Parents are often offered expensive courses, brain-boosting games and miracle methods. Research points to something much simpler. Intelligence is not fixed at birth: heredity plays a substantial part, but the environment matters too. Combining the results of many studies, the researchers Ritchie and Tucker-Drob found that each extra year of schooling raises scores on intelligence tests by roughly 1 to 5 IQ points. What happens at home every day also counts. Here are ten habits: none of them is a miracle, and all of them help.
Talk, play and curiosity
1. Talk every day and read aloud. Children learn words from real conversation with adults, not from a television murmuring in the background. Reading aloud brings in words and sentence patterns that rarely appear in everyday speech. Ask open questions, such as 'What do you think happens next?', and really listen to the answers. Lev Vygotsky held that ways of thinking first appear in shared talk and activity and only later move inward, becoming the child's own inner speech.
2. Make room for play. Pretend play, building and drawing are serious work for the mind. When a child puts a doll to bed or turns a box into a car, they use one thing to stand for another: the beginning of the symbolic thought that Jean Piaget described. Building bricks, construction sets and drawing develop a sense of space and shape. Join in now and then, and let the child lead.
3. Welcome 'why?' and small experiments. Questions are a sign of a busy mind, not a nuisance. When you can, turn a question into an experiment: 'Will it sink or float? Let's guess first, then check.' Pour water from a tall, narrow glass into a wide bowl and ask whether there is more, less or the same. A wrong guess is not a failure but a normal step in development, and what a child checks for themselves teaches more than a ready-made answer.
A little harder than today
4. Offer tasks one step above the current level. Vygotsky called the gap between what a child can do alone and what they can do with an adult's help the zone of proximal development, and that is where learning happens. Give support at first, with a hint, a shared start or a demonstration, then withdraw it bit by bit until the child manages alone; this is known as scaffolding. Too easy is boring; far too hard leads to failure after failure.
5. Plan, do, check. Before a task, ask: 'What do we need? Where shall we start?' Afterwards: 'Did it work? How do you know? What would you change?' Thinking about one's own thinking is called metacognition. Studies summarised in Sulaiman al-Khodari al-Sheikh's book show that training planning, self-monitoring and the use of feedback brings more lasting gains than teaching isolated tricks.
6. Test yourself and space it out. When studying, rereading and highlighting feel productive but help relatively little. Two methods are among the best supported: recalling material from memory (closing the book and explaining it, or answering questions) and spreading practice over several days instead of cramming in one evening (Dunlosky and colleagues, 2013). Show your child how to quiz themselves.
Body, heart and a wide world
7. Protect sleep and movement. A tired brain finds it harder to concentrate and to manage emotions, while sleep helps to consolidate what was learnt during the day. Regular bedtimes and active play every day, outdoors if possible, are among the simplest things a family can do. If bedtime turns into a battle every night, our practical guide on the subject can help.
8. Combine warmth with growing independence. At the Fels Institute in Ohio, 140 children were tested every year from the age of 3 to 10: active, independent children tended to improve their scores, while passive, dependent children lagged behind. This shows a link rather than proof of cause, but it fits everyday experience: a child who feels safe and is trusted with real tasks explores more. Be warm, and step back a little more each year.
9. Offer varied activities. A child cannot discover a love of chess, music, plants or building without meeting them. Varied experiences give hidden strengths a chance to show, which is exactly what the theory of multiple intelligences invites us to notice. Pay attention to what absorbs your child, but avoid labels: interests change and grow.
10. Make screens active and shared. A screen is neither good nor bad in itself. Making a short film, a video call with grandparents or a documentary watched and discussed together is very different from hours of endless autoplay. Agree on limits, keep screens out of the bedroom at night and notice what the screen is replacing: sleep, play or conversation.
Everyday life is the best laboratory
You do not need special equipment: everyday family life is the best laboratory. Cooking together teaches measuring and planning, a walk raises a dozen questions, and a bedtime chat builds language and trust. Choose two or three habits that suit your family, keep them up for a few weeks and see what changes — calmly, without pressure and without comparing your child with others.