How You Can Sharpen Your Child’s Mental Ability


How You Can Sharpen Your Child’s Mental Ability


Each child is different from the another when it comes to the abilities they possess. While some naturally possess high numerical abilities enabling them to solve mathematical problems, others have artistic, athletic or outgoing talents. Even though the major portion of their abilities are influenced by their genes; training and development taken by their brains can make significant differences and improve their overall potential. Children's intellectual abilities can be improved from a very young age. A study conducted by the Harvard University Preschool Project reveals that children’s personal experiences, which can either be good or bad, also contribute to their cognitive development from 1.5 to 8 years of age. 

Parents play a crucial role in the development and growth of their child's mental ability by deciding experiences that they undergo. For instance, engaging them in extracurricular activities such as sports and music, exposing them to books, taking them to the library or encouraging them to watch educational documentaries. In the primary stages, parents are usually able to identify their child’s potential and limitations and can take steps to work on those. This is a gradual process requiring dedication and determination from parents at different stages of their child's cognitive development.

Here are 7 tips which can improve your child’s mental ability.

1. Increase Your Child’s Concentration

Several activities and measures are taken by parents to improve the concentration of their child. For example, some parents use toys to maintain attention for small kids. In this method, removing few toys from a counted number of toys they have, and asking them for the count is helpful for their development. They can be asked to find it again on their own without help. The method of naming objects in the house also helps to strengthen their retrievable memory.

 
The exact same method is useful for older children also. The activity of naming objects and recollecting it after time helps to build their memory. Repeating words and number loudly enhances their auditory memory too.
There are several memory games where the child will need to match pairs of images, words, tile or numbers. Playing is very simple - you turn over one card and then try to find a matching card. You can introduce levels, with each getting progressively harder. This not only boosts your child’s memory power but increases their concentration too.
Structured block play, such as wooden blocks and Lego are also beneficial for your child as they increase they're using their spatial reasoning skills and at the same time developing their lateral thinking in a fun way.


2. Reading With Your Child

Reading with your child will not only enable you and your child to develop a strong bonding, it will motivate them to choose books over online activities and instil in them a habit of reading when they are grown up. Looking at the short term, your child will benefit as they are acquainted with new vocabulary, learn about reading aloud; using expression, tone and voice modulation, but more importantly, they learn about spelling, punctuation and grammar. A wide range of fiction and non-fiction books should be made available to them. Bedtime stories will help to awaken your child’s imagination and will create a spirit of enquiry in them, improving their creativity and level of smartness. This is an effective, basic and easy exercise for your child’s brain.



3. Active Learning

Relying more on active learning processes rather than passive learning processes can help to empower your child’s mental ability. As an ESOL teacher, I can affirm that even the adults I teach, learn English more enthusiastically and quickly when they are involved in kinaesthetic learning. Active or kinaesthetic learning is a method that challenges a child’s capacity for learning, using imaginary situations which includes planned as well as spontaneous purposeful activities to make them move around and learn. Learning processes which include both their mind and body should be implemented, such as dramas, practical or play sessions. Taking practical steps to support learning and memory helps your children to grasp information at a faster rate.



4. Encourage The Practice Meditation or Yoga

Meditation and yoga techniques can help soothe your child’s mind and relieve academic as well as any other stress. It also improves the concentration level and memory of their brain and helps to control emotions. With practices like meditation and yoga, dramatic changes can occur in your child’s creative thinking, practical intelligence, social skills, confidence, mental wellbeing and IQ. It also reduces depression and anxiety. Many schools across the UK have successfully adopted mindfulness programmes to support pupils’ mental health. In fact, ex-education minister Edward Timpson stated that mindfulness should be taught as a “normal part of the school day.”



5. Open-Door Communication

Adopting an open-door communication policy for communication with your children seems to be the most resulting way to influence your children. Through proper and healthy communication channels your child will learn to speak to you about their ideas as well as their problems. Consistent communication with them allows ongoing opportunities for you to understand their development, changes and improvement. It will allow you to foresee problems and take remedial actions in a timely manner. As a parent, the greatest gift you can give your child is your time and attention when they need it the most. Talking to your child about their aims in life, highlighting their strengths and addressing areas which need to be improved to enable them to achieve their set goals, will only boost their self-confidence and trust in you. Thus, their environment and experiences affect their mental development.



6. Encourage Exercises and Co-Curricular Activities

Proper exercise helps to increase the learning capacity of your child. Several studies have proved that children’s brain picks up vocabulary words 20% quicker after a session of exercise. Scientists at Coventry University carried out research and concluded that high paced salsa had a cognitive element and found that there was an 18% improvement in working memory after carrying out one session, as dance moves require cognitive manipulation. 
Exercising increases the blood flow to the part of the brain that deals with learning and memory by 30%.
Co-curricular activities help children to keep their brain activity as they try to do new things and explorations. Art forms and games help to build their concentration to a great extent. It also serves as a relief in dealing with academic pressure your child may be facing.



7. Proper Sleep Patterns

Sleep is an essential part of your child's routine to recharge their brain functions. Investing the initial effort to establish a regular bed and wake up time helps to automatically align your child's body clock with a regular schedule. Adopting irregular sleep patterns, take a physical toll on your child's body, can play havoc with their immune system and adversely affect their mood. Therefore, it’s crucial to develop a timetable for bedtime to ensure your child gets sufficient hours of sleep.
Younger children require 10 to 12 hours of daily sleep whereas teenagers require 8 to 10 hours of sleep. Ensure your child completes homework well before bedtime, as going to bed with anxiety may affect the quality of sleep of your child, making them irritable in the morning, thus affecting their ability to concentrate.

 

Incorporating these tips can help to improve your child’s mental ability and enable them to reach their true potential, and of course, there are other factors which would stimulate your child, such as a good diet, strong genes, happy family, good school, intelligent friends and so on.


Aptitude related to learning and understanding memory oriented details are different for each child, but their capabilities can be improved upon in their primary years. The enhancement of these abilities would affect their intellectual growth in their later years, therefore it is important that as parents we help our children reach their true mental ability level. 

(My next article will be about brain foods for your child!)

Comments

Anonymous said…
Nice Article, however I have a slight doubt regarding one of your point. Personally I feel that there is a distinction between mental ability and skills. Mental skills can indeed be improved with practise however mental ability (i.e. the raw natural talent of a person) is fixed at birth. Do you agree with this notion?
Amita said…
Excellent point. Abilities are definitely natural or inbuilt, and skills are acquired during the course of our life. However, ability combined with knowledge create skills which can then be used. The crucial point to consider is how that knowledge can be acquired to develop a skill out of an inherent ability. That's how I believe it to be.
Anonymous said…
ok thanks for reply. i like the point that knowledge can be acquired to develop a skill. it is motivating thought to improve ourselves. :)

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