Providing support and infrastructure so that your son or daughter is an intelligent and happy child is a concern of the whole family. But far from being just parents and guardians, the development of intelligence is also a responsibility of teachers and society.
Over the years, society, values, stimuli, and theories related to parenting changed. And sometimes the family ends up getting lost with so much advice, information, and methodologies.
What defines an intelligent child
In the old days, smart kids were defined by IQ. However, today we know that intelligence is much more than cognitive skills and academic knowledge. Of course, knowing how to count, conjugate verbs, and have logical and mathematical reasoning are still important, but they are no longer seen in isolation.
In other words, we define an intelligent child as one who possesses not only cognitive skills, but also social and behavioral skills, such as empathy, autonomy, responsibility, and the ability to relate well to himself and those around him.
How to help your child grow up healthy and smart.
Characteristics of an intelligent child
Far beyond cognitive abilities, an intelligent child can be identified from the observation of social-emotional characteristics.
Does your child know how to work in a team? Do you show empathy for your colleagues and other people? Do you know how to express your feelings and manage your own emotions? If the answer is yes, you can be proud of yourself, your child has one of the most important types of intelligence, emotional intelligence.
Intelligence cannot be measured through cognitive abilities alone, there are a number of other factors that affect how we build our intelligence. In a nutshell, your child not only needs to have mathematical and logical skills, but they also need to know how to find solutions to different everyday problems, relate to people, and learn not to be negatively affected by the challenges they encounter in their professional and personal lives. Lifetime.
There are several types of intelligence and knowing how to identify their traits in your child is the first step to improving them.
It is worth mentioning that the school must also help those responsible to identify such traits. Choosing a good educational institution that works with a methodology based on the identification and improvement of multiple intelligences is essential for your child to become an even smarter child.
Praise your child for his efforts, not his intelligence
By praising effort, you teach your child to achieve goals through resiliency and trust in their own efforts. Just by praising intelligence, you can end up making him understand that what he has is an innate characteristic and that he doesn't have to work very hard to achieve anything.
Read with him, not for him
It's no use just reading to your child, encourage him to read with you. Ask him to unscramble the words, alternate reading some pages with him, create role-plays and make the activity fun.
Create rules and logical limits, are not enforceable
Try to create logical rules that make sense. If he doesn't understand the logic behind a rule or limit, help him come to that understanding. Saying no to force is not a healthy attitude. You can even passively obey, but you will not understand the reason for the ban.
Be consistent with your attitudes
Actions speak louder than words, and your child is always paying attention to you. Give an example, show the reasons, explain and be consistent with what you say. It is useless to create a rule or prohibition for him and do the opposite.
Promotes joy, calm, and dialogue in the home
Joy and calm promote intelligence, reasoning, curiosity, and learning. Children in stressful and troubled homes have been found to perform below average. Dialogue at home is also an important factor so that your child can express himself in a healthy way and without fear.
Providing an environment where you can safely ask questions allows you to develop important socio-behavioral skills such as empathy, tolerance, respect, curiosity, and creativity.
Encourage extracurricular activities.
Encourage participation in extracurricular activities such as dance, music, theater, sports, etc. These activities encourage autonomy, responsibility, curiosity, and discipline.
And I end by making a recommendation to all parents through these short lines, if we accompany our children in all their developments we will have more intelligent children and capable of defending themselves in life before life situations because, not all the time we will be for guide them, stimulate them, take care of them, that's why, when we can do it for them, let's do it with love, dedication, and passion so that they see us doing it and they repeat it as it is or even with greater emphasis and dedication than us friends, goodbye...
Investigation:
https://rinconpsicologia.com/tu-hijo-es-inteligente/
https://www.guiainfantil.com/educacion/inteligencia/