Not only can love help children feel better, but it may make them smarter as well, the Herald Sun reported.

Parenting expert Pinky McKay recently spoke to the news source about the ways in which love and caring acts may help boost babies’ IQs. For instance, McKay said that eye contact, touching, talking, reading, singing, playing and breastfeeding have all been linked to brain development in infants. She added that these interactions trigger the release of hormones, which, in turn, lead to the creation of new pathways and structures in the brain.

"It’s sculpting your baby’s tiny brain for learning, loving and living," McKay told the news outlet.

In a past study, researchers from the University of Portsmouth in England conducted research to see what effect love had on a sample of 46 baby chimpanzee orphans, LiveScience reported. They found that infants who had stronger relationships with their mother figures also performed better on cognitive tests than their peers who did not.

To see what impact their parenting skills have had on their kids’ mental development, mothers and fathers may want to have their children take a kids IQ test.