How can parents change their children’s lives?

One answer is to go back to basics – specifically, the Boston Basics – “five fun, simple, and powerful ways that every family can give every child a great start in life.”

The five Boston Basics are:

• maximize love, manage stress

• talk, sing, and point

• count, group, and compare

• explore through movement and play, and

• read and discuss stories

These basics are backed by evidence and “encompass much of what experts find is important for children from birth to age three,” the Boston Basics website says.

Parents can access the basics through engaging booklets and videos that are posted here. From giving hugs and kisses to expressing excitement and encouragement, the basics are indeed simple, fun, and effective at helping to build children’s brains. The videos are also available in different languages here.

Advice from one video: “Singing can make communication lots of fun. Anything you can say in real words, you can express in a song.” And for the tunefully-challenged, “Babies like to hear you sing. Your baby is your most admiring audience.”

The approach was developed by Harvard Kennedy School Professor Ronald Ferguson, the faculty director of Harvard’s Achievement Gap Initiative (AGI). Boston Basics’ founding organizations are AGI, the trustees of the Black Philanthropy Fund, the Department of Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh’s Education Cabinet, and WGBH.

In April, the Boston Basics approach was featured in an article in the Atlantic, which notes:

“Generating support in Boston for the Basics has not been difficult: Scores of nonprofits, government agencies, and other community-based organizations have agreed that there is value in teaching the principles. What remains unclear, however, is whether the Basics will help close achievement gaps in practice.”

“But Ferguson and other participating leaders are hopeful.”

“Since the Boston Basics Initiative’s outreach work officially launched in the fall of 2015, more than 100 organizations across a number of sectors have expressed interest, including health centers and hospitals, workplaces, faith-based organizations, schools, museums, libraries, community centers, childcare centers, housing developments, homeless shelters, and retail establishments.”

WBUR covers the basics here, explaining that the goal is to saturate Boston with information about them.

So please share the basics with your connections and networks. It’s easy to do. As Ferguson says in one of the videos:

“Cherish your child. Take care of yourself. That’s the message.”