June 6 2019

My Top Tip for Raising Smart Kids

One day when our tv and internet were out, I had an interesting conversation with the cable guy, and no, his name was not Larry.

He noticed all the books and bookshelves in our house and saw the kids’ tassels on the mantle. He says you must have really smart kids. Well, yeah! I wouldn’t have it any other way. My mom-side kicked in and I began telling him about how important it is to read to your kids and let them see you reading for pleasure. Newspapers, magazines, books, cereal boxes, comic books, it really doesn’t matter. As long as you choose to read and they see you enjoy it, they will imitate you.

There was a time when I didn’t think kid #2 was going to be a reader and it kinda freaked me out. She seemed a little distracted when we were reading a book to her and was more into drawing and artsy stuff, even as a preschooler. We just kept reading with her and to her and eventually, she was lured to the bright side with the rest of us. Now the entire family reads voraciously. Or at least we all did while we were living under the same roof. To be fair the kids are grown-up adults and rarely pay attention to us old folks anymore, so I really have no idea what they do in their free time now. Some things are probably better not known.

But seriously, it made all the difference in the kids’ success in school. Readers are succeeders!

Readers are succeeders! Click To Tweet

Reading is the top tip I could share with you to help you raise smarter kids. I’m sure there are a ton of boring statistics to back me up here. Fortunately for you, I will not take the time and effort to dig them up and spit them out for you here. I trust you know how to Google and are fully capable of finding the info on your own.

It is never too late, save yourself and get busy, start reading today! If you think you don’t like reading, you just haven’t found the right books yet. Keep looking! Ask friends who have similar likes and dislikes what THEY like to read. Ask the local librarian for recommendations. I bet Google and Siri could even recommend books for you.