How to Raise Smart Kids

If you think about it, Nature has given most normal mothers what they need to nurture intelligence in their babies and young children. They need four things:

1. Understanding of how to make their babies and children feel secure and treasured.

2. Willingness to talk and sing to their babies from the day they're born.

3. Common sense to know how to nurture the different types of thinking skills that don't generally come naturally (reading, writing, math, and other school skills).

4. Understanding that brain connections must be formed in the first few years of life, and knowledge of how to make sure the potential for forming those connections is not lost. (When mothers have the ability to keep their baby feeling secure, the instinct to talk and sing to them from the beginning, and the common sense to know how to nurture different types of thinking skills; the brain connections will generally take care of themselves.

I wrote the following article on nurturing emotional intelligence, and emotional intelligence is the first type of intelligence that babies generally develop. Emotional intelligence includes a range of thinking skills, from the most basic to a more advanced type of thinking.

Nurturing emotional intelligence, and then introducing school-readiness activities when the child shows interest, are generally the way to raise intelligent children.

Nurturing Emotional Intelligence

In the early 1990's psychologists, John Mayer and Peter Salovey, developed a theory of emotional intelligence which defined it as, "the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth."

In a paper, "Get Smart: I.Q. and Emotional Intelligence," by Nana Dawson-Andoh and written for a course at Bryn Mawr College, Ms. Dawson-Andoh notes that Mayer and Salovey defined the four criterion for emotional intelligence as:

1. Identifying Emotions - The ability to recognize how you and those around you are feeling

2. Using Emotions - The ability to an generate emotion, and then reason with this emotion

3. Understanding Emotions - The ability to understand complex emotions, and how emotions transition from one stage to another

4. Managing Emotions - The ability which allows one to manage their emotions.

These skill areas have been arranged with the most basic, lower, type of of thinking first and the skill that requires the highest thinking last.

There are, however, a number of definitions for "emotional intelligence"; and although the above theory of emotional intelligence does not include some of the social skills or personality traits that other definitions do, definitions that include certain social skills or personality traits also exist.

In general, when parents are interested in developing their child's emotional intelligence what they are interested in is developing their child's ability to understand emotions (No. 3), manage emotions (No. 4) and develop some of those personality traits/social skills often associated with emotional intelligence.

What role DNA plays or doesn't play in any ceiling on potential for emotional intelligence may not be completely understood. Whether there is a ceiling at all is something that may not be completely understood. Humans have, however, existed and developed in spite of any incomplete understanding of the intricacies of the brain, so it would appear that mothers don't always need the benefits of conclusive science to nurture emotional intelligence in their children.

So how does a parent develop a child's emotional intelligence? As with any type of intellectual skills, developing EI skills requires development of the right brain connections. In my unscientific research as a mother of three grown children, and with only my anecdotal evidence, common sense, and some knowledge gained through reading; I have developed my own theory of emotional intelligence and how to develop it.

My theory is this: The first two years of a child's life is a child's introduction to the world, but for a child this young his world consists mainly of his mother and his home life. A mother can choose to show her child a world in which he will feel secure or a world in which he won't. All brain development progresses better when a child feels secure. With the rapid development of the brain between birth and two years old it stands to reason that the child who feels insecure would be at highest risk of not developing the right kind of brain connections.

It doesn't take a whole lot to make a child feel secure. When babies are held securely; talked to in a kind, friendly, voice, protected from getting hurt too many times, and have someone who understands when they're uncomfortable or upset and tries to make them feel better, they generally feel secure. Between birth and two years old babies have different potential causes of feeling insecure. A newborn may feel frightened if he is held too carelessly. A ten-month-old may panic if his mother leaves the house. A two-year-old doesn't know how to deal with knowing what he wants, knowing he's his own person, and yet not being allowed to do what he wants to do. Plain and simple, the world can be an upsetting place when you're two or under.

Besides the need to make a child feel secure in the world, there is the need to nurture a child in a way that encourages relating to the people in his world. This comes naturally to most mothers with a normal maternal instinct. Normally, it is a mother's instinct to try to engage even her newborn by gazing into his eyes and talking affectionately. As babies get older they still need their mother to engage them in social interaction. A five-month-old may not understand what his mother is saying when she says, "We going to the Post Office," but he at least knows his mother is talking just to him and is probably even trying to figure out what it is she is saying. Also, it is generally believed that even when babies can't use words they understand more than we tend to think they do.

Sometimes mothers can forget that the child in an infant seat is watching what's going on and waiting for someone to talk to him. Remembering that the non-talking child is a person, and not letting the child feel like furniture because nobody in the room talks to him, are important ways to keep a child engaged.

The first two years are also a time for language development. The best way to develop verbal skills in a child is to talk to him about everything around him, sing to him, and generally keep using as many words as possible. Intelligence is increased when verbal ability is increased, and a child cannot understand much if he doesn't have the words needed. The sooner a child can understand words, the sooner parents can talk to him about emotions and help him understand them.

With the first two years being a time to 1) make the child feel secure, 2) relate to/engage him, and 3) talk and nurture language skills the years between two and four can be used to teach the child to know what emotions are, understand what brings some of them about, and manage his own. While the first two years can be considered as nothing more than preparation for the years between three and four, the second two years of a child's life are the time when he has what he needs to understand what parents are trying to teach (and when he's very receptive to listening and learning, and he wants to please them).

It is during the preschool years that parents can teach children what they know about emotions, people, social behavior, and the world; and when parents do a good job of this they send to preschool or kindergarten a child with emotional maturity/intelligence. Parents can only share what they know, though, so the child who has parents who lack well developed emotional intelligence can be at a disadvantage. Nature has, however, given mothers something of an edge when it comes to emotional intelligence, so sharing basic understanding of emotions and managing them usually isn't very difficult for the mother who bothers to try.

My theory of emotional intelligence is this: Mothers don't need a PhD in child development or access to the latest scientific studies or IQ-boosting baby products. Making a child feel secure, engaging the child, talking, and then teaching (through yet more talking) are generally all it takes to develop emotional intelligence (and other types of intelligence)in children. My formula for emotional intelligence is: Security (S) plus Social Interaction (I) equals Emotional Wellbeing (E). Talking (T) equals Teaching Words (W). Talking (T) also equals teaching concepts of emotions (C). E plus (W plus C) equals E plus T - and when this formula is applied from birth to four years old it will add up to a child with well developed emotional intelligence.

Its really not complicated. In fact, its as easy as 1,2,3.