brain science

My wife and I took our oldest daughter to Italy when she was around three years old. We saw the Colosseum in Rome, took selfies with the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and biked our way through the beautiful city of Lucca. If you ask her now, she hardly remembers a thing about it.

It's probably asking a lot—after all, some long-term memories begin forming around two to three years old, but most of them don't last through adolescence—but I'm just saying: it would be nice if she remembered that amazing adventure, all the incredibly family time we got together, and all the laughs we had as we struggled our way through Italian menus. It's the kind of thing that would have made an amazing core memory.

A core memory, if you remember from the film Inside Out, is a foundational experience that plays a big role in the person children end up becoming. It's an unforgettable memory that sticks with them forever and shapes big portions of their personality and adult lives. For example, taking your child to their first football game might very well spark a lifelong love of the sport. Just like how getting heavily bullied might influence the way they relate to others for a long, long time.

If you're like me, you want to fill your kids' childhood with happy memories, and it would be really great if they actually wound up remembering some of them.

Scientists and psychologists say there are six things you can do to make your memories and experiences more "sticky" and help create core memories that will last forever.

'Inside Out' popularized the concept of core memories. Giphy

1. Emotional Connection

In the Pixar movies, core memories are heavily linked with strong emotions, and the same is true in real life. The memories that stick with us the longest often aren't about what we saw, heard, tasted, or smelled, but how we felt.

The strongest memories are driven by emotion. Giphy

"Emotional connection can make an experience more memorable to a child; children remember how something felt more than what happened. Focusing on joy, wonder, love, and fun and giving your child undistracted attention helps turn an outing into a cherished memory," says Dr. Carolina Estevez, Psy.D., psychologist at SOBA New Jersey.

Siobhan Chirico, Psychotherapist and Educator at VOICE Counselling & Education Services, adds that connecting an experience to a child's sense of identity can help cement that experience into long-term memory. For example, if your son finally works up the courage to go down the big, scary water slide ("I'm brave") or your daughter tells a joke that has everyone spitting soda through their noses ("I'm funny"). You'll have to put the phone away and be present and engaged in the moment in order to look for opportunities for meaning in the moments you plan.

2. Repetition

Memories stick when we get to relive them over and over. Study a subject for a test and you'll forget everything in no time. Use it every day and you'll quickly become an expert.

You can apply the same idea to making lasting memories with your kids. Take every opportunity to tell the stories of your adventures to friends, family, and anyone else who might care to listen. Let your kids tell it from their perspective—who cares if they get some of the details wrong or screw up the comedic timing?

Photo albums may have gone out of style, but consider making scrapbooks or photo books of trips and big events in your family life.

"Take pictures intentionally not just of yourself and your child, but where you went and what you did, then invite your child to help you make a memory page or scrapbook as you remember together, reliving all the fun (and not so fun) moments," suggests Cara Tyrrell from Core4Parenting.

This is also why traditions—like hanging the lights on the Christmas tree while The Grinch plays in the background every single year—become so deeply embedded in us.

3. Novelty

As much fun as you might have going to your favorite family restaurant every week, sometimes the most memorable experiences for kids are the new ones—even if those memories aren't picture perfect.

For example, I guarantee your kid will remember their first time trying sushi, even if they end up nearly gagging at the sight of the raw fish. Sometimes, the more of a train wreck an experience is, the more memorable! These frustrating, everything's-going-wrong debacles become really funny stories to tell again and again over time. My daughter's and my first long train ride together a few summers ago was an epic disaster but we never get tired of telling the tale.

Novelty can come in smaller packages (and inexpensive ones), too, like putting a twist on an everyday activity. Chirico says unexpected surprises like "a picnic breakfast in pajamas, a bedtime story under the stars can spark delight and novelty."

4. Hands-on participation

Planning the perfect event is great if you can pull it off. But inviting your child into the planning process can make it even better and more memorable.

My wife recently took our daughter on a girls-only trip to Amsterdam and London. They had a lot of late-night planning sessions, pouring over maps and books together, reading blog posts, watching YouTube videos, and creating their perfect itinerary.

Having some ownership over the experience builds confidence in kids, helps create a sense of identity, and gets them even more engaged in what's happening. It also taps into repetition—they'll remember not just seeing Big Ben in person, but also reading about it, finding it on the map, and plugging it into the travel plan.

5. Sensory overload

The more sensory-rich an experience is, often the more memorable it is. Have you ever smelled something and immediately been transported back to middle school for some reason? Tasted a food that reminded you of your mom's cooking?

Taste or smell can transport us directly into old memories. Giphy

"When kids are fully immersed through multiple senses, what they see, hear, smell, taste, and touch, the memory gets anchored in a deeper way," says Kim Feeney, play therapist at Butterfly Beginnings Counseling. "Think about it: the smell of sunscreen at the pool, the feel of sticky fingers from roasting marshmallows, the sound of fireworks booming on the 4th of July, those details become cues that can instantly transport a child back to that moment years later."

If you're doing something special with your kids, help point out some of the sensory input they're getting and it may help that experience become a core memory.

6. A good night's sleep

As fun as it is to keep your kids up late in the name of fun, adventure, and family bonding, try not to overdo it. Sleep actually plays an important role in our brain's attempts to commit things to memory. It's why pulling an all-nighter cramming for a test makes sense in theory, but in reality, you wind up losing a lot of good information because you skipped the sleep cycle your memory needed.

"Sleep and rest can also make memories last," writes Estevez. "Sleep consolidates short-term memories into long-term storage, therefore good sleep, especially REM or deep sleep cycles, is critical for making memories last."

A good sleep helps form new memories. Giphy

In the end, though, don't stress too much about trying to create the perfect environment for core memories. They're a nice idea, and a great plot device for the Inside Out films, but they're not real in a scientific sense. And even if they were or are, it's impossible to predict exactly which memories will stick with us forever.

Our brains have extremely complicated systems of designating which memories to store and which ones to ditch. Every single one of us has mundane memories of no importance or significance that we, inexplicably, carry with us everywhere. And all of us have sadly forgotten about really incredible moments in our lives that would have been great to hold on to.

One thing that didn't make the list: Money. Kids won't remember how much you spent, only the feelings of laughter, love, and adventure that you help create for them.