Problem solving in children’s development is very important. Even when they’re babies, you could see this skill being useful, as this is a means for them to adapt to the world around them. Have you seen a baby try to roll in order to get a toy that’s far from reach? This is an early sign of problem-solving skills in children. In this post, we will be discussing how to help your child with problem solving skills.
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How to help your child with problem solving skills: My personal experience
Problem solving in early childhood was one of my favorite things to target in speech therapy. When I was working with students, it was really satisfying to see them progress from having little idea on solving a problem, to having creative solutions to present.
Now that I have my toddler and baby whom I teach, I always try to find opportunities to teach problem solving in practical situations. Mostly, for my toddler, learning how to navigate the challenges of his day-to-day, and for my baby, to learn how to use his mind and body to adapt and communicate his needs.
Below, you’ll find some of the things that have been helpful for me on how to develop problem solving skills in children.
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How to help your child with problem solving skills: Strategies to use
Discuss practical problems and offer solutions
The easiest thing you can do as a parent is to discuss practical problems that happen day to day and offer some solutions that help. For example, simple things like dropping one’s food, dirty hands, or having a rainy day outside.
At first, your child may feel stuck and would not know what to do in these situations as they are still being familiar with the problem-solution logic. But, when you offer practical solutions (pickup up and throwing food in the trash, washing hands, using an umbrella) they will understand how these actions work to resolve the problem.
For example, your child’s hands got dirty from playing outside. You can help raise awareness by stating the problem (“Uh-oh! Your hands are dirty. That’s a problem, what do you think should we do?”) then offer some solutions if they can’t think of one (“Should we wash it with soap and water?”, “Should we rub it on the wall?”) then prompt them to the correct answer when needed. Once they get a hold of this skill, you can proceed to just asking solutions.
Use problem solving workbooks for kids and other resources
If you are wanting to branch out to the various areas of problem solving, or wanting some extra reinforcement, you may use problem solving books for children to help in mastery.
In the workbook “Problem Solving for Kids”, you can target various areas of problem solving for children, such as:
- Social situations
- Logical problem solving
- Inferencing
- Math
Since problem solving has different areas of use, these different aspects can help give your child a strong foundation to use the skill across practical and academic areas.
You may find the book on Amazon.
Play riddles and games
Another way to develop problem solving skills in your child is to play riddles and games. Some games such as “I Spy”, “Taboo”, or even simple treasure hunt games can help your child use clues to think of the solution.
You can even integrate gross motor skills in your problem solving activities by using objects that they can jump to, crawl, climb, and others. The possibilities are just endless when it comes to targeting problem solving skills.
Science experiments
Many science experiments can help in honing children’s problem solving skills. For example, science experiments involving mixing colors can help them think of solutions in order to change the outcomes. You may ask questions like, “Our problem is we want to change this water into orange. How can we do that? Can we think of solutions?”
These are just some of the easy, simple ways you can develop problem solving skills in your students or your child.
We hope you found this post helpful! As always, we encourage you to check out the resource “Problem Solving for Kids” at Amazon:
Also read:
Sequencing Activities for Kids: Why It’s Important and How to Teach
How Can I Improve My Child’s Executive Function? What to Do
How to Teach Adjectives to Young Learners: Fun, Easy Ways
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