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byAllison Brubaker
8 min to readEvery parent has dreams for their child’s future. Whether it’s watching them compete in the Olympics, celebrating their Nobel Prize, or sending them off to their dream college, most parents hope they will have a smart child who finds success in whatever path they choose.
Parents often wonder how to raise smart kids who grow up to achieve their dreams. While there may not be a magic formula for how to raise a genius, parents do play a key role in their kids’ success!
Research from the National Institute of Health shows that 50 percent of intelligence comes from genetics, while the other 50 percent comes from other factors, including the child’s environment. For the 50 percent that parents can control, they play a key role in supporting the cognitive development of their child.
Defining Success
How do you raise a brilliant child? While a great GPA is important, what does success look like for your unique child? What interests and hobbies do they have? And, does their school model allow them to pursue and succeed in those hobbies to the fullest? If not, you may want to consider alternate school options that allow your student to pursue their interests and achieve their goals.
Selecting a School
Whether it’s a virtual school like Connections Academy or brick-and-mortar school, a child’s learning environment plays a large role in success beyond the classroom.
10 Secrets on How to Raise Smart Kids
A parent or Learning Coach has more influence in their student’s future than anyone else. While there may not be one secret to raising smart kids, there are things you can do as a parent, guardian, or coach to help raise a smart child.
Based on research, below are 10 steps on how to raise smart kids.
1. Read to Them Early and Often
There is a significant body of evidence showing the benefits of reading to your child, starting when they are just babies. Reading helps young children develop language and listening skills, builds vocabulary, inspires creativity, and improves cognitive skills. Other NIH research demonstrates the connection between reading and intelligence. Reading leads to smarter kids.
While you will read to them when your child is very young, have them read to you as they grow older. This helps them develop a deeper understanding of the language and the story—and it’s a great time to bond. To help keep your child interested and engaged in reading, make regular trips to your local library and let them choose the books they would like to read.
2. Make Time for Unstructured Play
Can playing help your child get smarter in school? Children are naturally curious little explorers.
They also learn best through play.
Giving kids unstructured playtime each day supports their cognitive and social and emotional development. The play should be child-led, which encourages creativity, builds problem-solving skills, and gives them a sense of independence. This time should be free from electronic devices so kids can realize the full potential of unstructured play.
As recess continues to get cut across the country in public brick-and-mortar elementary schools, many parents still want their child to experience more unstructured play to support learning. Many parents are looking for alternative school options like online school or homeschooling. With the flexible schedules these choices offer, parents can build in more unstructured playtime to their student’s day to support their intellectual growth and development.
3. Let Them Make Mistakes
It’s really hard to watch your child struggle—your natural instinct is to help them. But if you always jump in to solve their problems, they will never learn to solve problems themselves.
Research shows that failure is the best teacher when learning how to be smart. Kids learn and grow from their disappointments and mistakes, which leads to successes later in life. If they get into too much trouble, definitely jump in to guide them, but raising a smart child means sometimes letting them make mistakes.
4. Get Them Moving
Is movement a secret to raising smart kids? While we hear a lot about the physical benefits of exercise, there are also emotional and cognitive benefits. Aerobic exercise improves memory and our ability to learn. It can also help children focus better in school—when they get the wiggles out, they are more apt to listen and retain what’s being taught to them in the lesson.
To raise a smarter kid, make sure they have plenty of time to exercise. It can be as simple as taking 5-minute exercise breaks throughout the day.
Help your student find extracurricular activities that encourages them to exercise, such as joining a team sport or a local running club.
Exercising the body is great for the mind!
5. Eat Dinner Together
With busy schedules and work commitments, it can be hard to squeeze in a nice family dinner. But family dinners are extremely important to your child’s emotional and cognitive development.
It’s not about serving an elaborate meal as much as it’s about taking the time to come together as a family. Studies prove that kids who eat regular meals with their families have higher communication skills, better self-esteem, and are less likely to engage in risky behavior later in life. They also have a more balanced diet, which is another key contributor to raising a smarter kid.
Carve out days each week to come together and eat dinner as a family to help your child achieve future success.
6. Establish a Good Bedtime Routine
Getting enough sleep plays a significant role in a child’s cognitive development. Research shows a direct correlation between intelligence and sleep.
Children who get the proper amount of sleep perform better on assessments. When trying to raise smart and successful kids, it’s important to ensure they are getting the optimal amount of sleep.
The general recommendations typically suggest between 10–13 hours of sleep for preschool-aged kids, 9–12 hours of sleep for elementary school children, and 8–10 hours of sleep for middle and high school students.
7. Give Them Chores
Sometimes it’s life experience outside the classroom that teaches kids how to get smarter in school. Chores are an important part of child development. Studies that followed 25 years of data showed that teenagers who started doing chores at three or four years old were more likely to have higher intelligence and better relationships. Parents can now rejoice in knowing that by assigning chores, they are raising a smarter kid!
Chores provide kids with a sense of connection and purpose. By doing chores, children are contributing to the household.
They are learning responsibility and problem-solving skills. They are also getting hands-on experience in things they will have to do when they are older and out in the world on their own, which contributes to their future success.
8. Exercise Their Brains
Just like the body benefits from exercise, the brain needs exercise too. To raise a brilliant child, play board games with them.
Games like checkers, chess, and backgammon make kids think and solve problems as they try to win, which builds cognitive abilities. Give your child things like blocks, Legos, and Lincoln Logs to tap into their creativity to make new structures. Other activities like puzzles, word searches, and riddles are also great ways for a budding genius to exercise their brain.
If you have high schoolers, mix it up with technology and embrace virtual reality. Check out these free virtual STEM education activities that give teenagers a virtual reality experience—while secretly teaching them a lesson or two on science and math.
9. Enroll Them in Music Lessons
While listening to music has a calming effect on the brain and helps relieve stress, studies show that learning to play an instrument builds cognitive abilities. Taking music lessons leads to improved reading comprehension skills, and some studies have shown it also improves math skills.
Additionally, learning to play an instrument or learning to sing is fun! Learning to play music is a great creative outlet for your child, in addition to the educational benefits.
10. Go Exploring
What if a secret to raising smart kids involves heading outside of the classroom? Kids love field trips! Getting out and exploring is a great way to expand your kid’s mind through new experiences. Taking a nature hike, visiting a museum, zoo, or aquarium, or going to see a play offers children a hands-on, immersive experience that supports learning.
To get started, research local points of interest.
You may be surprised by some hidden museums or state parks in your area for you to explore with your child—and learn something new! It’s also a great way to spend time together.
Can’t get outside today? Try a virtual field trip to the moon to launch their curiosity in a quick astronomy lesson on the planets and stars.
Raising a Brilliant Child
Parents often focus on raising a smart and successful child or how they can get smarter in school. But there are many ways to lead a successful life that aren’t tied directly to notable achievements. Helping others, being empathetic to those in need, being kind to people, and volunteering are examples of how our children can find a different kind of success—and be a positive force of change in the world.
School choice matters. From Olympians, business owners, professional ballet dancers—you name it—our K–12 alumni have been embracing their gifts and changing the world in their own way.
Raise your children your way.
Learn more about our proven, virtual school curriculum with over 20 years of experience and see if we’d make a good fit for your family.
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How To Make Your Kids Smarter: 10 Steps Backed By Science
I’ve explored the science behind what makes kids happier, what type of parenting works best and what makes for joyful families.
But what makes children — from babies up through the teen years — smarter?
Here are 10 things science says can help:
1) Music Lessons
Plain and simple: research show music lessons make kids smarter:
Compared with children in the control groups, children in the music groups exhibited greater increases in full-scale IQ.
The effect was relatively small, but it generalized across IQ subtests, index scores, and a standardized measure of academic achievement.
In fact musical training helps everyone, young and old:
A growing body of research finds musical training gives students learning advantages in the classroom. Now a Northwestern University study finds musical training can benefit Grandma, too, by offsetting some of the deleterious effects of aging.
(More on what the music you love says about you here.)
2) The Dumb Jock Is A Myth
Dumb jocks are dumb because they spend more time on the field than in the library. But what if you make sure your child devotes time to both?
Being in good shape increases your ability to learn. After exercise people pick up new vocabulary words 20% faster.
Via Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain:
Indeed, in a 2007 study of humans, German researchers found that people learn vocabulary words 20 percent faster following exercise than they did before exercise, and that the rate of learning correlated directly with levels of BDNF.
A 3 month exercise regimen increased bloodflow to the part of the brain focused on memory and learning by 30%.
Via Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain:
In his study, Small put a group of volunteers on a three-month exercise regimen and then took pictures of their brains… What he saw was that the capillary volume in the memory area of the hippocampus increased by 30 percent, a truly remarkable change.
(More on how exercise can make you and your kids smarter and happier here.
)
3) Don’t Read To Your Kids, Read With Them
Got a little one who is learning to read? Don’t let them just stare at the pictures in a book while you do all the reading.
Call attention to the words. Read with them, not to them. Research shows it helps build their reading skills:
…when shared book reading is enriched with explicit attention to the development of children’s reading skills and strategies, then shared book reading is an effective vehicle for promoting the early literacy ability even of disadvantaged children.
(More on things most parents do wrong here.)
4) Sleep Deprivation Makes Kids Stupid
Missing an hour of sleep turns a sixth grader’s brain into that of a fourth grader.
Via NurtureShock:
“A loss of one hour of sleep is equivalent to [the loss of] two years of cognitive maturation and development,” Sadeh explained.
There is a correlation between grades and average amount of sleep.
Via NurtureShock:
Teens who received A’s averaged about fifteen more minutes sleep than the B students, who in turn averaged fifteen more minutes than the C’s, and so on. Wahlstrom’s data was an almost perfect replication of results from an earlier study of over 3,000 Rhode Island high schoolers by Brown’s Carskadon. Certainly, these are averages, but the consistency of the two studies stands out. Every fifteen minutes counts.
(More on how to sleep better here.)
5) IQ Isn’t Worth Much Without Self-Discipline
Self-discipline beats IQ at predicting who will be successful in life.
From Charles Duhigg’s excellent book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business:
Dozens of studies show that willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success… Students who exerted high levels of willpower were more likely to earn higher grades in their classes and gain admission into more selective schools.
They had fewer absences and spent less time watching television and more hours on homework. “Highly self-disciplined adolescents outperformed their more impulsive peers on every academic-performance variable,” the researchers wrote. “Self-discipline predicted academic performance more robustly than did IQ. Self-discipline also predicted which students would improve their grades over the course of the school year, whereas IQ did not.… Self-discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than does intellectual talent.”
Grades have more to do with conscientiousness than raw smarts.
Via How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character:
…conscientiousness was the trait that best predicted workplace success. What intrigues Roberts about conscientiousness is that it predicts so many outcomes that go far beyond the workplace. People high in conscientiousness get better grades in school and college; they commit fewer crimes; and they stay married longer.
They live longer – and not just because they smoke and drink less. They have fewer strokes, lower blood pressure, and a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.
Who does best in life? Kids with grit.
Via Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.
The best predictor of success, the researchers found, was the prospective cadets’ ratings on a noncognitive, nonphysical trait known as “grit”—defined as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.”
(More on how to improve self-discipline here.)
6) Learning Is An Active Process
Baby Einstein and braintraining games don’t work.
In fact, there’s reason to believe they make kids dumber.
Via Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five:
The products didn’t work at all.
They had no positive effect on the vocabularies of the target audience, infants 17-24 months. Some did actual harm. For every hour per day the children spent watching certain baby DVD’s and videos, the infants understood an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who did not watch them.
Real learning isn’t passive, it’s active.
What does Dan Coyle, author of The Talent Code recommend? Stop merely reading and test yourself:
Our brains evolved to learn by doing things, not by hearing about them. This is one of the reasons that, for a lot of skills, it’s much better to spend about two thirds of your time testing yourself on it rather than absorbing it. There’s a rule of two thirds. If you want to, say, memorize a passage, it’s better to spend 30 percent of your time reading it, and the other 70 percent of your time testing yourself on that knowledge.
(More on how to teach your child to be a hard worker in school here.)
7) Treats Can Be A Good Thing — At The Right Time
Overall, it would be better if kids ate healthy all the time. Research shows eating makes a difference in children’s grades:
Everybody knows you should eat breakfast the day of a big test. High-carb, high-fiber, slow-digesting foods like oatmeal are best, research shows. But what you eat a week in advance matters, too. When 16 college students were tested on attention and thinking speed, then fed a five-day high-fat, low-carb diet heavy on meat, eggs, cheese and cream and tested again, their performance declined.
There are always exceptions. No kid eats healthy all the time. But the irony is that kids often get “bad” foods at the wrong time.
Research shows caffeine and sugar can be brain boosters:
Caffeine and glucose can have beneficial effects on cognitive performance… Since these areas have been related to the sustained attention and working memory processes, results would suggest that combined caffeine and glucose could increase the efficiency of the attentional system.
They’re also potent rewards kids love.
So if kids are going to occasionally eat candy and soda maybe it’s better to give it to them while they study then when they’re relaxing.
(More on the best way for kids to study here.)
8) Happy Kids = Successful Kids
Happier kids are more likely to turn into successful, accomplished adults.
Via Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents:
…happiness is a tremendous advantage in a world that emphasizes performance. On average, happy people are more successful than unhappy people at both work and love. They get better performance reviews, have more prestigious jobs, and earn higher salaries. They are more likely to get married, and once married, they are more satisfied with their marriage.
And what’s the first step in creating happier kids? Being a happy parent.
(More on how to raise happy kids here.)
9) Peer Group Matters
Your genetics and the genetics of your partner have a huge effect on your kids. But the way you raise your kids?
Not nearly as much.
Via Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference:
On things like measures of intellectual ability and certain aspects of personality, the biological children are fairly similar to their parents. For the adopted kids, however, the results are downright strange. Their scores have nothing whatsoever in common with their adoptive parents: these children are no more similar in their personality or intellectual skills to the people who raised them, fed them, clothed them, read to them, taught them, and loved them for sixteen years than they are to any two adults taken at random off the street.
So what does have an enormous affect on your children’s behavior? Their peer group.
We usually only talk about peer pressure when it’s a negative but more often than not, it’s a positive.
Living in a nice neighborhood, going to solid schools and making sure your children hang out with good kids can make a huge difference.
What’s the easiest way for a college student to improve their GPA? Pick a smart roommate.
Via The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work:
One study of Dartmouth College students by economist Bruce Sacerdote illustrates how powerful this influence is. He found that when students with low grade-point averages simply began rooming with higher-scoring students, their grade-point averages increased. These students, according to the researchers, “appeared to infect each other with good and bad study habits—such that a roommate with a high grade-point average would drag upward the G.
P.A. of his lower-scoring roommate.”
(More on the how others affect your behavior without you realizing it here.)
10) Believe In Them
Believing your kid is smarter than average makes a difference.
When teachers were told certain kids were sharper, those kids did better — even though the kids were selected at random.
Via The Heart of Social Psychology: A Backstage View of a Passionate Science:
…Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson (1968) did the same study in a classroom, telling elementary school teachers that they had certain students in their class who were “academic spurters.” In fact, these students were selected at random. Absolutely nothing else was done by the researchers to single out these children. Yet by the end of the school year, 30 percent of the the children arbitrarily named as spurters had gained an average of 22 IQ points, and almost all had gained at least 10 IQ points.
Sum Up
- Music Lessons
- The Dumb Jock Is A Myth
- Don’t Read To Your Kids, Read With Them
- Sleep Deprivation Makes Kids Stupid
- IQ Isn’t Worth Much Without Self-Discipline
- Learning Is An Active Process
- Treats Can Be a Good Thing — At The Right Time
- Happy Kids = Successful Kids
- Peer Group Matters
- Believe In Them
One final note: Intelligence isn’t everything. Without ethics and empathy really smart people can be scary.
As P.J. O’Rourke once said:
Smart people don’t start many bar fights. But stupid people don’t build many hydrogen bombs.
So if you want to learn how to raise a happier kid go here and a more well-behaved kid go here.
I hope this helps your child be brilliant.
Related posts:
Good Parenting Skills: 7 Research-Backed Ways to Raise Kids Right
How To Have A Happy Family – 7 Tips Backed By Research
How To Raise Happy Kids – 10 Steps Backed By Science
This piece originally appeared on Barking Up the Wrong Tree. Join 45K+ readers. Get a free weekly update via email here.
Read next: The Secret to Learning a Foreign Language as an Adult
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How to Raise an Intelligent and Intelligent Child - Child Development
This article presents the most effective and important tips on how to raise an intelligent and savvy child, contributing to his intellectual growth.
1. Start teaching your child at an early age - According to research, it is necessary to start teaching a child "from the cradle".
To ensure the successful early development of the baby, experts recommend that parents show maximum sensitivity and responsiveness towards him full of love and attention, eliminate stress factors, talk with the baby, sing to him and gesticulate a lot, use numbers and rhythmic games, create conditions and help development. three-dimensional perception and, of course, to instill a love of learning. nine0003
2. Read books to your baby – start reading even if he doesn't understand the words yet. This will give the child a head start in developing speech skills. Children who are read to from an early age are more likely to develop a lifelong interest in reading, do well in school, and succeed in adulthood. Reading books is one of the most important activities that makes children smart.
3. Talk to your baby - it helps your baby develop great language skills. Also, listen carefully when he says something. This way you can encourage your child to communicate and help develop fluency.
nine0003
4. Interact with your child, play with him and help him feel loved. Scientists have observed that children who are not hugged, cuddled, played with, or loved by their parents often experience intellectual retardation. It has also been proven that babies who are not carried and paid no attention grow poorly, become depressed and eventually die. On the other hand, many studies show that love, hugs, interaction and play with a child have a powerful positive effect on the development of his intelligence. The tender bond formed between you and your child and your interactions with them provide the foundation for developing better thinking skills. nine0003
5. Raise your child to be a reader - A love of reading can be of great benefit. This is one of the most important qualities that you can develop in your baby so that he grows up smart. Reading increases the thirst for knowledge. The more the child learns from what he read, the more he wants to learn more.
If a child begins to read at an early age, he becomes well equipped to understand complex material from the fields of mathematics, science, history, engineering, mechanics, political science and other knowledge necessary for a productive life. nine0003
6. Let the baby play - when the child plays, he creates the basis for the development of his intellectual, social, physical and emotional skills. When he plays with other children, he learns to relate his ideas, impressions and feelings to the experiences and opinions of other children.
7. Encourage sports - physical exercise makes a child not only strong, but also smart! Sports activities increase blood flow to the brain and, accordingly, help it in the construction of new cells. Physical exercise is also good for mental sharpness in adults, but it has a more lasting effect on the developing brain of a child. nine0003
8. Make music a part of your child's life - Studies have found that listening to music improves memory, attention, motivation and learning.
Music is also a good way to relieve stress, which has a devastating effect on the baby's brain. Learning to play a musical instrument has a positive effect on the brain's ability to operate with the concepts of proportion and space-time relationships - the foundations of abstract mathematics.
9. Let your child see that you are doing thoughtful things - children learn by imitating the behavior of adults. If a child sees you reading books, writing, composing music, or other creative activities, he will imitate you and become smarter in the process.
10. Limit your child's time in front of a TV screen - Children should not watch TV at all before the age of two. Television takes away children's time for more important brain development activities such as games, socializing and reading books. nine0003
11. Let your young intellectual play smart computer games - the best children's computer games will teach your child letters, mathematics, music, phonetics and much more.
They also help develop his hand-eye coordination and prepare him for the technologies of the future. More importantly, the child learns while playing. Learning that is combined with fun is what children like the most.
12. Let the child be bored - experts believe that it is good for children to be bored from time to time. Learning to endure boredom is part of preparing for adulthood. The child must learn to enjoy "quiet reflection" instead of necessarily forcing himself to fill his days with active activity. nine0003
13. Allow your child to take risks and fail - children who do not like to take risks and fail, or feel particularly hurt by falling off a bike or losing a competition, develop low self-esteem and acquire phobias and, in fact, hinder their own creativity development and training. Try not to come to the aid of children too quickly. Let them solve problems on their own and thereby learn from experience.
14. Give your child the right nutrition - A healthy diet is of great importance for the development of a child's intelligence.
It is important to give your baby proper nutrition even during pregnancy. In older children, a high-protein diet (egg, fish, meat) improves attention, understanding, and intelligence. Carbohydrates give the brain the "fuel" it needs for thought processes. It is better to get carbohydrates from whole grains and fruits. Processed carbs and sugar are bad for attention span, ability to focus, and activity levels. Vitamins and minerals are also very important. nine0003
15. Make sure your child gets enough sleep - Research has found a relationship between sleep and academic performance. Long-term sleep problems in a child are the cause of other serious and long-term problems.
16. Help your child develop perseverance - perseverance is the willingness to achieve long-term goals through hard work, perseverance and endurance. It is believed that perseverance distinguishes a successful person from a failure and is a more important character trait for success than innate talent or intelligence.
As a way to teach perseverance, share with your child the upsets and disappointments you have experienced and overcome. nine0003
17. Praise your child for hard work, not for being "smart" - when you praise your child for his efforts, you help him feel in control of his own success. Praise for showing intelligence discourages a child from doing difficult tasks, because failure may not match his assessment of himself as an intelligent person. In addition, praise should be given periodically, not constantly, so that the child's diligence is not based solely on rewards that include praise. nine0003
18. Cultivate a growth mindset in your child - Scientists believe that children should be encouraged to view learning as a process that helps them develop and become better at something and not consider their intelligence to be constant and unchanging. When a child fails, he should see it as an opportunity for growth, instead of seeing himself as a failure.
19. Try not to court or cherish the child excessively - unless, of course, you want him to become a leader. In addition, invite your child to complete tasks that require patience so that he learns discipline. nine0003
20. Use money as one of the educational tools - experts say that "bribing" a child in order to awaken his motivation is a completely normal parenting strategy. Ask your child what he likes best as a stimulus. Sometimes money or material objects are not as important to the baby as, for example, video or computer games. However, you cannot bribe a child to control him or force him to stop unacceptable behavior. nine0003
21. Give your child more time for open, free activities instead of putting it in a fixed schedule. According to the study, children who have enough time for unstructured activities and games show high levels of executive brain function, and vice versa. Executive functions greatly help children in everyday life, and in many ways: from the ability to flexibly and quickly switch from one activity to another and not get stuck on something, to the ability to restrain and not scream in a state of anger and delay pleasure.
A child's executive functions predict such important indicators as academic performance, health, wealth, and propensity for crime for years and even decades. nine0003
22. Do not control the child at the micro level - and do not constantly correct him. Let him explore the world around him on his own to develop creative and innovative thinking.
23. Give your child tasks in the kitchen - this will not only teach him how to cook, but also improve his mathematical and motor skills (ie motor skills).
24. Research has found that families where fathers do housework have daughters who are able to choose from a much wider range of career and professional options, unlike families where household chores are distributed unfairly. nine0003
How to Make Your Kids Smarter: 10 Science-Backed Steps
InoSMI materials are exclusively foreign media assessments and do not reflect the views of the InoSMI editors
I studied scientific research and arguments about what makes children happier, what parenting approach is most effective, and thanks to which there are happy families.
But what makes kids from babies to 10 years of age smarter? Here are 10 things science says help with that.
I have studied scientific research and arguments about what makes children happier, what parenting approach works best, and what makes happy families.
But what makes children from babies to 10 years of age smarter? Here are 10 things science says help with that.
1. Music lessons
Everything is clear and simple. Research shows that music lessons make kids smarter.
Compared to children in control groups, children in music groups showed a greater increase in IQ. The impact of music was rather small, but the analysis was conducted on a variety of additional criteria for mental development, on indicators of various indices, and on standard measures of academic achievement. nine0003
In fact, music lessons help everyone, young and old alike. A growing body of research indicates that music education provides students with a number of benefits in the classroom.
But Northwestern University, in a study, found that music lessons also benefit grandmothers, slowing down some of the detrimental effects of the aging process.
2. Stupid jocks are a myth
A dumb jock is dumb because he spends more time in the gym than in the library. But what if you make sure that your children are both there and there? If you are in good physical shape, your cognitive abilities also increase. nine0003
German scientists in 2007 found that after exercise people memorize new words from the dictionary 20% faster than before exercise. The rate of memorization is directly correlated with the neurotrophic factor of the brain.
Living with regular physical activity for three months increases blood flow to the part of the brain responsible for memory and cognition by 30%.
During the study, a group of volunteers were put on a regimen of exercise for three months, after which scientists took pictures of their brains.
They saw that the volume of capillaries in the hippocampus at the memory site increased by 30%, which is a truly remarkable change. nine0003
3. Don't read to your children, read with them
Do you have a small child who is learning to read? Don't let him just stare at the pictures in the book while you're reading. Draw his attention to the words. Read not to him, but with him. Research shows that it develops his reading skills.
When collaborative book reading is reinforced with increased attention to developing a child's reading skills, collaborative reading becomes an effective early literacy tool, even for disadvantaged children. nine0003
4. Lack of sleep makes children dumber
The brain of a sixth grader who has not slept for one hour becomes the brain of a fourth grader. “Losing one hour of sleep is equivalent to losing two years of cognitive growth and development,” explains researcher Sadeh.
There is a certain relationship between academic performance and sleep duration.
Adolescents from the number of excellent students on average sleep 15 minutes longer than "good" students, and those 15 minutes longer than "C" students. Etc. This is supported by data from both earlier and recent studies. Of course, these are averaged data, but the agreement between the results of different studies is impressive. Every quarter of an hour counts. nine0003
5. IQ is worth little without self-discipline. Here is what Charles Duhigg writes in his wonderful book:
Dozens of studies show that willpower is the single most important habit for personal success... selection. They skip class less often, spend less time in front of the TV and more time doing homework. “Adolescents with high levels of self-discipline outperformed their more impulsive peers on all academic measures,” the researchers wrote. - Self-discipline is more important for academic performance than IQ. Self-discipline also indicates which students will improve their performance during the school year, while IQ cannot do this . .. Self-discipline has a greater impact on learning outcomes, weeks of intelligence. nine0003
Grades are more the result of conscientiousness and diligence than pure intellect.
Conscientiousness is the trait that most guarantees success at work. It is especially curious that conscientiousness can indicate the future success of a person by no means only in the workplace. Conscientious people get better grades in school and college; they are less likely to commit crimes; and they last longer in their marriage. Yes, and they live longer - and not just because they smoke and drink less. They have fewer strokes, lower blood pressure, and less Alzheimer's disease. nine0003
So, who is the most successful in life? Persistent and persistent children.
Researchers have found that the best predictor of success is perseverance, which is neither cognitive nor physical. Persistence is defined as perseverance and the desire to achieve long-term goals.
6. Cognition is an active process
Educational toys and brain-training games do nothing. In fact, there is reason to believe that they make children dumber. nine0003
These things do not have a positive effect on the vocabulary of children aged 17 to 24 months. Some of them even do real harm. For every hour children spend watching some children's DVDs and videos, they learn an average of six to eight fewer words than children who do not sit in front of a screen.
True cognition is an active process, not a passive one. What does the author of The Talent Code, Dan Coyle, recommend? He says stop just reading and test yourself. nine0003
Our brains develop when we do things, not when we hear about them. This is why, for many skills and abilities, it is better to spend two-thirds of the time on self-examination than simply absorbing a text. There is a two-thirds rule. For example, if you want to memorize a passage, it is better to spend 30% of the time reading it, and the remaining 70% testing your knowledge.
7. Food is good - but at the right time
In general, it is good for children to eat healthy food all the time. Research shows that food affects children's academic performance. nine0003
Everyone knows that on the day of an important exam, one should eat a good breakfast. Research shows that the best food is high in carbohydrates and fiber, which is slowly digested. But it is also important what you eat the week before. 16 students were tested for attention and speed of thinking; they were then fed heavily for five days on a high-fat, low-carbohydrate meal that was rich in meat, eggs, cheese, and cream. When they were tested again, the numbers dropped.
There are always exceptions. No child eats healthy food all the time. But the trouble is that children often eat "bad" food at the wrong time. Studies have shown that caffeine and sugar can increase brain activity:
Caffeine and glucose may have beneficial effects on cognition… Research shows that caffeine and glucose, when combined, can enhance a person's attention.
There are also some very powerful rewards that are very popular with children. So if you want to give your child a candy or a glass of lemonade, it's better to do it when he is studying, not when he is resting.
8. Happy child = successful child
Happy and contented children are more likely to become successful, well-mannered, and well-educated adults.
Happiness is a huge advantage in a world that puts results first. In general, happy people are more successful than unhappy people in work and in love. They get better reviews for their work, more prestigious positions and higher salaries. They are more likely to marry, and they experience more satisfaction from marriage.
What is the first step to making a child happy? Be a happy parent. nine0003
9. Peers Matter
Your genetic heritage and your partner's genetics have a huge impact on your children. And how do you raise them? Far less.
Here is what Malcolm Gladwell writes about this:
“In such things as intellectual ability and certain traits of character, biological children resemble their parents. But for adopted children, the results seem frankly strange. Their indicators have nothing to do with adoptive parents. These children, in their character and intellect, resemble the people who brought them up, fed, clothed, taught and loved them for 16 years, no more than two adults taken at random from the street. nine0003
So what has the biggest impact on the behavior and actions of your children? Their peers. We usually talk about peer influence when that influence is negative; but much more often it is positive. It's important to live in a good neighborhood, get your kids in a good school, and have them interact with good kids. What is the easiest way for a university student to improve academic performance? Pick a smart roommate.
Economist Bruce Sacerdote, who once conducted a study with students at Dartmouth College, saw how strong this effect is. He found that when students with poor grades move into a room with a high-performing student, their performance, on average, also goes up. According to the researcher, these students "seem to infect each other with good and bad study habits in such a way that a high-performing student pulls their low-performing roommate up." nine0003
10. Believe in them
It is very important to believe that your child is smarter than most. When teachers are told that some kids are smarter, those kids start to learn better, even if it was said about them at random.
Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson in 1968 conducted a study at the school. They told elementary school teachers that they had some students in their class who could "show dramatic progress in academic achievement." In fact, these students were selected at random. Scientists did nothing more to distinguish these children from the general series. However, by the end of the school year, 30% of these randomly selected students had improved their IQ by an average of 22 points, and nearly all had improved by at least 10 points.
