Analytical Activities to Engage Your Baby's Brain

The most counterintuitive, surprising, and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday.

Today’s featured Big Think interview features tightrope artist Philippe Petit, who speaks on the importance of strengthening children’s intuitions. Petit advocates for handing kids creative problems to solve and allowing their minds to explore various answers. This way, analysis and decision-making becomes innate. You can view the interview below:

Coincidentally, Newsweek has a special issue out right now all about boosting your baby’s brain. It too advocates for creative and analytical activities to help guide a child’s decision-making and intuition. This piece, for instance, suggests several games you can play both before and after birth to help guide the development of your little bundle’s fledgling brain. Here’s a simple example of one to help guide toddlers:

“Opposite Day
Once infants begin to age into toddlers and preschoolers (after ages 3-5), parents can engage with them using more structured games. One activity that helps with impulse control is making a set of simple flash cards together and running through them with the child. Example cards might include a picture of the sun to represent ‘day’ or a picture of the moon to mean ‘night.’ Once the infant understands the concepts, the parent can begin the game in earnest and tell the infant to shout “day” when shown the night card and vice versa.”

Check out the full piece (linked below) for more brain-boosting activities for your child.