How to Find the Genius in Children

Knowing how to implement effective parenting skills to support your child's overall development is not a requisite for having a child. Most parents do not understand just how significantly they can impact their child's future academic development by doing a few, actually quite simple, things at home with their child. This article is going to describe two basic strategies parents can employ, within their daily activities with their child, which will have long-lasting positive effects on their child's success in school.

Before getting into the meat of this article, it is probably best to clarify what the term effective parenting skills means in reference to this article. Effective parenting skills can run the gamut from keeping your child healthy, to building good nutritional habits, to supporting moral and character development, and on and on we can go. For the purpose of this article though, two specific areas of information will be addressed - effective parenting skills related to typical development and effective parenting skills related to understanding how your child's prefers to learn in general.

How many times have you looked at a situation and compared it to the old saying - which came first the chicken or the egg? As an educational psychologist, I have to say many times it is extremely difficult to determine whether a child's developmental issues are causing their problem or whether they are not being taught in a meaningful manner for them. The old question -which came first, the chicken or the egg- is a real educational developmental question.

As a parent you can have a powerful impact on ensuring this dilemma doesn't exist with your child by doing two things: 1) understanding typical or normal child development, and 2) learning how to teach your child in ways that will be effective for her. The selection these two skill areas, out of all that could be included in an article about effective parenting skills is purposeful. Paying attention to your child's development in the areas of typical development and learning style or preferences will help you be able to knowledgeably answer the chicken or the egg question if it happens to come up.

You may be wondering why understanding typical child development is one of the areas targeted for this article and the answer is three-fold: knowing typical child development lets you know if your child is developing appropriately, it gives you the skills to see "red flags" that may be indicating your child is falling behind in development, and it gives you the skills to plan how to play with your child and what toys to use to support their development.

Just knowing about typical development is not enough though. In order to have effective parenting skills, you must also understand your child's particular learning preferences and/or learning styles. Yes, even very young children have these preferences and styles. Just as you like to learn in a particular way or ways so do young children. You may learn best by reading, watching television or videos, writing notes, or a combination of these strategies as well as others. When you are required to read to learn and reading is not fun for you or is difficult, this will not be the most effective learning strategy for you.

If you try to teach your child by "telling" them what to do and they learn best by watching and observing, the "telling" strategy will be less effective than the showing or modeling strategy. Discovering your child's particular learning preferences is a critical effective parenting skill.

As you learn more and more about typical child development and more and more about your child's learning preferences, you will have developed critical effective parenting skills.