All parents want to have bright children. I know that’s true, because as a parent of tow daughters and the grandmother of three grandsons, I know I did. On my bookshelf are books with tiles like “How to Raise a Brighter Child” and the like. Thus when a series of tapes entitled “Baby Einstein” is advertised in parenting and magazines and on television, it seems like a good way to insure the success of your child with a very little effort.
The books I read years ago never offered such an easy answer. Perhaps parents had more time than they do today. The books suggested that a child’s developmental progress would come from toys that promoted thinking skills, from activities that enabled physical development, from interactions with other children that provided social development, and also from the time a parent spent with their children helping them think through problems.
I have a poster in my home office with a quote from Einstein. It says “I am not all that intelligent, I am just extremely inquisitive.” Being inquisitive is happens naturally in children, except when they are involved in sedentary activities. If children are not engaged with their environment their questions about it simply don’t occur. Children ask questions when they are involved. They want to know the whys and hows, and even though it sometimes feels as if the questions are seemingly endless, but that’s because the world in which they live is intricate.
The path to a brighter child requires an enriched environment in which children can ask questions and become involved in the opportunity of working out the answers. Don’t rob your children of that opportunity by sticking them in front of a computer or TV screen for hours.
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Anytime we give children the opportunity to ask questions they learn more than us telling them. If you let them come to their own conclusions they learn even more.