Ways to Support Your Child's Intellectual Development

Supporting Your Child's Intellectual Development

Your child is constantly learning about the world around them and much of this learning is through play. Intellectual play can help develop some of the key thinking skills needed to face the challenges life will give them.

Here are some ways you can give your child the opportunity to develop and hone those vital skills.

What is Intellectual Play?

Intellectual play involves games or activities that help develop the specific skills related to the skills needed to solve problems and make decisions. They include using sensory perception, language, problem-solving, memory, concentration, and creativity to explore and make sense of the world.

Provide Opportunities

A child can't leam if they don't have the opportunity, so letting them undertake a variety of activities is important. They'll need the time, space, and resources to stretch themselves and improve their intellectual skills. Any activity that requires them to gather, store and retrieve information and challenges them to process and use that information in new ways, for example, to solve a problem or answer a question, works well.

Encourage Observation

Encouraging your child to really look at the world around them, perhaps by playing eye-spy, spot-the-difference, taking them to new places or even doing something as simple bug hunting, will give them experience in picking up on smaller details as well as encourage them to get into the habit of being proactive about gathering and using data. It can spark an interest that may prompt them to find out more. Join In When they're younger they'll need more guidance from you. Making suggestions, playing alongside them, demonstrating alternative ways to do things, helping them reason their the solution are all ways to help them practice using their thinking skills in a range of situations.

Repeat It

Repeating activities, or repeated readings of the same book, do more than just help fix things in the memory or increase your child's dexterity. This is especially so with children who learn more effectively by doing rather than watching, enabling them to develop a deeper understanding of the topic or activity. The first time they read a book they might pick up on the main story, the second time they'll start to see the finer detail in the pictures or text, and the third time they might understand the characters' motivations more; each layer adds depth to their understanding and they can use that increased understanding to draw parallels with their own life.

Challenge Them

It's nice to be successful at something and it's easier to stay at that level rather than risk failing by taking the next step or trying something new. Your child needs you to encourage them to face the next challenge and support them in further developing heir skills. They need to learn to deal with failure and frustration in a positive way. The trick is not to push too hard or set such lofty expectations they'll inevitably fail and avoid stretching themselves again.

Encourage Them to Use Their Senses

Relatively little information is gained from the written or spoken word and a child learns best if every sense is engaged. Songs and rhymes can help fix information in the memory. Visual senses can be stimulated using pictures and playing recognition games.