5 keys to have your head properly furnished before age 12

The key ages to create study habits, to teach them to think and reason, range from 6 to 12 years, that is, in Primary. The first years of life are key in the total development of the person in all fields, both biological, emotional and intellectual. Therefore, it is possible lay the foundations to have well furnished the head before 12 years.

And is that the advances of neuroscience show us that the nervous system, basis and support of the personality of the adult, is formed in the first years, from birth to seven years.

5 keys to have your head furnished before age 12

To help children grow intellectually and develop thinking skills, we must focus on five areas, which are the biological basis of knowledge.


1. Attention The child, like the adult, only retains in his mind the stimuli he attends. On the other hand, we only attend to what interests us. According to this biological notion, we must explain to our children the importance of attending well in class to explanations and being attentive to homework, without thinking about anything else.

A) With the attention develops the ability to concentrate, that is, voluntarily fix the attention on a single thing or activity. Children have a great capacity for concentration in what they do, if you like it

A frequent response from our children will be: "I'm bored, I'm not interested." How to wake up then your interest? Motivating them, seeking with them reasons that are to their liking: "Because learning new things is fun, because you will feel happy and you will cheer up dad and mom, etc."


The danger of attention is the distraction, typical of children. We must discover, talking to them, the causes of their distractions: "Instead of attending to the teacher, I think about the football match, what I'm going to do in the yard, how my teammate has combed, etc." We have to encourage our children how well they feel concentrating on their work and then, in their spare time, get distracted by these things. When it comes to studying and doing homework, we can establish with them every half hour or three quarters of an hour, a little while to talk about those distractions together.

B) Something essential that avoids dispersion is an adequate study environment: an orderly study table, away from noise, free of objects that can distract you, with a study schedule etc. Fatigue or lack of sleep also cause lack of attention.

C) Attention is something that must be acquired as a habit. We can all attend to anything that interests us, but the ability to concentrate is a habit, which is acquired by repetition, perseverance and strength.


2. The perception. Perception is the condition of thought, a sensitive form of intuition of physical reality. We perceive objects through visual signals (size, movement), muscle signals, touch, noise, etc. Logically, only what is attended to is consciously perceived.

One of the exercises that we can do with our children is to ask them daily, (with grace, without sounding an exam), to analyze their capacity of perception is what has been what has awakened more the interest of the explained or learned in class. In addition, we can also exercise the habit of perception asking them, in what they have put more will to attend better in the most boring classes. Surely they will feel very good to have tried and demanded in what they did not want.

3. The learning. If we help our children to perceive better what is taught, paying attention and interest, we have gone half way to achieve an optimal learning. But attention is not enough. They need to develop the skills and verbal habits.

Both are acquired by repetitions and work strategies. We could summarize that reading, writing and calculation, together with attention, observation and memory, are the basis of all learning.

Some learning strategies are:

a) Collect data and information: note, tell, observe differences and similarities, listen, ask and above all, read, read and read.
b) Organize the information: compare, order, classify, etc.
c) Prepare the information: analyze, interpret, summarize, synthesize, identify the main idea, underline, schemas, etc.
d) Understanding and expression: Comprehensive reading, reading performance, oral and dramatic expression, writing, spelling, writing, composition, vocabulary, meaningful understanding of concepts, consult the dictionary, etc.
e) Calculation: mental, operations, approach and problem solving, initiate and formulate simple hypotheses about events, explanation of problems, reasoning, look for several solutions etc.
f) Habits and elementary study techniques: Schedule of study, use of agenda, distribution of study time, order tasks, simple techniques of mechanical and comprehensive memorization etc.
g) Attitudes towards learning: intellectual curiosity, inquiry, astonishment, excitement at discovery, learning from mistakes, eagerness to know the reasons for things, satisfaction for a job well done, care and cleanliness in the presentation of work, eagerness to excel, effort

The habits of effort, not surrendering immediately to the least difficulty, the requirement at home and at work, are the main keys for a good learning.

4. Memory Oblivion is the opposite of memory and the latter is exercised with the repetition of acts, accompanied by images (mental pictures) that children retain in the mind with all clarity and detail. Memory is also acquired the more reading habit our children have.

5. The imagination. A man growing up in isolation would find himself with an atrophied imagination. Therefore, the imagination is closely related to social relationships, with new visual, auditory knowledge, etc. The imagination must have reached a sufficient development when reaching the age of reason (towards 10/11 years). For this reason, we must also educate the imagination, providing the child with formal images, or that his head imagine actions that he reads or hears. Without formal images there is no abstraction.

It can only be remembered through images. Therefore, providing perceptive wealth and imaginative creativity must be permanently present in children's lives. The practical way to do it is to be in contact with nature, games, family and school life. Without imagination there is no intelligence; and imagination develops by imagining.

Therefore, playing and practicing creative, imaginative activities with our children, imagining what one is going to do, wants to do, seeking imaginative solutions, etc., is the right way to develop their intelligence. Thus, we must eliminate as much as possible everything that leads our children to immobility and passivity.

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.

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