The Most Important Insights from Learning and Brain Research

What Parents Should Know About Smart Children

What comes to mind when you hear the word "intelligent"? A distracted professor splitting atoms? Or a former classmate who always got straight A's? Perhaps even your five-year-old, who is blissfully composing a song for two pots and four forks?

What we often forget is that not only an A in Latin or a Nobel Prize in Medicine signifies a smart person. According to intelligence researcher Howard Gardner, intelligence encompasses more than just IQ. It is a whole bundle of skills and talents located in different areas of the brain.

Gardner distinguishes among several types of intelligence:

• visual-spatial
• linguistic-musical
• logical-mathematical
• kinesthetic (feelings and thoughts can be expressed particularly well through movement)
• interpersonal (relationship intelligence)
• intrapersonal (deep understanding of one's own personality)

Most children possess three, four, or more intelligences in varying degrees, which continue to develop throughout their lives, provided they are appropriately nurtured. It is crucial not to tie intelligence solely to good grades but to recognize all of a child's abilities and interests and offer them as many diverse play and learning opportunities as possible.

What Makes Children Smart: Insights from Research

To support and encourage your child on their explorations through the world of knowledge, we have summarized the most important findings from learning and brain research:

Knowledge, Not Intelligence, is the Key to Ability.

Children must be able to explore, search, and experiment. While intelligent children learn more easily, they squander this advantage if they do not seize learning opportunities. According to learning researcher Elsbeth Stern, the most significant influence on learning progress is the knowledge available, largely independent of IQ. Deficits in intelligence can be compensated for by learning and prior knowledge, but the reverse is not true.

Asking Questions is the Most Important Method.

Adults need to ensure that children have enough opportunities to explore, search, and experiment – and have a loving mentor who appreciates their efforts, gently corrects them when necessary, answers questions, and gets excited about their endeavors.

Children Learn with Challenging Content.

The brain cannot be trained with just any mental activity. To read and understand texts, one must read and interpret challenging material. To grasp physical laws, one must go beyond mere observation – wood floats, iron does not – and engage with physical phenomena like density and buoyancy. Neuroscientist Henning Scheich recommends regularly supporting observations and experiments with factual knowledge.

Practice Makes Perfect.

What has been learned must be memorized, repeated, and deepened for the transfer from short-term to long-term memory to succeed. Only then will resources be freed up for other mental activities. However, it is essential to understand the material. But mindless cramming is ineffective – memorization, on the other hand, is beneficial. Most children do this naturally by reciting sayings, poems, slogans, and songs.

Positive Excitement and Effort.

The alternation of success and failure keeps the brain engaged, creating a fluctuation of chemical messengers that promotes learning, says neurobiologist Henning Scheich. It is ideal for children to have plenty of opportunities to try and experiment. An important mechanism that fosters learning is the "internal reward system" in the brain: when a child tackles a new task and finds a solution through trial and error, neurotransmitters are released that trigger feelings of happiness.

Smart Through Joy.

Joyful excitement makes one smart and curious, says psychologist Arthur Aron. And fear makes one dumb. At the first sign of threat, the brain shifts its functions from the higher frontal lobe areas to the old defense mechanisms of the so-called "reptilian brain." Learning does occur there in terms of conditioning, but it is always associated with anger, fear, and worry and is not very creative.

Intelligent Children Read.

Information absorbed through computers or television is processed and remembered more poorly and slowly than information taken from books, according to US researchers. During the first twelve years of life, especially through reading books, comprehension structures are developed that enable the processing of abstract information. Therefore, the time children spend in front of screens should be kept manageable.

Forest and Meadow Sharpen the Senses.

To learn with concentration, a child must be attentive. The prerequisite for this is silence and calm, which can be experienced on hikes and mountain tours. In nature, all senses are alert, allowing for undisturbed observations and contemplation: Does it smell like mushrooms here? Which bird is singing? Let your child take off their shoes sometimes. Walking barefoot through the forest and meadows requires mindfulness to avoid hurting oneself on roots or stones. This activates the multitude of nerve endings in the soles of the feet, positively impacting concentration and endurance.

Telling Stories.

When children are captivated by a story, they not only concentrate almost effortlessly – they can maintain this state for up to two hours after the story ends. At the same time, they learn new words and phrases and experience how they can create realities in their imagination.

Attention Through Imaginative Journeys.

Imaginative journeys can playfully enhance perception and attention and reduce tension. Try a fantasy journey two to three times a week for ten to fifteen minutes: "Transform into a white feather like that of a chick. Close your eyes. You gently sway in the wind ..."

Intelligent Through Love and Praise.

Love and recognition are crucial for intellectual growth. "One sees well only with the heart," says "The Little Prince." The late American intelligence researcher and psychologist Joseph Chilton Pearce shared this view. He discovered that the heart has a brain that is connected to every vital organ in the body and the muscle spindle system through so-called ganglia. Half of the neural cells are involved in translating information transmitted by the body, while the other half maintains a dialogue between the heart and brain. The heart responds to messages conveyed by the brain – and vice versa. This works best when a child feels safe and accepted. According to Pearce, love and recognition are essential for a child's intellectual growth. Without them, a child struggles to develop their intelligence.