Why Three Key Years Matters to Every Parent for Every Child
Three Key Years is an awareness campaign created to educate parents, families, educators, policy makers, and community leaders about how important positive, direct interaction with a child in their first three years is to building a strong brain for life. Science has definitively shown that a child’s brain is more than 80% developed by the time they’re three years old. Billions of neuron connections are being made in those first days, weeks, months and years of their life. Positive interaction with loving, caring, trusted adults is helping to form their brain’s sense of security and emotional stability. Every child’s potential for doing well in school and having a happy, healthy future is being formed in those first Three Key Years.
Fundamental activities such as talking, reading, playing, counting and singing with a baby in the first days, weeks, months and years of their life is crucial for every child. ThreeKeyYears.org provides simple guidelines and resources to help parents and families understand they can help their child build a strong brain from the moment they’re born. News and studies regarding early childhood brain development and its impact on a person’s life trajectory are also made available for policymakers and community leaders in order to better assist parents and families in their communities.
The Three Key Years initiative is critical for several reasons. Studies now show that the learning gap so many children exhibit by the time they get to pre-school is difficult to overcome through the educational system. The most impactful period to exercise a baby’s brain is in those first Three Key Years. The Three Key Years campaign is designed to make parents as well as policymakers and community leaders aware of how imperative it is to close the possibility for any learning gap within 15 months, not fifteen years. A child’s potential for learning, and in turn for a happy, healthy future, is at its greatest opportunity in those first days, weeks, months and years of his or her life.
Please join us in spreading the message that every parent can help their child to develop a strong brain for life by exercising their baby’s brains through positive, direct interaction in their first days, weeks, months and Three Key Years of life.