“Teach Your Kids to Think: Simple Tools You Can Use Every Day” by Maria Chesley, Ph.D., is a guidebook on helping parents help their children to be able to succeed in the world.  Ms. Chelsey points out in the beginning that children need more than just the basic reading, writing and arithmetic, but also need “logical and analytical thinking, resourcefulness, adaptability, and creativity.”  The author draws on her experience as a teacher and as a parent.  She talks about multiple intelligences and that intelligence isn’t just a high IQ score. 

In this book, the author focuses on giving parents the tools to teach:

Thinking skills

Analytical thinking skills

Creative thinking skills

Social & emotional thinking skills

Practical thinking skills

I really liked the way the author gave examples on how to talk to your children in a way that encourages communication.  Instead of asking a yes/no question about whether a child likes a watch, a parent can ask “You prefer this watch.  What did you think about when deciding?”  Asking open-ended questions helps you connect more with your child because it shows that you are interested in him/her and what he/she is thinking.  It also helps the child to think more about how they came to conclusions.

This book is a great book for a parent to carry around and open on occasion to remind themselves how they can help their children become more successful and to use their multiple intelligences.  Oftentimes parents get stuck in a rut and forget about ways to communicate.  This book is a gentle reminder on how parents can facilitate thinking in their children.  It gives a lot of information but does not overwhelm the reader.  Definitely a book I would recommend to parents and even teachers!

Reviewed on 03/23/2012 by ReviewTheBook.com Member Heather Strauss

 I recently had the opportunity to read and then provide a review on a book designed to help parents to guide their children in their day to day learning. I found this book a very beneficial tool in one's role as a parent. I love that the author began this book by discussing intelligence and not only in terms of IQ score. Intelligence is so much more and the author did a good job of making readers aware of the four basic forms of Intelligence - Analytical, Creative, Social and Emotional and Practical. 

The book is then split into these main areas in which practical activities are provided to do with your children. I really liked how the activities were easy to implement and in some cases were very "fun" things you could do with your children. This helps for it to seem like you are just "playing" a fun game with your child, while learning at the same time. Also, there are different suggestions of how to adapt the activities if the original idea is not working or too advanced for your child. 

There are examples of questions to ask and words to use in the activities but also overall information on the benefit of the activities and what can hope to achieve. I also appreciated how there are tips on gradually introducing the activities building up to the overall goal.

These activities will work for a variety of ages given the excellent info provided on adapting the lessons based on abilities of children and varying topics covered. The book provides plenty of valuable information in an easy to understand format.

I am looking forward to continuing to utilize this book. I tested out some of the activities on my 9 year old son and he didn't really notice that we were doing anything other than playing some fun games. I will wait until my daughter is a little older to try some of these with her as with her language delays the majority are not practical at this time.  There are some that would be good for younger age such as one activity where you have child touch different objects with their eyes closed and name the item. This would be a fun one for a younger (or older) child.

Reviewed on 01/27/2012 by ReviewTheBook.com Member Tara Gauthier

 Working as a compilation of strategies to help parents and other caregivers of children.   To have and to offer the tools children will need to become independent thinkers.  Teaching this to kids falls on the parents just as much as it does on the teachers at school.  Learning the difference between analytical thinking, creative thinking, social and emotional thinking or practical thinking is the start to understanding how to help our children think for themselves.   The approach used to help children learn all these aspects only slightly differ from each other.  For any person to have the thoughtful intelligence that it takes to truly succeed, one needs to have use of all theses skills in combination with each other.   Learning that helps the child and the caregiver too.

Reviewed on 05/28/2011 by ReviewTheBook.com Member Debbie Berry

Oh, how I wish this book was available 35 years ago when I was encouraging my children to "think."  Attempting to come up with activities to promote thinking is challenging enough let alone keep their interest peaked and fun enough to continue and not get bored.  Well, for those that have children, or an educator wanting to come up with new activities, Dr. Maria Chesley Fisk has made it easy.

As I perused the activities I realized that each one has a deeper purpose than just to think.  For example, the "Would you prefer...?" activity asks a series of questions such as "Would you prefer to go for a walk or play a game this afternoon?  What are reasons you would want to walk and reasons you would want to play a game?"  Another activity has the child close his or her eyes and focus on what is the hand.  The child is to guess what it is and describe how it feels.  Some of the items could be flour, vegetable oil, ice, and pine cones. 

This book is excellent for teaching children to develop life skills which include thinking and making choices.  Learning  through the series of tools at an early age paves the road for being able to make decisions based on their learned thinking skills as an adult. Stretching and expanding the brain is crucial and Dr. Fisk certainly gives the tools to help the child do so.

Reviewed on 12/14/2010 by ReviewTheBook.com Member Irene Watson