How to Maximize Children’s Learning Ability

By maximizing children’s learning potential, they will feel fulfillment and increase their self-confidence, their love to learn to take challenge, which lead them to thrive in the school and succeed in the global society.

By using the following positive parenting ways, parents closely involve in their children’s learning process, there will be a dramatic improvement in children’s motivation and achievement. The key is to help children keep eagerness to learn.

Getting to know the child’s IQ(Intelligence Quotient), try to awaken the child’s natural genius, take advantage of it, and encourage him or her to solve problems in unique and creative ways, to nurture his or her strengths. Please refer to Guide Kids by Their IQ for more information.

Understanding the child’s learning stages and learning style to support his or her unique learning process, improve his or her ability and help him or her to be a self-directed, successful learner.

Understanding the child’s temperament, and assisting the child to develop his or her emotional and social skills to help him or her to become a social and emotional well-being child, achieving high EQ(Emotional Intelligence).

Brain Development

How well brain develops by age 6 determines a child’s health and performance in school and throughout life. While we know that the development of a young child’s brain takes years to complete and also know there are many things parents can do to help children get off to a good start and establish healthy patterns for life-long learning. “Well begun is half done.”

The human brain begins forming very early in prenatal life, but brain development is a lifelong process, because the same events that shape the brain during development are also responsible for storing information throughout life. The major difference between brain development in a child versus an adult’s learning is that the child’s brain is far more impressionable in early life than in maturity, which means that young children’s brains are more open to learning and enriching influences but are more vulnerable to developmental problems.

Which is more important in brain development, nature or nurture?
Genes or nature and environment or nurture play very different roles while interacting with each other at every step of brain development. Generally speaking, genes are responsible for forming all of the brain cells and general connections between different brain regions; while experience is responsible for fine-tuning those connections, helping each child adapt to the particular environment such as geographical, cultural, family and school. For example, each of us is born with the potential to learn language. Our brains are programmed to recognize human speech, to discriminate subtle differences between individual speech sounds, to put words together, and to pick up the grammatical rules make sentences. However, the particular language each child masters, the vocabulary, and the dialect and accent with which he/she speaks are determined by the social environment in which he/she is raised, beginning even before birth. Genetic potential is necessary, but DNA alone cannot teach a child to talk.

Does experience change the actual structure of the brain?
The answer is yes. Brain development is activity-dependent.
Like computer circuits, neural circuits process information through the flow of electricity. However, the circuits in our brains are much more flexible. Every experience, such as reading a book, riding a bicycle, sharing a story, excites certain neural circuits and leaves others inactive. Those that are consistently used will be strengthened, while the others may be dropped away. This is called “pruning”, which benefits neural processing, making the circuits work more quickly and efficiently.

Since providing a brain-using environment for kids to grow is so crucial for their brain’s development, that’s why most of our parents give their kids toys, video etc, to nurture the kids to be smarter and wiser.

Dark Side of the Internet: Internet Safety for Your Kids

To Help Your Kids Understand the Dark Side of the Internet is essential. The Internet has changed the way we access the world, which gives us more freedom to communicate with millions of people globally, get more information with less space and time limitation. Kids enjoy internet so much, because they are so curious for everything like eager little sponges. The Internet can be a great resource for kids. They can use it to research school reports, communicate with teachers and other kids, and play interactive learning games. But that access can also pose hazards. Without any doubt, the dark side of the internet could harm kids.

The internet just likes the real world, today’s society, which indispensably has bad sides. The easy access to information from different countries is also at the root of parental and community concerns about children’s exposure to inappropriate materials and experiences. Real-world threats like hate speech, harassment, and stalking exist in cyberspace. Particularly pornography and sexual predators—issues can pose hazards to our children most.

Many parents believe pornography is bad to their kids and think that to access pornography online requires a credit card, and thus children are not likely to get there. This is not true. Although all porn sites need a credit card to get deeper access into that site, many of them have a lot of free “sample” images, which could have very bad impact on children.

The Dark Side of the Internet has the Bad Impact 24/7

The internet never sleeps, and the Dark Side of the Internet is not a passive danger. Pornographers use many tools to draw young teenagers into the pornography world, intending to hook them for life. They send “spam” e-mails containing inviting Web hyperlinks constantly. If your child clicks on one of the links in that e-mail, many browser windows are often spawned simultaneously, each one open to a different porn site. Porn sites also sell advertising space to other porn sites, so one page can lead to another and another.

What makes home Internet access so dangerous compared to the public library is the combination of privacy and opportunity. Most families leave older children home alone at times, and many kids will find the temptation to explore the Internet’s Dark Side irresistible. That’s why it’s important to be aware of what your kids see and hear on the Internet, who they meet, and what they share about themselves online. The Dark Side of The Internet could be a real risk on your kids.

Teach kids Online Security Basics

The Dark Side of The Internet exists, so just like any safety issue, parents should talk with your kids about online Security, take advantage of resources to protect them, and keep a close eye on their online activities. Parents can help your kids use the Internet safely by teaching them on the Dark Side of the Internet and some basic online security rules.

Keep passwords secret

Kids create online user names and passwords for their schools, game websites, social networking, shopping, and more. Teach kids don’t reveal passwords to others. Keep their passwords hidden, even from friends.

Tell your kids that never provide their password over email or in response to an email request. Any email message that requests their password or requests that they to go to a website to verify your password could be a kind of fraud called a phishing scam.

Use social networking safely

Help your kids use social networking safely. Many kids use social networking sites such as Facebook, twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, and others.

Help your Kids understand that many of these social networking sites can be viewed by anyone with access to the Internet. As a result, some of the information they post can make them vulnerable to phishing scams and Internet predators.

Ensure your kids follow age limits. The recommended age to sign up for social websites is usually 13 and over. If your children are under the recommended age, do not let them use the sites.

Teach your kids never meet anyone in person that they’ve communicated with online only.

Ensure your kids don’t use full names. Teach your child to use only a first name or nickname, but not a nickname that would attract inappropriate attention. Also, do not allow your children to post the full names of their friends.

Beware of online fraud

Teach your kids about becoming smart consumers and avoid online fraud.

Use only secure sites. If your kids shop on the web, they should be sure the URL of any site where they enter financial information begins with https:// and only shop at those trusted websites.

The Dark Side of The Internet could harm kids in a detrimental way. Teach your kids about internet safety as early as possible, which is critical. Parents should help kids understand the Dark Side of the Internet and help them use internet safely.