The primary concern of a new parent is, "How to do I raise my child to be smart?" Yes, indeed, it is natural for a parent to be concerned about proper upbringing of their child. All parents want their children to be smart. Some say that if parents are smart, their children will also be smart. But just having the right genetic blueprint is not enough; a child's achievement depends on parent's contribution to developing the blueprint. I know most of you are asking: How do we build on the genetic blueprint?To start with, parents need to understand that raising a smart person has everything to do with developing his potential, making him as capable as he can be. So let us start with the fact that growth of a child's brain depends on the amount of experience and exercise it receives. Hence for the stimulation of the brain, sight, sound, touch, taste and smell all have their fair share of roles to play. Now parent's need is to provide their child with early stimulations and an extensive range of experiences that will accelerate their child's brain development.
The process will also help you bond with your child, while providing your child with love and security to help with their brain growth. Always keep in mind that a person's brain does not sit still, it is either growing or degenerating. When children use their abilities and talents, their brain grows and when they are not, the brain growth regresses. That is the reason painting, drawing, handicrafts are included as part of pre-school curricula.
By now we all know that childhood experiences shape the kind of person he will become. Keeping this in mind a parent's most important responsibility is to start conversation with their children as soon as they are born, because how much children achieve largely depends on how much parents talk, interact and play with them and make them feel loved. Hence for a parent it is wise to make every word count. While you are talking to your children, don't forget to listen to them, too. When talking is not possible, read to them as much as possible. Reading also makes children smart.
As children grow, they should feel comfortable with parents' modes of communication. Instead of ordering them to 'Put the toys away', we can be rather suggestive and say, 'What do you think we should do, now that we have finished playing with the toys?' Such interaction makes the child think, reflect and come to a decision. This adds to their problem solving skills while also making them independent, capable of making decisions and more in control of everyday situations. All these will help a child's brain growth.
As parents, make a point of never forgetting to praise the process through which your child achieved success. Our intention should be to make children feel they can overcome all kinds of challenges, if they are persistent. This persistence differentiates people who succeed from those who don't. Such an attitude expands one's brain. Just make sure that your praise is like, 'You worked really hard', and not 'You are very smart'.
Encouraging positive self-image in a child does wonders. Words are powerful. Research has shown that young children (3-6 years) are more likely to put away their toys when asked to be 'a helper' than when asked to help. Parents need to rephrase their requests. It might be a good idea to ask, 'Will you be my helper?' rather than asking, 'Will you help me?'
Along these activities, it is important to focus on children's behavior, too. All parents want their children to know right from wrong and grow up to make wise choices. To make that possible parents need to start working on behavior part early and should make a point to criticize specific children behavior to help them learn what to do and what not to, without hurting their feelings. The idea is for children to learn to fix mistakes and the process should be doable and desirable. Here, too, language makes a difference. So instead of saying, 'You are so bad', say, 'That was a bad thing to do', and that makes a difference because 'you are bad' takes a long time for a child to unlearn.
Another thing we as parents need to be careful about is giving instructions, because it is our duty to provide children with opportunity to learn new words, without them being confused. Hence instructions need to be easy and specific for the child. So instead of saying, 'Put it there', we should be more specific and say, 'Put the blanket on the bed'. In other words what matters is how much we talk to our children.
As a rule parents need to talk more to their children and not less, and their aim should be to make every word count. Every word that we utter builds our children's brain. Hence it would be a good idea for parents to maximize everyday conversations with their children and help them become smarter and faster.Just by talking to children we can transform simple tasks of bathing, eating, even cleaning their room or playing with their toys, into a brain building exercise while strengthening parent-child bond. Let them play, exercise, sing songs, listen to music and of course dance if they fancy that.
If your children are into computers, let them play thought-provoking, strategy or even simulation games. While you are at it, also limit the TV time all in consultation with the children. Let them decide how much TV they want to watch, within boundaries. Despite this your child will often be bored. Being bored is okay because it is part of growing.
Finally I would like to mention that following all these tips does not guarantee your child will be a genius. But they will help parents increase their children's chances of being the best of what they can be intellectually. Let them see you do smart things. We love our children very much and hence often we tend to micromanage their lives. Let them discover things for themselves to nurture their creativity. Yes, they will make mistakes. Then again learning from those mistakes is a smart thing to do. Don't you think so?
The author is an educationist and author of several children's books
usha@pokharel.net
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