How to raise smart kids
How to Raise Smart Kids as a Dad (2021 Definitve Guide)
How Do You Recognise a Smart Kid? permalink
As parents, my friends and I are often talking about the development and growth of our children, and as a doctor I constantly got asked: "How can we raise smart kids?"
Now, first and foremost, "being smart" has a very wide meaning. I asked to many of my friends what they think a smart kid is, what defines a smart kid from "less smart kids" and that opens a lot of discussions and lets me see how different meanings this word can have to different people with unique backgrounds.
Many people often make the wrong assumption that "smart" equals "good grades at school". But psychology has shown repeatidly that this is not true. Yes, generally smart kids have good grades, but the opposite is not true at all. Many smart kids have bad grades because they are not engaged enough, or because of difficult situations.
So I will try to give this broad meaning to the word smart, based on what I learned, on my opinions and of answers I collected from friends.
Comment down below and tell me what you think.
I think that a smart kid is one that shows interest, curiosity in learning, a fast growing knowledge, that can make deductions and connections between pieces of knowledge he acquired.
Anyway the key here is curiosity: all kids are curious, so all kids are smart . As a parent you want to enhance this curiosity and drive it a little bit to make your child explore things you think are important, but you also need to accomodate the things he likes. For example, if you think that learning a second language is important, make her curious about that by learning it yourself and telling her what you are doing. This is usually enough to trigger interest, if you sparkle with enthusiasm. And if you see that your boy has a particular interest in gardening, go on and indulge his curiosity and let him grow herbs and flowers in your balcony (please grow legal herbs, you don't want to end up on the news ;-) : "Smart kid growing smart drugs: not so smart dad arrested" LOL :-D ).
I decided to avoid the word intelligent because that can open another rabbit hole about the types of intellingence... and maybe I'll write a post about that in the future.
In general every healthy average kid is a smart kid. But more and more scientific studies show us that there are proven ways to make your kids smarter, and gathering the experience of "smart" parents is in line with science when it comes to define some methods that work. So I read a lot and I talked to school educators as well as friend psichologists to figure out the best way to support children to enhance their already great mind skills. There are some golden rules, some common sense pieces of knowledge, some strange tips, and some proven scientific ways. Here they are in no particular orther of importance, so you keep reading till the end :-)
How to Raise Smart Kids? permalink
Your love will make your kids smarter permalink
Number one: hug your kids and play with them. Start in the early childhood: show them that they are loved and taken care of, reduce stress (but set limits and learn how to say No the right way), talk a lot, smile, sing and play rhythms a lot, count things with them.
Try to avoid being negative.
Do not yell at your kids. Yelling has the same effect of spanking, sometimes worse according to a study from the Harvard Medical School
"parental verbal abuse can injure brain pathways, possibly causing depression, anxiety, and problems with language processing".
Breathe deeply and stop for a second before you yell. If you don't, they will do like you soon.
Make your kids smarter by letting them develop empathy.
Teach them to express their feeling and teach them to try to guess other people's feelings just by looking at them. They will become more sensitive and more socially healthy. It will help them build good relationships. There are many super intelligent people with no empathy at all, and even if they end up doing great things, or being great leaders, they are not loved and sought after by their friends, they are usually scary unpleasant people, and if you love your kids you don't want them to be like this.
So for example, we were watching some news recently and they showed a building that was destroyed by a bomb. There was an old woman crying interviewed by the journalist and my elder son started to ask questions. So I took the opportunity to tell him: " you see how sad she is, how hard it must be for her because her house was destroyed, she had lots of memomy and maybe worked hard for her to get it. What will she do now? " to avoid too much strees to my kid I tried to invent some solutions: "maybe her sons will help her build a new house. Maybe her friends will pay her for a beautiful hotel". You know just to give some hope and avoid desperation, even if life can be so hard, you want to train your little kids develop grit little by little and address them to a problem solving mindset.
Do not maltreat or insult your child. No parent is perfect, and we all have faults, but this point is not negotiable, no ifs and buts. Anyway you are here to learn how to make your kids smarter, so I think you are smart enough to know this.
Read and Talk to Kids, to Make Them Smarter permalink
Read books to your kids, at any age. Start reading to toddlers even if they do not understand the words.
This gives them a head start in developing language skills. Kids who are read to when young are more likely to develop a lifelong interest in reading, do well in school, and succeed in adult life. Reading books is one of the most important activity that make kids smart. In addition, don't just read to them, read with them . As they are growing analyse what you are reading, comment, ask them questions, listen to their opinions. Don't stop even when they are in high school, read with them some pages that you found interesting, maybe some philosophy passage, some newspaper editorial open to different interpretations or maybe a fun tale.
Talk a lot to your child.
Tell them what you did at work. Tell something about you when you were young. Preschool and school kids in particular love it. I always tell them something about my day and they love it. They keep asking for more. I admit, I am guilty of trying to catch their interest by always exaggerating my stories. But man, how they love it! They come running to me when I come back home screaming: DAD, WHAT DID YOU DO TODAY? I know sometimes it's a double edged sword, when you come home from work and you would just hang around and do nothing with a beer in your hand... but how can you resist to your kids being so happy?
Use active listening with your kids when they talk.
Kids who experienced more conversation at home have greater brain activity and verbal attitude. Ask questions and wait for responses. Engage in a two-way conversation.
Tell stories.
For a whole year I put my kids to bed and I told them an invented soty in episode. It was a hard work for me, because I had to come up with new ideas every night, but kids don't judge you on the quality of your content they'll just eat out of your hand. I told them a story in episodes, with funny stupid things in it, sometimes with moral teachings, sometimes I took something that happend to me and transformed it into a story exaggerating and telling funny details. It was hard, because many nights after work I just wanted to relax, or I was uninspired and tired, but I think that these 10 minutes per night that I spent with them will be remembered for years. They were so into the story.
It was a creative effort for me to, since I blog and write songs, and always want to come up with new ideas, I think I got huge benefits too. Anyway you don't need to be crazy like me, you can also tell your kid about the fascinating things you experienced at the workplace (don't tell them how much your job sucks, please). Tell them about amazing childhood experiences. talk about the stories and analyse them to find out life lessons from you. Talk to your child about exactly how you fix problems in your everyday life as well as at work.
Smart Kids Need to Play permalink
Let your kid play. This is not just for fun. It's real development. Every baby animal plays. We see it in nature. And Play is a way to experiment, act real life situation to develop creativity. Play is the training ground for every human brain. Play can develop intellectual, social, physical and emotional skills. Children can play with everything. My kids can spend an afternoon at the beach with one empty plastic bottle and some pebbles. When you buy toys choose the one that can be used in multiple ways, or something that can help creativity and imagination.
Make your child learn a music instrument. Playing an instrument is a known secret to become smarter and more sensitive. Music improves memory and attention just by listening to it. The benefits are proven by science and the effects are long term. Plus, usually it's very fun if you don't push too hard
Allow your child to get bored. According to Julia Robinson, Education and Training Director of the Independent Association of Prep Schools, it is okay for you child to get bored. Learning to be bored is part of preparing for adulthood. Your child should learn to enjoy “quiet reflection” instead of forcing him to fill his days with activities. Boredom can also trigger creative games.
Let your child play with other smart kids. Bad company can be detrimental to becoming smarter as much as being among the right people can benefit to that.
Support Them and Be There to Make Your Kids Smarter permalink
Be there, as a dad. Science has shown us that participating dads lower the risk that children will break the law when they grow up, drop out of school, end up in problematic relationships or that they'll have psychological problems.
Do the smart things that you would like your kids do. Kids model our behavior. When they see us reading books, writing, drawing a map of the house, designing a bathroom cabinet, making music, doing creative repairs in the house, helping our spouse in solving a problem, they will learn a lot and copy us. It works like magic, but only if you do your work smiling and being patient and calm.
Encourage your kid’s creativity and problem solving as a whole. Creativity can be learned and developed. Try exposing your child to paintings, classical music, dance. Let him invent short stories. Let him try modeling crete. Let him paint and get dirty with acrilyc colors. Creativity can be thaught. Buy some books about creativity <!— link —> if you don't have a lot of ideas.
Make your child responsible for his choices, to take some risks (not dangerous ones of course! Do not let him walk blindfolded on a rope between 2 skyscrapers!) and to fail but encourage him to keep on trying, avoid surrendering and to develop grit. Teach him to accept failure and to move on and try better the next time, improve something until he makes it. One of the first struggles for a kid is learning to ride a bike. This is usually a dad's job, to help him in the process. The right help can be a great boost in self-esteem. But, do not help him to much, allow your child to solve problems by himself. Just offer some hints or ask some questions that can trigger him in findign the answer on his own. Let him solve problems on his own so he learns from his experience. I know, it takes a lot of patience.
I wouldn't be surprised if scientific studies showed that the only secret to have smart kids is how much patience a dad has. I should study it further, surely there is some kind of positive correlation.
Praise your child for his hard work and for their effort. Avoid compliments like "you're so smart / you're so beautiful" (of course use some grain of salt... sometimes you want to say to your daughter that she is beautiful, and sometimes you need to say to your kids that you appreciated how they solved this difficult problem because it shows they are intelligent). Anyway, praising your child for effort helps him to build confidence over his success and to engage in challenges.
But don’t praise your child too often because he may become a narcissist when he is older. Give your child honest and feedback, encouragement and advice to make him improve the next time. This helps in raising a growth mindset.
According to psychiatrist Joe Brewster, kids should be encouraged to see learning as the process of becoming better at something, instead of having a fixed mind-set of his intelligence. When your child fails, he should see it as an opportunity for growth, instead of seeing himself as a failure.
It's healthy for kids experience failure and frustration sometimes. It develops grit.
Set high expectations for your child. Tell them that you trust them and that you know they will do great things and be good people. Of course, don't exaggerate and force them to struggle for everything because they need to be number one.
Avoid constantly correcting your child in every action she does or in difficult tasks. Let her discover things for herself, she will surprise you when she finds an unusual way to solve a problem.
Make your child a responsible member of the family, give him things to do to help. My son loves vacuuming or glass cleaning.
Show your kid the importance of postponed satisfaction: being able to resist the lure of immediate reward in order to obtain a bigger or far better incentive in the future pays off a lot. Researches reveal that being able to postpone satisfaction is one of one of the most effective individual attributes of successful individuals. It will enhance your kid's self control and train him to work hard to accomplish his goals. It also helps in your kid's financial education because you can educate your kid to save rather than spend small quantities of money on little things so that he can buy a bigger and more useful thing in the future. My kids loved it when I gave them a piggy bank as a present. They love putting coins in it and they treat it as their own treasure chest.
Show up at your kids activities, have social interaction with other dads and families. I made great friends through my kids. Attend at sport events and recitals that your kids do.
Good Health Matters permalink
Physical exercise and outdoor activities are really important. Avoid too many sedentary activities. Toddlers, preschoolers and school kids have a lot of energy that needs to be burnt outside, otherwise they will start being nervous. If you find them jumping up and down your bed don't blame me. I told you! Exercise increases the flow of blood to the brain.
Set a limit on TV. Both in time and in content. Also avoid TV and screens in general before age 2. I realized that my kids (one in particular) become nervous after a TV session of more than an hour. The problem with on demand shows and pay TV is that you have unlimited streams of content. Binging is very easy and instant gratifications pours showers of dopamine on your kids neurons so that turning off the TV is very painful for them, and can lead to crises and nervousness that in some really extreme cases can resemble a mild withdrawal syndrome.
Educate your kids on the importance of eating healhy foods. Generally, common sense is enough, you know, a good balance between proteins, carbohydrates and healthy fats. Fruit and vegetables in good quantities, avoiding overprocessed foods, eating enough and not too much, limiting simple sugars. Limiting salt.
Avoid the use of smartphones or tablets. They have negative effects. Researchers found that “routine and frequent use of mobile devices appear to be associated with behavioral problems in childhood.” The Effect of Smartphones on Child Development | CUNE Online . The World Health Organization (WHO) has begun identifying the risks associated with children using smartphone technology. In my opinion you should ask some question to why a smartphone screen has such an hypnotizing and soothing effect on a crying baby. It's scary how easy you can calm a baby or keep him busy with this little device. But what education are you giving to your kid? What are you teaching to him by giving him a screen? You turn off a dialogue and subsitute with an instant easy gratification. It's scary again and can lead to dangerous choices in the future if your child get used to this kind of thinking. Moreover it's so sad to see families on restaurant that keep kids busy with a phone instead of telling a joke or trying to entertain them, or even give them the priviledge to experience boredom.
Children need to learn how to self-soothe and manage their emotions. And if they’re frequently handed these devices, they don’t learn these things. — Jean Twenge, a psychologist and author of "iGen"
Parents must consider what image they express to their children and how they communicate responsible smartphone consumption. Parents’ Screen Time Is Hurting Kids The Atlantic
So in the end, if you give your kid a tablet or a phone, do it for a limited amunt of time, in your presence, and use educational apps that teach maths, letters, words, music. Something challenging for the mind but not too stressful. My son found a chess game and he liked it so much. Chess is not super easy in the beginning but for a 7 to 9 years old is excellent. The pace of the game is not too fast, but it's enough entertaining. There are also some logic strategy board games that are great, like QUORIDOR
Good Sleep Makes Smarter Kids permalink
The correlation between liveliness and intellingence in kids and the quantity and quality of sleep they get is known since I was a child. If it matters, there are a studies that showed a correlation in the amount of sleep and grades. Lack of sleep in adults can accelerate aging and increase the risk of dementia. In kids missing an hour of sleep can turn a sixth grader’s brain into a fourth grader. In general poor sleep does not seem to have an impact on overall intelligence in children, but more on attention and behavuior, these 3 meta-analyses are a balanced starting point to explore the topic:
Cognition and objectively measured sleep duration in children: a systematic review and meta-analysis
A review of developmental consequences of poor sleep in childhood
If you smoke (quit as soon as possible for you and your kids, man we are in 2021, smoking sucks), do not smoke around your kid. Kids of smoking families and kids who breathe secondhand smoke are more likely to smoke when they grow up. I also read online that they may risk more mental problems in the future but I had not time to verify this piece of information and I am a little skeptical about it, because it is also very vague. I will expand if I found something useful.
More Food for the Brain of Smart Kids permalink
Do simple maths games. Calculate change with them when you pay something.
Consider introducing your child early to coding. It's the future, man. If you don't know anything about it, it's time for you to learn it too. There are great resources for free online, like www.freecodecamp.org , or Learn today, build a brighter tomorrow. | Code.org or even great youtube channels that go step by step , there are tons. Coding helps problem solving, logic and high level thinking. And some of the highest paying jobs are in the tech field.
Expose your kid to a second language. If you have a foreigner babysitter tell her to only talk in their native language. Maybe you can have your kids watch cartoons in another language. Use apps like Duolingo, watch together youtube videos that teache a second language. Listen to audiobooks for kids in that language, best if done while reading the book at the same time and trying to read and repeat the sounds (a technique called shadowing speeds up a lot the process of learning a good pronunciation).
Ensure that lifelong leaning is your goal and also the whole family's goal, not just a school obligation.
Imagine with your child, and make it a vivid dream, their bright and fulfilling future, let them tell you what they'd love and amplify that dream by adding details, and tell them the steps they need to do to get there. For example my daughter often says she wants to literally build her skyscraper office where she's gonna be the boss at the last floor. So I amplify this telling her that she needs to have a nice view over a beautiful park, and in her job she will help thousand of people, because she will be a good leader, not only a boss. And that to get there she needs to study, love learning, start small and work hard... you know, don't kill their dreams, self fulfilling prophecies happen.
Watch or read the news together and comment.
When you fail at something, big or small, don't get nervous and show them how to embrace mistakes and how to get up again and to improve.
Play chess together.
Tell them about your values and act accordingly to them.
Let your child teach you something that they learnt. This builds self-confidence in him, forces him to develop language skills and makes him realise if there are parts he did not understand. Like Feynman sais, the best way to learn something is to teach it to others. If you don't understan something ask him questions and try to help him rephrase the sentence. When they show you something they did, ask them: "show me how you did", it works like magic in boosting your child self-confidence.
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Conclusion permalink
There you have it. This is what came to my mind, what I researched for. You can add your tips in the comments below. I will slowly add and link to the scientific papers I used, so consider this post a work in progress.
This is not perfect and I don't always think about doing everything that's written here as a dad. I make a lot of mistakes like every dad, but I always try to improve. I have a good experience with my 3 kids of different ages, and I always learn something new because every baby is different, and every time is different. I also changed over my 9 years of fatherhood. But I realize that I do most of the things posted here in bits and pieces. I am not obsessive, I prefer a more relaxed life, but many of these things come natural to me. I am always grateful to my wife for her support, because everything is easier whe you have a smart wife. And honestly, the mother of your kids matters as much as you, in fact probably a lot more, in raising smart kids. So the best results come from the cooperation of both parents.
I think that when you spend time with your kids, most of these things will happen naturally. Time is precious, kids grow fast and society forces different rhythms on us. Learn to be a juggler with your time!