As a parent, you most likely want the best for your child. You want them to have a fulfilling and, if possible, stress-free life. One key factor that ensures your child’s development and success is their ability to learn and retain knowledge. This helps them perform well in school and improves their general cognitive function, which has lasting effects throughout their life. Here are five easy ways to boost your child’s brain power and create a positive learning environment.
1. Boost Their Learning Through Nutrition and Exercise
A good nutrition and exercise plan has endless benefits, particularly for children whose brains and bodies are still developing. A balanced diet and frequent physical activity are essential to keeping your child’s brain in optimal working condition. Healthy habits boost your child’s brain activity and learning ability, which is crucial in the early years and later life.
Professor Sam Wass, a leading expert in cognitive development, has emphasized that early physical activity helps a child’s brain develop by improving focus and mental skills. Encouraging your child to stay active can help them improve their problem-solving skills and overall academic performance, especially when combined with proper nutrition. Remember, giving your child the right food choices helps build their brain development and aids them in math and other subjects.
2. Ways to Boost Your Child’s Cognitive Function with Toys and Games
Playing with toys and games is not just about fun—it’s a great way to boost your child’s development. Research has shown that certain types of play, such as shared imaginative games or problem-solving games, improve a child’s brain development. These activities promote math skills, creativity, and learning through cause and effect. Games that require focus and concentration can also boost your child’s attention span and improve working memory, which is essential in school.
Toys that involve building, like stacking blocks, also stimulate brain activity and help your child develop critical organisational skills and spatial awareness. Even simple, open-ended toys allow your baby to figure out how to manipulate their environment and develop their cognitive abilities in a fun, non-pressuring way.
3. Create a Positive Learning Environment Through Conversations
Engaging in regular conversations with your child boosts their brain power and helps a child’s brain develop vital communication skills. Open-ended questions are especially useful in encouraging your child to think critically and process information. As your child grows, these conversations also improve their problem-solving skills and ability to express themselves clearly.
Studies have shown that when children engage in back-and-forth exchanges of facial expressions and words with their parents, their brains are processing and strengthening their cognitive functions. Don’t be scared to leave silence and wait for your child to respond—repeating helps their processing speed. Hearing the same words or phrases repeated can significantly improve their speech and language skills, which are crucial for academic performance later on.
4. Encourage Active Reading to Boost Your Child’s Learning Ability
Pleasurable reading is not only a fun activity, but it is also a powerful tool for boosting your child’s learning ability. Reading regularly helps build a child’s understanding of the world, improves vocabulary, and develops maths skills through logic and patterns in stories. To make reading more effective, encourage your child to use highlighters, sticky notes, and jotters to take notes and actively engage with the material.
Reading backed by science has been shown to improve brain development by stimulating the brain’s ability to process information. The more your child reads, the more they will encounter new ideas and concepts that can boost their cognitive development and academic performance. It can be beneficial in boosting your child’s learning ability. As they read, they come in contact with new ideas, opinions and information. Reading, like conversations, also requires them to process information and in this way, it stimulates their minds. To improve your child’s active reading skills and boost learning ability, you can teach them (if they are old enough) how to use highlighters, sticky notes and jotters for a more immersive experience when reading.
5. Encourage Visualisation to Boost Your Child’s Creativity
Visualisation is a powerful tool for developing creativity and improving learning. When your child visualises, they are connecting ideas and mentally constructing images that make abstract concepts easier to grasp. This skill can be particularly helpful when learning new material, as it enables children to attach mental images to what they learn, which boosts retention.
Teaching your child how to visualise helps them develop a richer imagination and improves their ability to remember new information. It’s a simple yet effective way to boost your child’s development and math skills, especially when encouraged to imagine numbers or shapes in their mind’s eye.
Conclusion
These five easy ways to boost your child’s learning ability should significantly improve their academic performance and cognitive function. However, if your child struggles to keep up with school or has trouble with basic learning skills, it is advisable to seek professional help. A visit to a health practitioner or a child psychologist can provide insights into underlying issues.
By creating a positive environment and making small changes in your child’s routine, you can help them thrive and boost their brain power for a lifetime of success.