During the first three years after birth, our brains develop the most enabling us to kickstart kickstart our lives. We go from requiring constant care to being somewhat self sufficient. We learn to move, communicate, feed ourselves and recognize things around us. The most vital skills. And then we spend the rest of our lives just refining those skills.
At the age of three, our brains have grown to about 80% of the size of an adults brain. We are born roughly the same amount of neurons we live our whole lives. But the synapses connecting those neurons peak around the third year at twice the amount of synapses we end up once we become adults.
Those synapses are they key to how our brain works. How they connect the neurons in different ways shape our mind. The process of learning will strengthen some of those connections while others wither forming our thought patterns and memories.
We continue to learn throughout our lives. But after learning those basic cognitive skills nothing we ever learn will be as complex.
Today, this brainchild of mine is three years old. Most of the growth and learning has already happened. From now on, it'll be just continous refinement.