David Ho | August 24, 2020
How To Help Your Kids Succeed In Life: A Sam’s Club back-to-school special report
Ask 10 parents what’s the best way to help your kids succeed in life, and you’ll probably get 20 different answers! The perennial favorite tips are to help your child build resilience, boost their self-esteem, embrace play as learning, and many similar ideas.
But hold on!
There’s one science-backed tip to help your kids succeed in life that’s often mentioned yet overlooked, and that’s to encourage and develop your child’s sense of curiosity from the time they’re born till the day they become parents themselves.
“Curiosity Is the Mother of Learning We are all born curious. But we stop exploring, learning, and discovering as we grow up.
Schools prepare children to pass a test instead of nurturing a learning mind.”
– Psychology Today
May 2019 issue
Why is a sense of curiosity the link to a successful life for your kids?
Scientists and educators have studied the benefits of nurturing a learning mind for many years now, and research shows that curiosity is key to this. With a curious and learning mind, our kids will develop the ability to think both critically and creatively as they grow up and keep this skill throughout their working lives. And as a parent, isn’t this the greatest gift you can give your kids?
How do we develop the creative minds of our kids? (this includes the big kids — teens!) Here are three tips.
1. Answer every WHY question they ask
For young children, curiosity is a way of life, and it’s part of how their brain works. Sadly, adults tend to dampen children’s natural curious tendencies as it’s often very tiring answering so many “why” questions.
Parenting Tip: Answer every WHY question. And you know that each answer inevitably leads to yet another WHY question, so reward your kids with your love and answers!
2. Let your kids PLAY
A child’s brain needs to experience life and learns by experimenting, i.e., seeing, touching, playing, and curiosity develops. The easiest way for kids to do this? By playing with educational toys designed for young minds.
Parenting Tip: Enough with smartphone games and endless videos — get your kids age-appropriate educational toys like Lego and Playdoh. Both are simple yet extremely mentally stimulating for the curious-minded child.
3. Social learning for the curious child.
Ever watched kids play in a group? They learn almost instantly from each other, and scientists tell us that kids are huge social learners.
Parenting Tip: Same tip as #2 – enough with the smartphone games and videos — find playgroups for your child or organize one yourself. They don’t need adults to teach them anything and let them learn from other kids.
So what does this all mean?
As your kids head back to school, do remember that they’re not adults and don’t have the mental capacity yet to think logically and rationally. They are naturally curious, and this is where we can help them grow into creative and critical thinking adults, just by letting our kids be kids!
The Last Word
Sam’s Club is delighted to carry several educational toys for kids of all ages, and here are a few of our favorites toys to satisfy any curious kid and feed their imagination!
