We want our children to be vibrant in their actions and get more out of their life. To fulfil all these hopes and dreams their overall cognitive development is very essential. It refers to the dynamic building of various learning skills of thinking capability, memory building and the ability to pay attention etc.
In detail:
MEMORY: The ability to retain & recollect the information whenever it is required.
ATTENTION: Ability to stay focused on a task, filtering distractions and to switch our focus depending on the situation
SPATIAL Thinking: Ability to understand and analyse the world around us. Helps us recognize relationship between objects, and concepts. For example Reading maps, following directions etc.
Though it appears every child is almost same while they are growing up, but if we carefully observe each child is unique in their own way. Knowledge about children development helps us what to expect what not to expect from our children (age appropriately).
Children Cognitive Development by age:
1 – 2 Years:
- Your child can\likes,
- Understand simple stories.
- Pretend plays.
- Play matching games and simple puzzles.
- Represent the world with words and images.
3 – 5 Years:
Your child can\likes:
- Tell short stories.
- Begin to use logic to think about how and why things work in the world around them.
- Still struggles to get the difference between reality and fantasy.
- Understands the difference between past, present and future and know left and right by the end of this period.
- Have short attention spans & difficulty with memory retention
6 to 8 Years Your child can\likes:
- Start learning reading, writing, and basic math.
- Pay attention on tasks for longer periods, but can’t understand the situations completely.
- Understand information quickly and retain & recollect it.
- Follow your simple direction\instructions.
- Answer Why, Who, What, When, Where questions.
- Begin to argue and reason.
- Enjoy reading.
Parenting tips:
We often think that we need expensive gadgets, toys to stimulate our child’s brain development, but that’s not the case actually, we can provide enormous opportunities to children through below every-day activities.
- Improve their reading habit by making books available around them.
- Take them to different localities, museums, exhibitions ask questions to foster exploration.
- Spend quality time with your child. Play sorting games, map games, word games, stories that they listened to and also games that contain rules,
- Avoid prolonged screen time and involve them in sports.
- Set up home-rules and make sure that everybody follows.
- Do not push your child to accomplish too much too early. Repetition is the key in pre-school years to remember new information.
- Encourage your child to ask questions, make discoveries, and reflect on them but going forward. But gradually reduce number of explanations as they begin to master skills.
- Involve children in group games, so they can learn the perspectives of others