Why the first five years matter more than you think

Routines of early childhood affect a child's brain, emotions and sense of safety in ways that last a lifetime (Photo: iStock) At a cybercafe in Ngong town, Alice Njoroge lays her two-year-old baby, Maina, in a special couch at a designated corner of her spacious "office" after feeding him. She then gives him a phone, which the baby grasps excitedly. A cartoon voice spills into the cyber, bright, cheerful and insistent. Baby Maina leans forward, eyes fixed, body still, fingers curled tightly around the edges of the phone. "Just five minutes", Alice whispers to him as she turns to attend to a customer, glancing back every few seconds. It is the only way she can attend to her customers, and for a moment, it feels like peace. Quiet, no crying, pulling at her dress, or tantrums. However, as Alice keeps her son busy while she is attending to her duties at her cyber business, unknown and unseen to her, something else is happening. Experts say that the quiet routines of early childhood, a season that involves feeding, soothing, and playing, affect a child's brain, emotions, and sense of safety in ways that last a lifetime, because in the first five years of life, a child's brain is not just growing. It is being built. "By the time a baby turns five, his brain will have developed more than at any other stage of his life. Connections are forming at a speed that will never be repeated, shaped not by what he is taught, but by what he experiences," explains George Oganda, a child psychologist. These experiences, he says, include a voice calling his name, a face responding to his cries, or a hand reaching back when he reaches out. He further explains that children's brains are built through interaction, not through instructions, or screens, but through relationships. Back at the cyber, baby Maina laughs suddenly at something on the screen. No one laughs with him, but he seems to be enjoying his "world". Suddenly, he sits up, for a while before he gets off the couch, hands the phone to his mother and then starts wandering around, and before the mother knows, he is out of the cyber. Then he returns, calling her name. "Watoto wanataka tu mtu," she tells a curious customer. "It is in these small, easily overlooked moments that something important is unfolding, as a child is not just asking to be fed or kept safe; rather, he is asking: Are you there? Do you see me?" explains Lisa Wanjiro, a counsellor and family coach. The expert adds that the answers given again and again to the questions, either in words, touch, and attention, become the foundation of how the child will relate to the world. The first language: attachment The family coach says long before children learn to speak, they learn something else. Whether the world is safe, whether their needs will be met, or whether they matter. "When my son cried, I used to think I would spoil him if I picked him up too much, and people would comment that I was carrying him too much," says Violet Syombua, a mother to three-year-old Ebby Wendo. She says sometimes she would let him cry, while other times, she is not sure what to do. "When I respond quickly, he calms down faster, and I also feel calmer," she says. Wanjiro says what Violet is describing is attachment, the invisible bond formed between a child and caregiver. "Secure attachment does not come from perfection, but from consistency, from being seen, held, and soothed, again and again," she says. The expert says it is easy to think bonding comes later, when the child is older, but the reality is that this happens in the first five years of a child. Experts say parents play a critical role in early childhood, not just as providers, but as emotional anchors. Through play, voice, touch, and presence, they help shape confidence, security, and social development. This, Wanjiro says, does not require grand gestures, just presence, especially in the first five years when children cannot yet regulate their emotions. Instead, they borrow it from adults around them. "Children don't calm themselves, they learn how to do so through us, and so when a parent pauses, lowers their voices or holds instead of pushing away, something is being taught - regulation, the quiet disruptor," she explains. Parenting is exhausting Screens, experts warn, can quietly replace the very interactions children need most: eye contact, conversation, and shared attention. "It's not about blaming parents; rather, it is about awareness because, what looks like calm on the outside, may be disconnection on the inside, and in the first five years, every moment, every response, every interaction, every absence, leaves a mark. Not in a way that demands perfection, but in a way that calls for presence," the expert explains According to Oganda, parenting, in these early years, does not always look important, as there are no report cards, no visible milestones beyond first steps and first words. "However, beneath the surface, something profound is taking shape. A brain learning how to think, an emotional system learning how to cope, a human being learning what it means to be safe, seen, and loved, and often, all this happens in moments that feel small and ordinary," says the psychologist. Experts say the first five years are not just preparation for school. They are preparation for life. The question is not whether parents are shaping their children in these years, because many parents do this all the time. "The big question is how," says Oganda.

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