Brain-based parenting

As promised, we are back to brains today!

Today’s post tackles a common question on sex differences in the brain. It also happens to be my favourite exercise in critical thinking, something I have used with my 7 year old daughter. Here’s how this conversation might go…

Do boys have bigger brains?

My daughter’s first answer was “no” (supporting evidence that children at this age still view boys and girls as equal, before gender stereotypes get drilled in by society)

Ok, but if boys were, on average, bigger than girls would you expect their brains to also be bigger? For example if they are taller (on average), you might expect them to have longer legs.

(The scientific evidence shows that male children’s brains are 9-12% bigger in terms of total volume -imagine dropping a brain into a big measuring jug 🤢)

But now the question is if boys have bigger brains…

Does bigger = better when it comes to brain size?

If we consider across animal species- probably not. Bigger brains sometimes just mean bigger animals, but even the largest animals have smaller brains than we would expect for their size. Some small animals like mice and rats (and octopuses), have very large brains for the size of their bodies, and humans fall into that category too. This ratio of brain to body size is thought to reflect intelligence. In one of my favourite images below (I actually had this printed for my dad’s Christmas present -my geekiness is inherited), you can see the relationship between brain weight and body weight is correlated, but humans deviate from this relationship significantly (the red circled bit).

So bigger brains (relative to body size) are a good thing?

But what we really want to know is.. are humans with bigger brains more intelligent?

The total volume of the brain doesn’t actually tell us that much about its functioning. For example, consider a 2 year old’s brain is 80% of the volume of an adult, but a two year old clearly doesn’t have the intelligence of an adult (well, most adults anyway!). Rather the volume of certain areas of the brain, and the connections between them are more important. Some brain regions are larger in females than males, but what this actually means in terms of brain function is unclear. Most of the interpretations of sex differences are very hard to disentangle from gender stereotypes - a problem called reverse inference. In reality, there isn’t really any good evidence to suggest male and female brains are either different enough from eachother for this to be meaningful in terms of function or intelligence and no evidence that large male brains are associated with higher IQ.

What does this mean for my parenting?

🧠 Gender stereotypes start to seriously impact children’s decisions and view of themselves from as early as age 6. Try hard to fight these sterotypes and challenge the thinking that underlies them. This exercise in critical thinking is a great exercise to support your children’s cognitive development.

🧐 You can encourage critical thinking in your children by starting with simple problems (these should align to their age) - for example, can all birds fly? (work through examples of birds that can and cannot fly and what they have in common- ask ChatGPT if you want more examples)

🤔 In the age of misinformation and disinformation, critical thinking is more important than ever. If your kids watch You Tube, use it as a chance to teach digital literacy and critical thinking. Just asking open questions to allow them to reason is enough, it doesn’t need to be a philosophical exercise!

😊 Don’t solve the problem for them, and encourage their attempt at finding a solution (NOT getting the answer right). Allow them to be uncomfortable with uncertainty and there being no single correct answer- the important part is thinking through a problem without getting anxious about the answer.