Let’s be honest, taking care of your child and bringing him or her up in this world can be a challenge! But one of the most important things you can do is expand your child’s mind. The development of your child’s brain depends on his or her age. However, children in the early stages of life need a lot of care and support. Fortunately, there are several resources to help children five years and below with mental development.
This mind-developing phase should be taken seriously as it is very crucial for the child and plays a massive role in determining their future. You should, as much as possible, do your best to find ways to help your child individually. Here are three fun (and simple) ways to help develop the mind of children across all age categories.
1. Get them to read
Encourage your child to read a lot. When your child(ren) learn to read, it expands their mental abilities and equips them with a skill for life, thereby increasing their chances of being successful. A good reading habit helps to increase your child’s attention span and also improves his or her analytical thinking.
Even though reading is very beneficial to your child, getting them to read can be quite a challenge. Many children (not all!) will dislike reading at the beginning, but consistently ensuring they do it will make them enjoy and appreciate it more. Encourage your child to read any piece of material they come across. Reading along with them also gives them the feeling that reading is not a chore.
Make sure you have reading material at home and try to get different categories of books. You can also encourage reading habits, like a bedtime reading routine or take time to help them with homework from school. Whenever possible, show interest in your child’s reading and even when it’s something small, like a sentence.
3. Play educational games with them
One exciting way to help expand your child’s mind is to play educational and informative games with him or her. Children enjoy playing and being active; however, they usually enjoy activities that allow them to get dirty, messy, or engage in creative play. Some of those activities naturally strengthen their reasoning and problem-solving skills, but not always. That’s why encouraging activities that will (unconsciously) help improve their cognitive ability is a must!
Puzzles are a great way to help your child develop excellent analytical skills. Simple mathematics games also help develop numeracy skills. Obstacle courses help to build visual and motor skills, and can also give your child a significant boost in his or her coordination abilities. Word games help to develop vocabulary and language skills. Role-playing games can help your child develop social skills and can also help you determine the roles your child may be interested in the most and help you guide the child in a career path.
You can come up with creative ways to engage your child, and it won’t be much of a struggle to teach them basic things to develop their mind. When children learn in an exciting environment, they have a lot of fun, and this makes them always look forward to learning.
3. Take them on trips
Taking your kids on trips is an excellent way to expose them to different lifestyles and cultures. They get the opportunity to have real-life experiences in different environments. This makes them more tolerant of other people, especially those from other backgrounds. It also makes them able to adapt to different situations and environments.
Even though travel naturally helps to develop a child’s mind, you need to decide on the kind of trips to take them on. Not all trips may be beneficial to kids, especially business or work-related trips where you might be preoccupied with other obligations. Exciting trips to historical sites are a great way of helping children gain a better understanding of things they may have already studied at school, for example.
Encouraging your child to go on school trips is a good start. Every school field trip is a great opportunity to learn something new.
Every parent knows that children can be challenging to bring up from time to time, but with the right knowledge, you can make their life exciting (for you and for them). Helping to expand your child’s mind at an early stage is very important and sets the child up for success in the future. If you have any suggestions or ideas that you found to be successful, let us know!
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Featured Image Credit: Paige Cody