4 Ways to Help Kids Become ‘Thinkers’

Are you a worried about your developing some analytical and creative skills? There are easy ways to help raise a creative child. From endless games and opportunities, to asking interesting questions of your child, you’ll be surprised how easy it is to develop creative thinking among young children.

Below are some interesting ways to improve your child’s creativity:

1. Present a picture to your child

Ask them to explain what they think is happening in the picture. To make it more interesting, ask them to explain what they think was happening before the picture story, and what they think will happen later on in the story. This will help them to come up with an apt logical sequence. You can play this game together as a family, where everyone can come up with their story from the same picture, and then share it with each other. An ideal picture should be the one with an action.

2. Mute a video

Another idea is to mute a video on the television and tell your kids to write down the conversation that they think should take place, by closely observing the gesture and posture of the actors. You will be surprised to see the results! Children who think on a creative end, will come up with interesting conversations. Maybe they’ll end up giving an unimaginable ending to every Harry Potter sequel!

3. Ask Open-Ended Questions

You can ask your children open-ended questions like, ‘What would you do if you had superman powers?’ , ‘If you can ask for 3 wishes, what would it be?’, ‘If you become the prime minister/leader of your country, what all would you want to do’?. This will help them to be more creative, imaginative and thoughtful.

4. Choose a family story

You can choose a favorite family story, for example, how dad fell asleep at one of the children’s’ annual performances when he was invited as a chief guest. Then ask the child to explain the story from a third person’s perspective, for example, from the principal’s perspective on what she would have thought. Being able to think about a story from an alternative perspective is an important part of improving thinking skills.
It is very important for parents to give some time of the day to enhance their child’s creative thinking skills. This can be half an hour after dinner, or maybe early morning before they go for school. Look into your schedule and make sure that you have chalked out some time to work on this with your kids.

About Eduscan

Creative thinking is a big part of Eduscan’s Winter Camp leadership training course. During the three weeks of this course, they conduct some similar activities in class with children, in order to enhance their logical reasoning and creative thinking skills. This course is specially designed by Dr. Alka Kalra, renowned educational psychologist, and Director of Eduscan Group.