Increase your child's IQ with the Godfrey Method

Did you know that Americans tend to believe that their children’s intelligence is either genetic or comes from what they learn in school? But guess what, that isn’t true. “Children’s intelligence levels can change in response to some types of environmental influences… In other words, one arrives in the world not with a fixed IQ but with intelligence that can be damaged or enhanced, primarily by one's parents and mainly during the pre-school years.”

A book based on a study from George Mason University professor- David J. Armor- shows that intelligence is plastic or changeable. The book, Maximizing Intelligence, gives ten key factors in a child’s life that shape her intelligence. Only about half of IQ may be genetically determined, which means that half or more can be improved by the environment in which a child is raised. This is great news!
The key years for developing IQ are birth to 5 years old. The most important factors that influence intelligence are the parenting behaviors of breast-feeding, cognitive stimulation, and emotional support.

Breast-feeding studies have long proven that it raises intelligence by several points and is the best start for a child, if possible. If medically impossible, babies should always be held while being bottle-fed, even after they are old enough to hold the bottle themselves. And it should never be propped in their mouths. Proper nutrition is also important throughout a young child’s brain development.

Cognitive stimulation includes providing a learning environment at home with time for instruction, time for interaction and attention, and money spent on educational outings, reading materials, toys, and other educational materials. Such cognitive stimulation activities have a significant correlation to a child’s test scores and intelligence.

Emotional support is the other part of important parenting behaviors that increase a child’s intelligence. Children with emotional support at home have significantly higher test scores, on average.

That leads Armor to conclude that the best way to maximize children's intelligence is through their parents and that the appropriate tools include strengthening parents and families and mitigating the adverse "risk factors."

It is important for parents to be more involved in early childhood learning, not less. More pre-school is not the best answer. Teaching parents to teach their children to read before kindergarten, in a nurturing environment, is much better.

The author of A Pretty Girl Was Alpha Bette lives in a suburb of Kansas City, MO, and is available to help any parents of young children learn how to give them cognitive stimulation and emotional support through The Godfrey Method. Contact her at (816) 886-7904, http://godfreymethod.com/default.aspx, and shannahbgodfrey@gmail.com