10项活动提高孩子智商

译者 炫耀至极

10 Activities That Make Your Kids Smarter

Scientists often cite the first ten years of a child'slife as the "window of opportunity." Everything at this time iscritical to improving the "wiring" of a person's brain. These are theages when the brain can form the most neural networks. No surprise, readingbenefits children's intelligence, but shockingly, so do video games and sports.

Most of these activities benefit adults too; you'renever too old to learn a second language with your kids and eat a heartybreakfast.

科学家们通常把儿童生命中的头十年称作“机会之窗”。在这段时期内，任何事情都对大脑的发育极其重要。这段时期也是大脑大部分神经网络发育完成的时期。毫无疑问，阅读有益于提高儿童的智商，但是令人惊讶的是，电子游戏和体育运动也能让孩子们变得更聪明。

当然，大部分活动对于成年人来说也有益处。大人们可以和孩子一起学习外语，吃一顿丰盛的早餐，那样他们也会变得更聪明。

Engage in music-making

Studies show that learning music makes kids smarter.

On average, music students perform better onstandardized tests and have higher overall GPAs.

In one experiment, it was found that taking pianolessons even helped raised IQ significantly.

1. 音乐熏陶

研究证明，学习音乐能够让孩子变得更聪明。在标准化考试中，学习音乐的学生比其他学生表现的更好，平均分也更高。一项实验甚至指出，上钢琴课能够显著提高智商。

Eat a good breakfast

A child's brain needs a proper balance of nutrientssuch as glucose, iron, vitamin A, vitamin B, zinc, and folic acid.

Kids who eat breakfast have better memory and longerattention spans.

Whole grain cereals and oatmeal have been found to bea better start to the day than sugary cereals like Cap'n Crunch.

With toddlers, breastfeeding has been shown to improvehealth and intelligence.

2. 早餐要吃好

小孩的脑部发育需要许多营养物质，比如葡萄糖、铁、维他命A、B、锌、叶酸（维生素B）。吃早餐的孩子记忆力好，注意力集中程度也较高。早餐最好是全谷类食品和燕麦片，而不是像Cap'n Crunch这样含糖的谷类食品。有证据证明，母乳喂养有助于提高孩子的抵抗力和智商。

Play Video Games

Studies show that video games can improve many skills.According to the UC Berkeley study, video games can improve:  

hand-eyecoordination,problemsolving ability,reasoning,patternrecognition,accuracy ofestimations,hypothesistesting,resourcemanagement,quickthinking and reacting,memory,spatialperception,judgmentcalls.   

3. 适当打打电子游戏

电子游戏有助于改善多种技能。根据根据加州大学伯克利分校的一份研究显示，电子游戏能够改善手眼协调能力、解决问题的能力、推理能力、图像识别能力、判断能力、假设检验能力、资源管理能力、快速思考和反应的能力、记忆力、空间感知能力和决策能力。

Limit television time

Of course, too much of anything can still be badthing. Kids still need time away from the TV to develop social skills and dohomework. For toddlers and infants, it has been found that TVhas no educational benefits for kids under 2.

4. 限制孩子看电视的时间

当然，太多的干某件事情会适得其反。孩子们仍然需要削减一些看电视的时间来发展他们的社交能力或者做作业。

Unstructured play time should be mandatary

5. 必须让孩子自由玩耍

对于小孩来说，自由玩耍是非常重要的一部分，同时也对他们的成长至关重要。如果父母老是在一旁或者管的太多，容易使孩子产生心理问题。

自由玩耍不仅能帮助孩子发展认知能力和社交能力，还能让他们成长为快乐健康的成年人。

20 minutes of exercise helps kids too
A Swedish study of over a million 18-year-olds showedthat fitness does relate to a person's IQ. The specifics of how exercise affects brain growth anddevelopment is unclear, but studies show that for 9 and 10-year-olds, 20minutes of exercise before a test significantly improves test scores.

6. 20分钟的体育锻炼

瑞典一项基于100万18周岁人群的研究显示，健康和一个人的智商息息相关。人们现在还不清楚体育锻炼是怎样影响大脑发育的，但是研究显示，如果9至10岁在接受测验前进行过20分钟的体育锻炼，测验分数有显著提高。

Reading with your kids
Reading has long been known as away to improve children's intelligence. Kids who are read to frequently developearlier writing and number skills as well. For parents who don't have as muchtime, just surrounding your kids with books goes a long way too.

7. 和孩子一起阅读

人们很早就知道阅读有助于提高儿童的智商。经常阅读的孩子的写作和算术能力比其他孩子发展的要早。如果父母没有那么多的时间，那么拿着书和孩子们呆在一起也会大有帮助。

Put kids to bed early

Studies from a California-based group called SRIInternational show that kids with regular bedtimes are better at languages,math, and reading.

Preschool children should get at least eleven hours of sleep, and kids upto age 12 should try to get at least ten hours of sleep.

8. 让孩子早点睡觉

总部设在加州的斯坦福研究院的研究显示，作息时间规律的小孩在语言、数学和阅读等方面表现的比其他孩子要好。学龄前的儿童至少应该保证11个小时的睡眠，12岁的小孩也应该至少保证10个小时的睡眠。

Praise good effort, not intelligence
Your kids may be smart, but you should focus yourpraise on the effort they put into succeeding at tasks. Kids who are praised onintelligence often feel it is a fixed trait, and mistakes or failures severelyhurt their self-confidence. Kids who are praised on effort often focus more onlearning, and are not afraid of a challenge, or to fail and try again.

9. 鼓励孩子多尝试，不要只注重结果

孩子们可能很聪明，但是父母更应该注重对孩子们完成任务时所作出的努力给与鼓励。如果父母总是在孩子们获得成功时才给与鼓励的话，孩子们会认为这是一种固定的模式，任何错误或者失败都会打击到他们的自信心。被父母鼓励多尝试的孩子更多地注重学习，也不怕挑战和失败，他们会一次次的尝试。

Learn a second language

Early studies in this field have preliminarily shownthat bilingual kids can focus better under pressure and focus better onrelevant information.Research is being done still, but many argue that thepeak of language learning ability ends before puberty.

It has been shown that young children canlearn new languages with nearly perfect fluency and pronunciation.

10. 学习一门外语

这一领域先前的研究表明，会说两门语言的孩子在压力环境下更能集中精神，对于相关信息的专注度也更高。相关方面的研究还在继续，但是许多人认为，语言学习能力在青春期前达到顶峰，而后就保持在固定的水平。还有证据表明，孩子学习起新语言来会非常流畅，发音也更为准确。