8 Ways to Boost Your Child’s Intelligence (and Some Characteristics of Gifted Children)

Founded in 1971, the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) has followed the trajectory of more than 5,000 gifted children for nearly 50 years, including the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook. The results of this study suggest that it is important to start developing children’s skills at an early age, but without making excessive demands to turn them into “geniuses”. In 2016, the magazine nature reviewed SMPY and released tips that can help parents and educators discover and nurture children’s talent.

O awesome.club gathered these tips and brought other studies that complement this subject. At the end of the post, a bonus Wait for you. Check out!

A variety of experiences can help develop positive self-esteem in a child. From an early age, children need to be exposed to challenging, stimulating and interesting situations that teach them to understand their mistakes and ways to resolve them. For example, if the child doesn’t get a good grade in a school subject, motivate him to study more and to excel in the next test. A self-satisfied child will be more willing to take on new challenges and not give up on them.

Ideally, the “seeds” of children’s talent are planted and nurtured at home. To identify a natural talent, parents can observe how the child performs in different activities or games.

Identifying a child’s natural talent for something is just the beginning. She needs to develop it. Even in the crib, babies can have their attention stimulated, when someone points a picture of a book at them, for example. As they grow up, music, reading and math can be introduced into their daily lives in a playful way.

Parents cannot force children to be what they are not. According to experts, children should drive their own “talent train”, while parents help them keep the train on track.

Pictured above is Ryuju Okada. He is a clear example that developing natural talent produces good results. By joining the board Little Geniuses of Huck’s cauldron in may 2020 , surprised many people with his skill with numbers. To reach this level, Ryuju trained (and still trains) the Soroban, a Japanese abacus, to perform calculations.

Whenever possible, introduce news to children. In the first few months of life, they already demonstrate how interested they are in unfamiliar objects. To take an example, one of the reasons a baby points at something is to signal curiosity, as if she were saying, “I want to know about this—what is it?”

Whether simple or complex questions, it is important that the children’s parents are willing to answer them, as well as to propose new questions. The more the child asks or answers, the more information he absorbs. Little ones feel even more motivated to learn when their efforts are converted into parental attention and affection.

If necessary, help the child reframe the way he or she handles challenges. A child who considers himself “bad at math” believes that this skill cannot be improved over time. In this case, it is important for parents to help her find new strategies so that she can follow and improve on this.

On the other hand, when parents say their child is “good at math”, it makes it sound like they are limited to “knowing math”, that’s all. So, more valuable than praising the child’s intelligence or talent, is praising the child’s effort, with phrases like: “I’m impressed with how hard you worked to get a good grade”.

Making mistakes is part of how the child is challenged to learn things in a different way, motivating them to try new approaches. Despite this “good side” in making mistakes, many children understand their mistakes as failures. At home, parents can help their children to face mistakes: guiding them to accept them and how to better deal with their impacts.

The results of a survey reinforce the need to prepare children for mistakes in learning and also complement the subject of the previous topic by relating mistakes to praise.

Carol Dweck, a professor at Stanford University, gave a very difficult test to two groups of students. those who were praised for their intelligence, became discouraged and perceived mistakes as failure. While the others who went praised for your effortdedicated themselves more intensively to the test, even making several mistakes.

According to a psychologist, labeling children as “talented” puts unnecessary pressure on them. Another word to avoid is saying that the child has “potential”.

If your child is talented at something, it’s important that he understands that this is just the starting point. And that to fully realize his abilities, he will need to work hard. It’s really bad when a kid says he got a good grade without studying, just because he’s “naturally smart”. In the future, she may believe that she will succeed without effort, generating frustrations. Likewise, when labeled as having “potential”, they are told that they have something they may not have and that there are expectations they may not be able to meet.

By partnering with teachers, parents are more likely to understand their children’s difficulties, interests and talents better. Sharing information between parents and teachers allows you to find multiple ways to develop your children’s learning at home and at school. For example, your child has difficulties with writing but is passionate about video games🇧🇷 In this case, the teacher can propose an essay with this theme. For students with high abilities, teachers can prepare more challenging material, provide extra support, or allow them to learn at their own pace.

From an early age, it is helpful to identify your children’s strengths and weaknesses. This can help you find specific learning strategies and “reveal problems such as dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or social and emotional challenges,” the study finds.

But how to identify if your child is gifted (highly skilled)? According to the high IQ society Mensa, a gifted child may exhibit some or many of these behaviors:

An unusual memory; Fast progress in learning; Early reading; Unusual hobbies or interests or an in-depth knowledge of certain subjects; Awareness of world events; Set yourself high standards; Prefers to spend time with adults or in solitary activities; Loves to talk; Asks questions all the time; Learns easily; Developed sense of humor; Musical; Likes to be in control; Create additional rules for games.

How do you stimulate your child’s intelligence? What else would you add to this list? Tell us!