If you want your children to be brilliant, read them fairy stories. If you want them to be even more brilliant, read them more fairy stories.
For all the parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles who don’t realise they are the most important teachers of all.
Page 4 ‘The effectiveness of schools is not even based on children’s ability to impart the skills that predict academic success.’ J Hattie (2009), Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 800 Meta-analyses relating to achievement, Routledge: New York.
J Hattie (2012), Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing impact on learning, Routledge: London.
J Hattie and G Yates (2014), Visible Learning and the science of how we learn, Routledge: London.
Page 6 ‘This trend continues and may even be accelerating.’ JR Flynn (2012). How to Improve Your Mind, Wiley, Blackwell: Malden.
Page 6 ‘It is estimated that we process five times more information every day than people did in 1986.’ Howard Rheingold (2012), Mind Amplifier: Can our digital tools make us smarter?, TED Books: TED Conferences, 26 September 2012.
Page 7 ‘In contrast today’s high school graduate will leave knowing about 2 per cent!’ P Ellyard (2001), Ideas for the New Millennium, Melbourne University Press: Melbourne.
R Kurzweil (2005), The Singularity is Near: When humans transcend biology, Viking: New York.
A Toffler and H Toffler (2006), Revolutionary Wealth, Knopf: New York.
Page 10 ‘Studies of divergent thinking … demonstrate that young children are capable of dreaming up new possibilities at genius level but that this ability …’ GA Land (1986), Grow or Die: The unifying principle of transformation, John Wiley and Sons.
Page 11 ‘Experiences drive these processes and if we can give children access to these experiences we can help them to become much, much smarter.’ N Doidge (2007), The Brain that Changes Itself, Scribe: New York.
JN Giedd, J Snell, JC Lange, BJ Rajapakse, BJ Casey, PL Kozuch, AC Vaituzis, YC Vauss, SD Hamburger, D Kaysen and JL Rapoport (1996), ‘Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Human Brain Development: Ages 4 to 18’, Cerebral Cortex, 6, pp. 551–560.
K Robinson and L Aronica (2009), The Element: How finding your passion changes everything, Penguin: New York.
Page 12 ‘It took Shakespeare quite some time before he worked out exactly what was wrong in the state of Denmark.’ Thomson, C (2010) What a great idea 2.0: Unlocking Your Creativity in Business and In Life, Sterling Publishing: Ontario.
Page 13 ‘Most child prodigies do not grow up to be adult geniuses. They don’t even turn into experts.’ P Ross (2006), ‘The Expert Mind’, Scientific American, August, pp. 46–53.
EB Burger and M Starbird (2012), The Five Elements of Effective Thinking, Princeton University: Princeton.
Page 17 ‘Receiving rewards such as stickers when you are learning to read books makes it less likely that a child will enjoy reading for its own sake.’ M Becker, N McElvany and M Kortenbruck (2010), ‘Intrinsic and Extrinsic Reading Motivation as Predictors of Reading Literacy: A Longitudinal Study’, Journal of Educational Psychology, 102, 4, pp. 773–785.
E Schaffner, U Schiefele and H Ulferts (2013), ‘Reading Amount as a Mediator of the Effects of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Reading Motivation on Reading Comprehension’, Reading Research Quarterly, 48 (4) pp. 369–385.
KA Erickson and P Feltovich (2006), The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Page 18 ‘I’ve heard about those new screening tests but I’m not interested in investigating them.’ A similar point is made by Heidi Jacobs (2010) in Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World, ASCD: Alexandria.
Page 25 ‘Basically, we have two brains.’ http://oliveremberton.com, accessed 25.11.14.
Page 26 ‘It is more fun to call this part of the brain ‘Rex’.’ http://www.quora.com/Procrastination/How-do-I-get-over-my-bad-habit-of-procrastinating, accessed 25.11.14.
Page 29 ‘Between seven and eleven years of age, children enter a stage that Jean Piaget called ‘concrete operations’. The Psychology of the Child, (1969) Jean Piaget and Barbel Inhelder, Basic Books. New York. Barel
Page 30 ‘Susan Greenfield estimates that over the course of history the size of frontal lobes in humans has increased …’ S Greenfield (1997), The Human Brain: A guided tour, Basic Books, New York.
Page 39 ‘Geniuses aren’t usually all-rounders.’ G Colvin (2008), Talent is Overrated: What really separates world class performers from everybody else, Nicholas Brealey Publishing: London.
Page 40 ‘Usually the stronger team or opponent defeats the weaker opponent, on 71.5 per cent of occasions according to political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft.’ I Arreguin-Toft, How the Weak win Wars, http://web.stanford.edu/class/polisci211z/2.2/Arreguin-Toft%20IS%202001.pdf, accessed 25.11.14.
M Gladwell (2014), David and Goliath: Underdogs, misfits and the art of battling giants, Penguin: London.
Page 49 ‘… says that we need to think about how to parent a diverse range of minds.’ M Levine (2002), A Mind at a Time, Simon and Schuster: New York.
Page 73 ‘Alison Gopnik describes them as the scientist in the crib.’ A Gopnik, A Meltzoff and P Kuhl (1999), How Babies Think, Weidenfeld and Nicolson: London.
Page 74 ‘People think in patterns.’ D Hofstadter and E Sander (2013), Surfaces and Essences Analogy and the Fuel and Fire of Thinking, Basic Books: New York.
Page 75 ‘The identification of similarities and differences results in a 45 percentile improvement in academic results.’ RJ Marzano, D Pickering and JE Pollock (2001), Classroom Instruction that Works, ASCD: USA.
Page 77 ‘Oh, the places you can go!’ adapted from Dr. Suess (1960), Oh, The Places You’ll Go! Random House: New York.
Page 77 ‘A better model is proposed by Susan Wise Bauer, author of The Well-Trained Mind, who suggests creating with children timelines for all world events that have occurred in an historical period.’ SW Bauer and J Wise (2000), The Well-Trained Mind, W.W. Norton: London.
Page 80 ‘The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away.’ Linus Pauling, www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/l/linus_pauling.htm.
Page 82 ‘By thinking about what was not there, Mr Goldman took some wooden folding chairs and attached wheels and a basket to them …’ en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Sylvan_Goldman.
Page 83 ‘There were 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one …’ http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-18/james-dyson-on-killing-the-contrarotator-his-educative-failure.
Page 84 ‘I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games.’ Michael Jordan, www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/michaeljor127660.html.
Page 93 ‘Clouseau indignantly says to the desk clerk, ‘I thought you said your dog does not bite.’ The Pink Panther Strikes Again, 1976.
Page 94 ‘Superbly illustrated by Douglas Adams …’ D Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, 1979–1992, The Random House Publishing Group: New York.
Page 99 ‘Walter Mischel offered young children the choice between eating one marshmallow straightaway or two when he returned.’ W Mischel (2014), The Marshmallow Test: Understanding self-control and how to master it, Transworld Digital.
Page 99 ‘David Fergusson studied over 1200 children from Christchurch, New Zealand, up to their thirtieth birthday …’ DM Fergusson (AQ: date), ‘Christchurch Health and Development Study’, http://www.otago.ac.nz/christchurch/research/healthdevelopment/, http://www.hrc.govt.nz/sites/default/files/HRC31fergusson.pdf, accessed 25.11.14.
Page 104 ‘A series of other activities has also been shown to assist children in developing the ability to plan, control their impulses and consider alternatives.’ A Diamond (2013), ‘Executive Functions’, Annual Review of Psychology, 64: pp. 135–68.
Page 116 ‘Clyde managed to survive because he learned one really important skill.’ James Clear, jamesclear.com/blog http://jamesclear.com/how-to-focus, accessed 25.11.14.
Page 129 ‘The strongest single predictor of success is your level of persistence.’ Angela Duckworth, https://sites.sas.upenn.edu/duckworth.
A Gorth (2013), ‘Student Test Scores Show that ‘Grit’ is more important than IQ.’ Business Insider Australia, 29 May 2013.
Page 129 ‘Computer game designers know a lot about what motivates, engages and keeps the interest of children.’ JP Gee (2003), What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, Palgrave: London.
Page 129 ‘If you want someone to keep doing something, dangle success just in front of their nose …’ BF Skinner, www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html.
Page 131 ‘The neurochemical dopamine is related to our sense of motivation.’ KC Berridge and TE Robinson (1998), ‘What is the Role of Dopamine in Reward: Hedonic impact, reward learning or incentive salience?’ Brain Res. Brain, Res. Review, 28, pp. 309–369.
Page 132 ‘Let’s visit the godfather of modern coaching.’ WT Galwey (1973), The Inner Game of Tennis, Pan: Kent.
Page 133 ‘Motivation has more to do with children overcoming their fears than anything else.’ EL Deci, R Koestner and RM Ryan (1999), ‘A Meta-analytic Review of Experiments Examining the Effects of Extrinsic Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation’, Psychological Bulletin, 125, pp. 627–688.
Page 141 ‘Research by Albert Bandura on self-efficacy.’ A Bandura (1997), Self-efficacy: The exercise of self-control, Worth Publishers.
Page 141 ‘… and Carol Dweck on fixed and growth mindsets.’ C Dweck (2006), Mindset: The new psychology of success, Ballantine Books: New York.
Page 141 ‘Herbert is a Professor of Educational Psychology who identified that children have two types of self-efficacy: global and specific.’ Marsh, H.W. (1990) ‘Influences of Internal and External Frames of Reference on the Formation of Math and English Self-Concepts,’ Journal of Educational Pyschology, 82, 1, 107–116.
Page 148 ‘107,602,707,791 people to have lived on earth.’ http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2011/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx, accessed on 1 May 2014.
Page 150 ‘… an unwillingness to try things that the child feels they may not succeed at.’ C Dweck (2010), ‘Mind-sets and Equitable Education’, Principal Leadership, pp. 26–29.
Page 154 ‘Creativity is highly predictive of life success in later life.’ MA Runco, G Millar, S Acar, B Cramond (2010), ‘Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking as Predictors of Personal and Public Achievement: A fifty-year follow-up’, Creativity Research Journal, 22, 4, pp. 361–368.
Page 154 ‘But sadly, research tells us that children are becoming less creative.’ KH Kim (2011), ‘The Creativity Crisis: The decrease in creative thinking scores on the Torrance tests of creative thinking’, Creativity Research Journal, 23, 4, pp. 285–295.
Page 154 ‘Einstein played the violin and sailed in order to feel the forces of nature and to seek out inspiration.’ M Currey (2013), Daily Rituals: How great minds make time, find inspiration and get to work, Knopf: New York.
Page 162 ‘By adulthood it drops to 2 per cent.’ GA Land (1986), Grow or Die: The Unifying Principle of Transformation, John Wiley and Sons:
Page 163 ‘Edward de Bono’s thinking hats can also help to achieve this.’ E de Bono (1999), Six Thinking Hats, Back Bay: New York.
Page 164 ‘Together they developed the Smart Car.’ www.hybridcars.com/forums/showthread.php?100666-Who...Smart-Car.
Page 165 ‘It was mainly used by balding men to regrow their hair.’ www.medicinenet.com.
Page 165 ‘Used it to make snow on ski slopes.’ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/who-made-that-artificial-snow.html?_r=0.
Page 175 ‘Children who can think through and explain to themselves the steps …’ DT Willingham (2009), Why don’t students like school? Jossey-Bass: San Francisco.
RJ Marzano, D Pickering and JE Pollock (2001), Classroom Instruction that Works, ASCD: USA.
Page 177 ‘Identifying similarities and differences results in a 45 percentile point improvement in school marks.’
Page 178 ‘From 2001 onwards with teachers from around the world, I conducted ‘practical intelligence projects’ looking for some of the more powerful ways …’ The Brain Based Learning e-manual, www.andrewfuller.com.au.
Page 178 ‘The note system outlined …’ This is an adaptation of a note-making model from Cornell University that incorporates two powerful predictors of academic success – note-taking and identifying similarities and differences. lsc.cornell.edu/LSC_Resources/cornellsystem.pdf. I also am grateful to my friends and colleagues who discussed note-making and repetition on Middleweb. www.middleweb.com.
Page 179 ‘The problem is it takes human beings 24 repetitions of anything to get to 80 per cent of competence.’ RJ Marzano, D Pickering and JE Pollock (2001), Classroom Instruction that Works, ASCD: USA.
Page 185 ‘What you do just before you go to sleep is processed in your dreams and your dreams are when your memories consolidate.’ P Marquet (2001), ‘The Role of Sleep in Learning and Memory, Science, 294, pp. 1048–1052.
Page 185 ‘Having additional glucose just before a test or an assessment task increases memory.’ A Mohanty and R Flint (2001), ‘Differential Effects of Glucose on Modulation of Emotional and Non-emotional Spatial Memory Tasks’, Cognitive, Affective and Behavioural Neuroscience, 1 (1) pp. 90–95.
N Morris and P Sarll (2001), ‘Drinking Glucose Improves Listening Span in Students Who Miss Breakfast’, Educational Research, 43, 2, pp. 201–207.
Page 186 ‘Another tip for enhancing memory in people is to stimulate their vagus nerve, a cranial nerve that links our brain stem with our abdomen.’ KB Clark, DK Naritoku, DC Smith, RA Browning and RA Jensen (1999), ‘Enhanced Recognition Memory Following Vagus Nerve Stimulation in Human Subjects, Nature Neuroscience, 2, pp. 94–98.
Page 187 ‘The same rule applies to learning periods, class time and homework time.’ DA Sousa (2005), How the Brain Learns, Corwin: California.
Page 188 ‘The more actively children are involved in something the more likely they are to remember it.’ DA Sousa (2005), How the Brain Learns, Corwin: California.
Page 189 ‘Harry’s method was to meet all the people in the audience and get to know their name.’ H Lorayne (1963), How to Develop a Super Power Memory, Thorson: London.
Page 199 ‘Just reading over notes doesn’t work. It is boring and can deceive children into believing they know or understand something when they don’t.’ PC Brown, HL Roediger and MA McDaniel (2014), Make it Stick: The science of successful learning, Belknap Press: Cambridge.
Page 206 ‘Dr Samuel Johnson surrounded himself with a purring cat, orange peel and tea.’ M Currey (2013), Daily Rituals: How great minds make time, find inspiration and get to work, Knopf: New York.
Page 207 ‘Deliberate practice is where you identify the areas you need to improve …’ G Colvin (2008), Talent is Overrated: What really separates world-class performers from everyone else, Nicholas Brealey: London.
J Loehr and J Schwartz (2005), The Power of Full Engagement, Free Press: New York.
Page 209 ‘Spaced repetition also has a positive impact on learning.’ PC Brown, HL Roediger and MA McDaniel (2014), Make it Stick: The science of successful learning, Belknap Press: Cambridge.
C Duhigg (2012), The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do and how to change, Heinemann: London.
Page 209 ‘A study completed at the University of California in San Diego in 2007 …’ New York Times, http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/better-ways-to-learn.
Page 210 ‘A study published in the Journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology …’ New York Times, http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/better-ways-to-learn.
Page 212 ‘As Timothy Gallwey discovered, directing people’s awareness is much …’ TW Gallwey (2010), The Inner Game of Tennis: The classic guide to the mental side of peak performance, Random House: [place].
Page 217 This is a synthesis of research from many sources particularly MS Gazzaniga (2004), The Cognitive Neurosciences III, MIT Press: London.
Page 219 ‘Research shows that the amygdala responds powerfully to pleasant aromas.’ S Hamann (2003), ‘Nosing in On the Emotional Brain’, Nature Neuroscience, 6, 2, pp. 106–108.
Page 219 ‘Diet drinks can be high in caffeine, sorbitol and aspartame and have a negative effect by decreasing concentration and increasing anxiety.’ A Mohanty and R Flint (2001), ‘Differential Effects of Glucose on Modulation of Emotional and Non-emotional Spatial Memory Tasks, Cognitive, Affective and Behavioural Neuroscience, 1 (1) pp. 90–95.
N Morris and P Sarll (2001), ‘Drinking Glucose Improves Listening Span in Students Who Miss Breakfast’, Educational Research, 43, 2, pp. 201–207.
Page 220 ‘High carbohydrate foods with calcium will help you keep children calm.’ D Amen (2005), Making a Good Brain Great, Harmony Books: New York.
J Ross (2002), The Mood Cure, Thorsons: London.
Page 223 ‘Having some part-time work is associated with improvements in achievement.’ KJ Quirk, TZ Keith and JT Quirk (2001), ‘Employment During High School and Student Achievement: Longitudinal Analysis of National Data’, The Journal of Educational Research, 95, 1, pp. 4–20.
Page 224 ‘Fluorescent light raises cortisol levels in the blood stream …’ DB Harmon (1991), ‘The Coordinated Classroom’, in J Liberman, Light: Medicine of the Future, Bear and Co Publishing: Sante Fe.
Page 224 ‘A 150–200 watt globe equals 2500 lux and there is evidence that using a bright light in the day improves mood.’ W London (1988), ‘Brain/Mind Bulletin Collections’, New Sense Bulletin, 13 April, 7c.
Page 225 ‘Four-year-olds who listened to one hour of classical music each day …’ TN Malyarenko, GA Kuraev, Yu E Malyarenko, MV Khvatovas, NG Romanova and VI Gurina (1996), ‘The Development of Brain Electric Activity in 4-Year-Old Children by Long-Term Stimulation with Music’, Human Physiology, 22, pp. 76–81.
Page 225 ‘Clarinet, piano and advanced guitar all require fine motor skills …’ M Levine (2002), A Mind at a Time, Simon and Schuster: New York.
Page 226 ‘A study of over one million students found the optimal amount of television viewing related to educational attainment varies with age.’ M Razel (2001), ‘The Complex Model of Television Viewing and Educational Achievement’, The Journal of Educational Research, 94, 6, pp. 371–379.
Page 236 ‘As Stephen Covey beautifully put it, ‘The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.’ S Covey (1994), First Things First, Simon & Schuster: UK.
Page 240 ‘If you need some inspiration, Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way …’ J Cameron (1992), The Artist’s Way: A spiritual path to higher creativity, Penguin: New York.
N Bantock (2014), The Trickster’s Hat: A mischievous apprenticeship in creativity, Perigee: New York.
You are a living legend. You have a brain that is capable of sheer genius. Think of the smartest person you can and know that you have that potential, too. You are just as capable, just as creative and just as clever.
But you can’t rely on your brains alone. You are going to have to try, and to keep trying. You won’t pass every test with flying colours, or win every competition or be picked for every team. You will need to work and practise and improve.
You do not need to be successful at everything you do. In fact, the times you make mistakes, get things wrong or don’t get the results you want can be used to make you even smarter.
There will be times when you will feel like giving up on the things that you want. These times will test you. But you need to keep going. Find the strength within you. It is there; look for it.
There will be things that you will think are too hard for you to do. You will be tempted to not do these things thinking it is better not to try than to fail. Often this will be your anxious brain trying to get you out of something.
If it is something you really want or is very important to you, don’t let your brain talk you out of doing it. Take the risk and even if you don’t achieve what you want the first or second time you try, you will learn more about how to achieve it next time.
Learning is some of the best fun there is. Try to find ways to make learning interesting, even the boring bits. If you surround yourself with good ideas, great books, art, films and terrific conversations, your brain will amaze you.
Most times it is easy to get interested in learning something but sometimes the only way is to challenge yourself by seeing how much you can remember or understand.
Most of all, know that I love you the same whether you win or lose. I want you to have an amazing life because I know you are capable of it.
I love you and believe in you.
A child is a fire to be lit, not a vase to be filled.
In the great expanse of desert that Aboriginal Australians inhabit, fire plays a major role. As the wet season approaches, dark billowing clouds roll in and the night air rumbles with thunder and crackles with lightning that sparks from one horizon to the other. On these lush humid evenings, Lightning Man dances.
According to Bilawara, an Elder of the Larrakia people, the creation and maintenance of fire has always been important for her people. Making fire takes patience and effort. Sometimes it was obtained from lightning strikes that were seen as a gift from the Lightning Brothers. This gift must not be wasted, so the glowing fire sticks were carried from camp to camp, transferring the spark from site to site.
These rituals can also be likened to unlocking your child’s genius. Parents can nourish and feed their child’s curiosity and abilities by exploring the world with them and transferring these sparks of genius when possible. At first the task of fuelling genius is time-consuming, but easy. Following a child’s interests, watching as they set ideas alight, and encouraging them to take hold and gain strength fills the heart with wonder.
All too often, however, in middle childhood the initial fires of genius that burned so brightly falter and there is a risk that they may become snuffed out. If this happens children dim down, fear trying new things and worry about making mistakes. Sadly, they are left with a stunted version of their abilities – and themselves.
At this time the power of parents to ignite the blaze of brilliance becomes truly inspiring. Fortunately you have at your fingertips the best laboratory for unlocking your child’s genius – it’s called the world. By exploring, creating and playing in it, you can expand your child’s mind. By taking time with them to delight and wonder and be curious, you ignite sparks that will flicker and flourish throughout their lives. What a gift to give.
This book is designed to help you to raise your children to discover their full potential. All children have far greater capacity and inner genius than either they or we realise. This book is about ways to unlocking that potential. It is NOT about rushing them, fast-tracking them, hothousing them or having them leap years ahead at school. It is about raising them intentionally to let their natural genius flourish. It’s a book about parenting children so they can blossom and develop into their own form of creative, imaginative genius. As you will see in the chapters that follow, this is much more about play, fun and exploration than it is about work. Hard work has its place of course, but it is much more likely to be successful when we convert parts of it into play.
It wasn’t so many years ago that we thought brains stopped developing at around the age of eight. Modern neuroscience has made that idea as unbelievable as the idea that the earth is flat. The idea that intelligence was something you got at birth and couldn’t do much about has also been shaken by the same area of science.
To add to this turmoil, our modern understandings of the term ‘genius’ are looking wobbly. Before the Middle Ages, genius was seen as an innate spark or characteristic of inquisitiveness within all people. Since that time the term has been increasingly used to describe a small group of elite people who possess skills at a lofty level while the rest of us non-geniuses sit around twiddling our thumbs and waiting for the bright guys and girls to come up with the answers.
You don’t have to spend too long hanging out with so-called geniuses to realise they also possess areas of great ignorance and stupidity. Similarly, you don’t have to spend too long working with children who are labelled not-so-clever to learn that most, if not all, have areas of incredible creativity and skill.
Every child can develop the skills and knowledge base to bring to the fore every iota of genius available to them. In the following chapters I cover the skills parents can help to develop in children that will apply in whatever direction the child’s interests and passions take them.
Self-knowledge, concentration, decision-making, imagination, motivation, determination, memory and creativity are the foundation skills everyone needs if they are to unlock their genius.
Your child’s genius will only be unlocked when you take the time to plan, enrich, explore and help them discover their spark. In a world that requires children to study more and play less, we need to help them play more, reflect, consider and analyse more – and, most of all, dream bigger dreams.
To consider what parents can do to ignite this spark we need to add to our analogy of the fire guardians of Aboriginal Australia with the good old half-glass of water concept.
As we know, your point of view is critically important. What can you see in the image below? While the optimists are looking at the glass as half full and the pessimists are seeing the glass as half empty, the opportunists are drinking the water.
After many years of working with young people, I know that you can’t do much with the top half of the glass. What you can do is to discover what is in your child’s glass and help him or her to make more of it. Whether you want to think of it as the charge in their battery, the fire in their belly, the passion in their heart or the petrol in their tank, the point is that you need to take that strength and build on it.
If you adopt the ideas in this book you will be out of step with what most parents do. We live in a world where television screens get larger but children get fatter, more anxious and timid and less happy. Schools rank children on marks in literacy, numeracy and science rather than key issues that predict genius – effort, determination, imagination and the willingness to make mistakes and keep going. The effectiveness of schools is not even based on children’s ability to impart the skills that predict academic success: positive relationships, the ability to identify similarities and differences, note-making, and giving and utilising feedback.
This book is not designed to be read in a rush or all in one go. Please take Unlocking Your Child’s Genius on as a slow read to be digested over time. There are things that you can act on in this book that will create an immediate impact on your child’s genius while others are longer-term projects that take time to weave their magic.
For example, one of the most powerful ways you can help your child develop is to give them the opportunity to have a range of experiences. Have a look through the experiences listed at the end of Chapter 2 and make a list of activities you plan to do with your child over the next few months. Other high impact things that you can do immediately are outlined in Chapter 14 (Powering up the genius brain) and Chapter 15 (Setting up family routines and rituals).
At the end of most chapters I’ve included tables that give you some ideas for experiences, games and activities that will engage and inspire children, and help to unlock their inner genius. Go through the lists of these ideas, marking those that you have already done with your child and circling those that you plan to do in the coming months.
The longer-term projects take more time but they don’t need to be daunting. Building creativity, ingenuity and character are lifelong projects. If you are able to take on a process of sustained parenting to bring out a child’s genius, read a chapter at a time and think about how you can create changes and opportunities for you and your child. Remember the lesson of the hare and the tortoise – slow and steady wins the race.
Best wishes, play and have fun!
Andrew Fuller
Please note that while I use the term parent throughout this book, I am referring to any adult – parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle or carer – who is raising or caring for a child.