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How
to Help Your Child Invent
There are a ton of things you can
do to help your child during this process. The most important
thing you can do to help your child is to support and encourage
them. Inventing is full of failed experiments, but that is part
of the process. Experiments fail all of the time and it's to
be expected that your child's first invention probably won't
work the first time. If it does great! But if it doesn't, help
them learn from there experience, and have them try again and
again. All inventors fail, but why they succeed is because they
don't give up.
Inventing is fun and exciting and when kids are given the right
environment and the right direction, support and encouragement
they can do great things. Another way to help your child is
to feed their ideas and questions. Don't solve the problem for
them, ask the questions that make them think and figure out
the solutions to their problems. They will need to be able to
explain their ideas, how their invention works and this is where
you can help. When they have an idea, ask them how it works,
ask them to tell you, ask them to show you. This is great preparation
for the Invention Convention itself and it helps them with the
process. Plus it's fun to watch kids when you ask them questions
and you can watch the wheels turning as they figure out the
answers.
Your approach is very important. Avoid "that won't work"
or "it can't be done," instead ask them to show you
or tell you how it will work. The benefits that kids learn from
this experience are immeasurable and long-lasting. Self esteem,
optimism, creativity, and problem solving skills are all things
that they will develop and grow during this process. |
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