Are you one of those parents wondering “How to raise gifted children?” Raising a genius needs love and time plus some devotion to your child. What else makes a child grow into a brilliant adult? Many parents think the kids need to be extra smart, but honestly, that isn’t necessary. To raise a gifted child, all your kid needs majorly is your attention and time.
Kids learn a lot during the first decade of their life. Brains from a lot of connections every time and the learning process are continuous. Each time the child experiences something new, the brain processes it and forms connections. And these connections help your child to do better in other areas. For example, let’s consider the case of learning music which might help them learn their math skill as well. So how can you help your child to reach the highest potential?
Parents in today’s world are eager to give the kids a jump-start on all sorts of modern-day techniques and technologies teaching them the different ways for success. But raising a gifted toddler is just it? We talk too much about over scheduling, test stress, pressure nowadays. Are the kids enjoying their childhood? Although few parents are immune to the fever of competitiveness, it looks like everybody else has been gripped by this fever in America. The foreign languages are the new ABCDs, kindergarten is the new 2nd Grade! Everything is changing into competitiveness. Although we know that kids would learn everything eventually, but what is the point in burdening them with everything possible at an early age? And, then, what do we mean when we say that our child is smart? How can we even measure that?
Firstly let’s define genius. Although there is no statistical definition of this word, the dictionary meanings say “exceptionally intellectual or creative power for other natural abilities makes a person genius.” The meaning of genius children term in the world of education is “gifted and talented children”. Gifted children are usually rare as per a few experts. So let’s talk about ways of raising a gifted toddler.
How to Make your Child Gifted:
1. Talk to Your Child with a Technique:
No doubt it is good that your kids should ask questions. But, you must also ask open-ended questions instead of just say yes or no questions. This encourages the children to think about what they know and discuss. Do not try to use “baby talk” with your children. Use the right vocabulary, terms, and terminologies to help them improve and build an understanding of the language. Of course, they may not get the meaning in the beginning, but soon they will figure out and comprehend being exposed to the words several times in the future.
2. Read to your Child:
Reading to your kids helps them to get a lot of information about the world and life. It also helps them to make connections with their surroundings. It is a known fact that the earlier you read to your kids, the smarter they grow and helps them to learn easier. Undoubtedly reading is the foundation of knowledge. You must make a routine to read to your child every day. You must also discuss and share what you read. This helps the child to benefit thinking by looking at your expression and listening to the conversion.
3. Indulge in Praising the Kids:
There is a very slight difference between praising and over-praising your child leaves them to think highly of themselves which in turn hampers the learning process in a longer run. It makes the kid stress out. Instead, give positive and true praises every time your child brings back home good test results. Encourage them needed to positively or negatively but in such a way that they want to continue it in a longer run.
4. Convert Every Opportunity into Learning:
Be it any time of the day, whether you come back from work or from a grocery shopping, discuss with your kids about what you did. You can have them to accompany you while going shopping and show them how to read and compare the prices of the items. Let them help you with the hand to pick apples and oranges. Change them how to know if they are good or bad from the outer appearances. Show the various items today and say a quick quiz by asking them the name tomorrow or the next time you visit. If they love to see the car on the road, speak to them about the make or how it runs. Use this example to teach your child about the very generic things in life as you get ample of opportunities.
5. Appreciate them Being Curious and Encourage Curiosity:
A child or a toddler it is curious about literally everything around them but as they grow up comma you might have noticed that their curiosity tends to gradually decline over the years. How can you bring back that curious insect inside them? The more you expose them to knowledge, the more they would want to be curious. Take them to art galleries, museums, libraries or even musical shows where they are free to discover new things that might interest them as well as you.
6. Support your Child with Both Intellectual and Emotional needs:
The education researchers agree that acceleration in knowledge has a positive effect on the vast majority of gifted children emotionally, socially and economically as well as professionally. Acceleration pushes the children out of their childhood and creates gaps in the knowledge.
7. Encourage children to take Calculated intellectual Risk and be open to failures:
The first thing to teach kids would be that failure is a step towards success. Kids must be open to failures and learn from their mistakes. Do not burden them with a label of “gifted child”.
8. Keep Testing your Child’s Abilities:
When you doubt that you are pushing them extra, try to test their abilities to be sure they are not going through any learning disabilities. Dyslexia, hyperactivity disorder, or social and emotional challenges are few of the checks that you must keep a watch for.
The Common Do’s and Don’ts to raise a Gifted Child:
Do’s:
1. Let the kids think. When you expect your child to solve a problem, let them think it all by themselves instead of you interfering. This is because in case you answer all the questions for them you are not letting them think and learn.
2. Whenever you are asked a question by the kid, do not answer it right away. You do not have to sound harsh either but you can Cross question them to find the answers by themselves. You can either hint them or teach your child to use the correct resources like Encyclopedia or library tools to help themselves.
3. Always keep your kids engaged in activities with their companion. They learn to work in teams especially for debates, math or art, and other competitions, encouraging the kids to learn together and work together. It helps them to boost their self-esteem.
4. A great way to teach kids by getting creative with them. When you create something and show it to the kids to do it by themselves, they learn. Been anything art, cookery, household chores, etc. It is always said that bookish knowledge does not help as much as practical knowledge does.
5. Think outside the box. Encourage your little one to think from a different angle. This helps the kid to be Innovative, creative and progressive and whatever is necessary for success in our society.
6. As a parent and an elder, be approachable. Your kid must feel comfortable to come with problems to you. Kids can have a list of things that that thing as an issue and might need your help to sort it out for them. This helps them to build confidence in themselves and a surety that you are watching their back
Don’ts:
1. Do not indulge in putting him into too many routines on a daily basis. It is good to structure their life but does not push them rigidly. Kids need more of a relaxed atmosphere to open up and put their thinking caps on. Kids lose interest very easily and they want to jump into another thing as soon as they get bored. Thus, you might want to think about how to make things interesting for them.
2. Avoid using the labels in front of them saying “genius” or “gifted”. You do not want to overwhelm them or their friends to tease and bully them. Treat them as equal as any other kid.
3. Let them make their own friends. Do not push them into groups. It doesn’t work like that, gifted kids usually have one or maybe two friends, but they are perfectly fine and happy with them.
4. Do not hold them back when they are trying something new. Let them advanced in life with whatever they need and can, without holding them back to much. Do not try to push them for everything, let them grow up in their own pace and ease.
So now you know how to raise a genius, all you need is to follow all these steps closely to make sure you do not overburden your child at any point.
