Learning to use the head: how to teach children to think

The first years of life are key in the total development of the person in all fields, both biological, emotional and intellectual. Therefore, a good affective-intellectual base in these early years will be important when it comes to helping our children to structure their thinking skills, that is, to use the head Teach to think is to teach to collect the information, to elaborate it and to express it.

Intellectual habits and virtues: keys to teach thinking

The thinking skills are many and varied, but to teach thinking an important approach is to educate the personality of the child in an integral way: that is, work the skills or thinking skills along with the basic habits of effort, order, industriousness, etc. There is no intelligence without intellectual habits and there is no intellectual development without moral virtues.


Therefore, parents and teachers have to focus on basic skills or abilities of thinking (cognitive development) and knowledge and moral reasoning, (strengthening of the will through human virtues and the cultivation of affectivity).

How children think before age 12

The natural process of the development of thought in children before the age of 12 is the transition from the intuitive and imaginative to the rational, in order to synthesize and structure their own knowledge.

1. They need the senses. The senso-motor intelligence becomes logical, although they need the senses to grasp things, since the abstract reasoning will come later, around the age of 13.


2. They are not capable of abstraction, but of the concrete, always relying on sensory impressions (manipulation and experiences) and representations ("child realism").

3. They are able to relate simple ideas, but arriving at a general definition is still difficult for them. It is an intuitive thought, very supported in the images.

4. They begin to reason for themselves based on why, and there are frequent questions about why or for what of things. Parents must address, even encourage, those questions.

Ideas that encourage more structured thinking

to. Talk a lot with the children (take advantage of the opportunities offered by family life to enhance their critical sense).
b. Formulate why.
c. Ask for reasons.
d. Base what is said. Distinguish truth and opinion.
and. Teach them to truthfully and truthfully seek the truth and to be coherent.
F. Teach them to ponder things and reason, not to be carried away by passing emotional states and not to judge with haste.
g. Teach them to weigh different opinions, and to respect them.
h. Help decide.
i. Do not take the decisionsI can take them.
j. Give them some time to reflect and decide.
k. Help them consider alternatives and to foresee consequences.
l. Strengthen your confidence


5 tips to teach children to think

1. Substitute television time for the game, helps cognitive development, imagination and actively involves the child.

2. Conversation structures thought. For this reason, it is necessary to look for times to chat among the members of the family. Luria and Vygotsky demonstrated the enormous importance of conversation for the intellectual development of the child.

3. Encourage games in children and pastimes related to language: riddles, riddles, jokes, word formation games. There is no thought without language, and this is enriched by interactions.

4. Being present, although not over, when the children study and do the homework of the school. The main cause of school failure is due to a deficient development of the intellectual habits that are acquired by judging, relating, reasoning, analyzing, synthesizing and valuing.

5. Stimulating reading, reading aloud, asking questions about what the children read and instilling the attitude that in the studies, the important thing is to learn (the one who knows, knows, independently of the notes) helps to develop the thought.

Wanting to learn and want to think is an act of the will. Do you want to learn and know more? Do you want to be smarter? These questions will help our children to be more free. The action of freedom is to choose the best known and for that, we must demand. Without demand there is no growth, neither in the intellectual.

Patricia Palacios
Advice: José Antonio Alcázar, Pedagogical Director of the European Institute of Education Studies

More information. Studies and Intellectual Development. Author Carlos Ros Amador. Ediciones Word.

Video: Teaching art or teaching to think like an artist? | Cindy Foley | TEDxColumbus


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