Do You Want Your Kids To Be Smarter? The Snowball Effect

If you want your kids to be smarter, you need to support them and give them the tools they need to do that. For this, you must take into account the Snowball Effect; do you know this effect? If you keep reading this article, you can learn a little about it.

The snowball metaphor is used in developmental psychology to clarify that if every opportunity to improve the child’s abilities is taken advantage of, it will be possible to obtain greater performance, achieving optimal development.

All opportunities for learning and growth offered to children must be seized; the first steps on the path to education are the most important.

To understand a little more about this, let’s consider the snowball itself. At first it’s just a snowflake, but as it rolls down the hill it grows. Perhaps, you could hold it in the palm of your hand before, but as it grows so much it ends up getting bigger than you.

What we have to rescue is that each step that this little snowball takes is equivalent to each step that your child takes, and each step is a new knowledge, a new experience.

When your child is little, you teach him little by little and you acquire knowledge and understanding of situations. Incorporate knowledge at home, right in the garden or at school. Also in any other environment he shares and through anyone else who interacts with him.

Each knowledge you acquire will make your child grow, just as each step the snowball took added more and more snow until it was big.

So how do I make it smarter?

Intelligence is not just a matter of embedding knowledge. Knowledge makes us wiser, but intelligence develops.

According to psychologist Feuerstein, the human organism has the ability to change its functioning structure. This is because intelligence is an adaptive response. These changes can improve development by achieving higher cognitive processes permanently. In his words: “the human being is endowed with a plastic, flexible mind, open to change. It has a potential and a natural propensity for learning.”

Feuerstein introduces the concept of mediated learning (MAS), which takes place when a person mediates between the world and a human being. The mediator can be either the parents or the teachers.

For mediation to be effective, certain parameters must be met:

• Intentionality: the child must be aware of the changes that depend on his emotions and cognitive operations. She has to realize when her motivation rises or falls.
• Meaning mediation: Giving him meaning to what he is learning remarkably improves the learning experience.
• Principle of transcendence: the knowledge acquired must be applied. Transferring knowledge to other areas or experiences is very enriching.

What does that mean?

It means that we can guide our children on the path of learning. Both parents and teachers have this arduous and important task. We must mediate between the world and children, share our knowledge with them, broaden their vision, show them the way.

How can we enrich your experience?

As we have already seen, each of our children’s learnings can generate a change in their cognitive structure. As human beings, they are flexible, open to change and prone to learning. And we have the ability to guide them. If we act as mediators in all situations that are presented to us, we can make the most of them.

A situation, whether positive or negative, can result in learning.

Some advices:

• Maintain good communication with your child

• Find out if there are any problems
• Help him identify the problems
• Search with him for the cause of the problem
• Allow him to see his responsibility in the generated situation
• Look for solutions to problems that arise
• Turn negative situations into learning
• Help him learn from his mistakes

And, above all, always allow it to develop and grow, in addition to being flexible and adapting to the environment. Remember that in the future this will be a very important skill for him!