were this age. Trish makes it clear that as a child's brain develops, it needs different stimulation, nurturing, nutrition, sleep, understanding and teaching. This book connects the dots in a powerful way that every parent and teacher will appreciate. Bravo for a job well done and a resource for all who loved their children and want them to fulfill their potential. I will recommend it and buy it for my friends with children in grads kindergarten through fifth grade.

This book is broken into sections by age I wish I read this when my son was born then reread each section for each stage of my child's development. This books contains many ideas, tips, tricks, and methods to parent I've found help my son and I enjoy our time even more than we did before.

It should probably be titled "How to Raise Super Weird Kids", considering how funny a lot of the example stories are. There is also a lot of nutrition and exercise information, which I found interesting. I appreciate the indexed format so I know which chapter to look to based on how old my kids are. Learning more about different school systems was helpful as well. I wish more information about how to work with the school to optimize education for your kids was included in a similar fashion, but I know that's hard to do with a nationally released book, and this book did give me the tools to look up educational standards on my own. So that worked out well. Overall, 10/10 would recommend.