Inventing is one of the most exciting things your kids can do! Almost every ‘thing’ in your home was once an idea in someone else’s mind. But that person took action to make their idea a reality so that YOU and your family could benefit from it. With their innate creativity, your kids can make terrific inventors — given a little guidance and encouragement from you (and/or a great, educational and fun children’s magazine like Brilliant Brainz!)
COULD YOUR KID BE THE NEXT EDISON?
Thomas Alva Edison created over 1,100 inventions, including the electric lightbulb and the ‘movie’ camera. To follow in his footsteps and become a great inventor like him, your child can follow these 10 top tips:
1 – TEAM-UP:
Encourage your kids to form a ‘Mastermind’ of talented friends to invent stuff. They can set goals, schedule meet-ups, and work on projects in their ‘ideas lab’!
2 – IDEA MUSCLE:
Your child can build their idea muscles by coming up with 10 ideas every day. (For tips on training kids’ creative brains)
3 – CATCH IDEAS:
Kid inventors must carry a notebook – all geniuses do! Get them to capture their ideas and passing thoughts in words and sketches – before they escape (…the ideas, not your kids)!
4 – DAYDREAM DAILY:
Kids (and tired parents) can take 10-to-20 minutes for a genius powernap. Show them how to relax completely, let their mind’s wander, ponder, and invent!
5 – BE PERSISTENT:
Edison’s team sweated through 50,000 experiments to perfect the alkaline battery! Teach your children the value of hard work, determination, and persistence. Can they find it in themselves to work harder, longer, and smarter than anybody else?
6 – WELCOME FAILURE:
It’s just feedback. Knowing what doesn’t work, your kid can adjust their experiment and try again. Help kids learn this invaluable lesson and they will chew through failure to reach success, ‘making lemonade’ when life hands them ‘lemons’!
7 – DEVOTE YOURSELF:
Teach your children that if they commit 100% to their goals, then ‘lucky breaks’ will start happening for them! What’s that saying — the harder I work, the luckier I get?
8 – HAVE FUN:
Kids are naturally curious, but it’s a quality to encourage and foster for life. Egg them on to collect a ‘museum’ of fascinating things. Let them be silly, tell jokes, and play – it’s the inventor’s way!
9 – FIRE-UP:
Enthusiasm is contagious! Demonstrate to them how successful people use high energy and showmanship to ‘sell’ others on their ideas.
10 – SPOT PROBLEMS (See Opportunities):
During the 2014 Ebola scare, 9-year-old Mark Leschinsky learned that doctors and nurses were getting infected, despite wearing hazmat suits. So, Mark invented a ‘Self-Disinfecting Hazmat Suit’ with an impenetrable inner layer, a middle layer containing disinfectant, and a perforated outer layer, which let the disinfectant out to kill any viruses on the suit – helping to save lives!
Got a young inventor-in-the-making? Grab them a back copy of issue #34 of BRILLIANT BRAINZ — it’s the INVENTION issue — and subscribe now so they also get a brand new, activity-packed issue delivered to their doorstep every month!
