As part of this series regarding parents and children, I like to provide relevant research and practical advice.

As I've mentioned in previous blogs about investing in your children: brain research shows how important parental involvement is in a child's development. The quality and depth of parental input matters greatly.

Affirmative feedback and the amount of time spent in conversation with children has been shown to have a major impact on brain development.

In research by University of Chicago Psychologist Janellen Huttenlocher, comparisons between professional, working class, and welfare families, reveal their children heard 2100, 1200, and 600 words and hour respectively. Furthermore, positive feedback came an average of thirty times and hour for professionals, fifteen for working class families, and just six time and hour in welfare families.

The quality and quantity of this input in directly correlated with brain development and vocabulary in later years. Some children naturally catch up while others do not.

Investing in our families have an overall impact on everyone. When we tell our spouse encouraging words, the marriage grows strong and remains strong. When we interact with our children and remain involved in their lives regardless of age, they grow and develop in ways that contribute to better lives.

This has been understood for thousands of years. Only now is science catching up with the Bible.

Proverbs 22:6: Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.

God has given us His word in the Bible. Everyday science continues to prove the Bible TRUE.