How to raise a Genius

Today I'm sharing this (fun) infographic with you.  It nicely summarizes some of the latest and key research in raising "smarter" children.

Of particular interest to me is the way in which we praise our children and how we can often over-focus on vague character traits (such as "you are so nice/smart/creative"), rather than on their specific efforts. To read an extensive article in this regard, go here.

This infographic was provided by onlinepsychologydegree.net.

Reading this summary reminds me that I have some work to do in a few departments. And you? What are your thoughts on this information? Does it change the way you are currently thinking about raising smart children? I'd love to hear your opinion.

Great reads that discuss some of this research:

NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children (by Po Bronsan and Ashley Merryman) - I absolutely loved this book, but then again it's right up my Psychologist alley :). There's a whole chapter written on the inverse power of praise, as mentioned above. 

How the Brain Learns (by David Sousa) - I couldn't put this down and I think it should be prescribed material for all educators - seriously. 

Till next time, happy reading. 

The Blessing by John Trent & Gary Smalley {Booksneeze Review}

I was very excited to read The Blessing ,which I had received to review from Booksneeze. This book is essentially about the gift - the blessing -  that we all deeply desire to receive from our parents. This blessing is an affirming gift and when we receive it,  we experience our parents' unconditional love and acceptance, as well as a sense of high value and self-worth.

In the book, the blessing is explained as having five essential elements and each of these are biblically based. These elements are 1) meaningful touch 2) a spoken message 3) attaching high value 4) picturing a special future, and 5) an active commitment. The authors explain both why the blessing is so important for positive self-worth and relationships, as well as what you can do, if you have not received it.  They go on to provide practical advice about how you as a parent can impart this special blessing to your children.

As excited as I was to read this book, I have to be honest and say that I struggled to get through it. I particularly struggled with the first four chapters, which focus on why this blessing is so important and why one should read the book.  Perhaps I was a little impatient, because I wanted to get to the nitty-gritty of what the blessing was all about. The description of the blessing was definitely my favourite part of the book and I think that the suggestions offered for those that feel that they missed out on the blessing, as well as the practicalities of living the blessing, were also helpful.

In a nutshell - it wasn't the easiest read for me, but I would recommend it and it's a book I will definitely be popping into again. 

Thank you Booksneeze for sending me a complimentary copy of this book to review.  I can't wait to review another one :).

Colour Fun #9 - Buckets of Colour

Do you know that your child will remember anything that is correctly associated, anything outstanding, and anything that is appropriately repeated. This wonderful information is from Tony Buzan's book, Brain Child, one of my all time favourite parenting books. Tony Buzan calls a baby's brain, "a gigantic association machine". Another great bit of information to know about, is that memory is enhanced by the more senses that are involved.

Now the idea behind buckets of colour, was to create a fun memory and association with each colour represented.  I prepared all the buckets ahead of time and included items such as balloons, play dough, finger paint, bubbles, whistles, threading toys, plastic animals, stickers, bean bags and sweeties. Originally the plan was to have only small things in each bucket, so that I could close the bucket and take it along anywhere if I wanted to. Truthfully though, I added bigger things, like a flute and real fruit, which obviously didn't fit into the buckets.

I must say that these buckets became so much more than just colour fun. There was counting (3 little green frogs); numeracy (cutting the play food in half); imaginative play (play dough snakes eating the play food); fine motor skills (using the stickers and threading); body parts (sticking the stickers on body parts); gross motor activities with balloon and bean bag fun; sensory play (painting, smelling play dough, eating ice cream); language enrichment ("lets decorate our bucket with the stickers"); and, identifying shapes. For the colour "green", for example, we took our green bucket outside and had a "green" picnic on the grass. We sat on our green picnic blanket, ate a green apple and played with our green toys!

 

For lots more colour activities, pop on over to My Delicious Ambiguity, a wonderful blog with lots of tot activities. Jenn has a whole collection of colour activities posted here.

PS. I'm linking this to Tot Tuesdays and Show and Tell.

Adam's Art Spot : Flip-O-Ramas

I recently posted about Tony Buzan's book, Brain Child, and promised to share some more tidbits from it. Adam's Art Spot has given me the perfect opportunity to tell you a little about a brain principle called "mimicry" or good old-fashioned "copying". Tony Buzan has an interesting perspective on this and speaks of how "copying" has become associated with "cheating" and is therefore frowned upon. The brain, he says, "is designed to learn by copying" and "parents will notice that the baby is the the greatest 'copying' machine ever invented." Isn't that so true? Our babies copy everything we do... language, gestures, noises, expressions, actions...and they do it with "dazzling precision and accuracy".

I got to thinking about how we accept that a baby and tot will copy us and learn in the process, yet as our children grow older we can inadvertently discourage them from copying, for the reason cited above. Yet, this is surely the very best way to learn! So I am going to encourage Big One to "copy" and be inspired by art, books, TV, characters, ideas! Tony Buzan says to encourage copying and then to add one's own interpretation.

So how does this all tie in to Adam's Art Spot? Well, Adam has been bringing home Captain Underpants books from the school library for quite some time now. If you are familiar with these books, you will know that they have pages in the books called "Flip-O-Ramas". Two very similar pictures are drawn a page apart and the reader is encouraged to flip the page back and forth as quickly as he can to create the effect of a moving picture.  I noticed Adam drawing up a storm in some old recycled books that I had given him and discovered that he was creating his own "Flip-O-Ramas"! Some mimicry at it's creative best!

It's difficult to see the effect by looking at these photographs, but I must tell you, that when you flip the pages quickly, that little guy sure looks like he's swimming!

Raising Brainy Babies

 

At birth most of your baby's organs are structurally complete. Their development is as it should be and they are already performing their duties. As babies grow into children and older, their organs will simply increase in size by the process of cell-division. There is one exception however, and that is of course, the amazing brain. 

What is really interesting is that your baby's brain has got it's full repertoire of cells long before birth. The number of brain cells will not increase after birth, but the interconnections between the brain's cells will increase manifold. And here's the best part. The degree to which these connections increase is very much determined by what your baby's brain is exposed to. Or put another way, what your baby's brain is taught.

These interconnections go through a phenomenal growth spurt during your child's first two years of life. At birth your baby's brain will weigh approximately 25% of it's adult weight. By the age of 2-and-a-half, the brain weighs 75% of it's adult weight. What an awesome responsibility we have as parents to feed our baby's brain and we do this by offering them a rich palette of multi-sensory experiences. 

I recently read and can highly recommend Tony Buzan's book, Brain Child. In it he speaks of the four essential "brain foods". They are Oxygen, Nutrition, Love and Information. All are essential, without which our baby simply cannot survive.

Brain child makes for worthwhile and fascinating reading. Tony Buzan not only explains how the brain works (in a very easy to understand way) but also provides lots of wonderful ideas for stimulating and feeding your baby and child's brain. Stay tuned, I'll be sharing some more insights from this book in up and coming posts.