The Secret to Smarter Kids
As parents we want happy and healthy children, many would like them to also be smart. For today’s parents this desire is often made easier with the help of educational toys, technology, and a better understanding of brain processes through science.
Despite the publicity over mass media, there is no convincing scientific evidence that sophisticated toys are useful for more advanced development of children’s intelligence, compared to simple or similar toys.
So what is the secret to a smart child?
Above all it’s about true love and affection. It’s understanding that a child’s brain is something under construction, a sponge ready to absorb all the knowledge one can handle.
This article will discuss behaviors related to increased IQ score in children:
1. Music Lessons– Taking music lessons, or learning to play a musical instrument is crucial for improved brain function, not only in children but also in adults. IQ scores increased to a small but consistent degree. Music stimulates all brain regions, affecting creation of synapses, thus the learning process. It is likely that singing and dancing are beneficial as well, since they require complex cognitive abilities like coordination, memory, motor skills, and emotional processes.
2. Exercise– This is beneficial in every possible way. Increased blood flow, improved cognitive ability, and a healthy cardiovascular system are the primary benefits of exercise. For kids exercise is as easy as letting them play. Don’t let them spend all day watching TV or playing video games.
3. Napping and appropriate sleep– Napping helps reorganize the learning process and memories, children that take regular naps are able to remember more words accurately than those who didn’t in verbal skills tests.
4. Willpower– It’s one key to individual success. Willpower comes from self-discipline, and discipline comes from habits, consciousness, and curiosity. Self-discipline is a good predictor of intelligence and satisfactory outcomes, even more than IQ. Consciousness plays a large role in self-discipline, always try to be a mirror, a source of consciousness for your child.
5. Learn by doing not watching– Babies are not smarter from watching videos. The same logic applies to adults, most of the time a video will not make us smarter. Any active learning is ideal, while passive learning derived from videos and television may be harmful.
6. Diet– A diet high in fiber, protein, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats containing low sugar is ideal for better brain performance at any age. Caffeine and sugar can be brain boosters, but sugar since in large doses can be toxic to brain cells, and caffeine can adversely affect bone development in children.
7. Happiness– Happy kids are the most important facet of good parenting. Physical and emotional development, performance, satisfaction and stability are only a few scores improved by happiness. Careful and loving affection and attention are some of the most tangible ways to make a child happy. Making a child happy can be the easiest thing in the world, children are magical in their simplicity.
8. Peer group– Pay attention to your child’s peer group, with whom they hang out, and what they like. Your neighborhood, home life, social life, and religious activity, extended family, and chosen school will all have a significant effect on your child and how they see the world.
Barker, E. (2014). How To Make Your Kids Smarter: 10 Steps Backed By Science. Time.Com, 1.
Smart Parenting, Smarter Kids: The One Brain Book You Need to Help Kids Grow Smarter, Healthier, and Happier. (2011). Publishers Weekly, 258(24), 43.
Savacool, J. (2014). THAT RECORDER WILL MAKE YOUR KID Smarter. Scholastic Parent & Child, 21(7), 50-
