Raising a Child with an Analytical Thinking Preference: Thinking About the What
Raising a Child with an Analytical Thinking Preference:
Thinking About the What
Introduction
Introduction
For parents of children with analytical thinking-preferences are both a delightful and challenging experience. It’s delightful because you get the opportunity to watch your child think deeply, ask questions, and figure out solutions. But it can also be hard, especially when they are so focused on a task that they don’t respond to your requests or ignore you entirely. Let’s discuss what it takes to make the most of their thinking preference, and focus on the analytical learning style.
Knowing the thinking preference of your child is the key to discovering your and your child's most likely behaviour when it comes to learning, and it allows you to develop your child to his or her full potential.
Your and your child's thinking preferences will enable you to identify your thinking challenges from a different point to view. You will understand each other better and together you can work towards building a successful learning future, therefore, you will help them study exactly according to their needs. The significance of thinking preferences was discussed in a previous post, Become a Whole-Brain Parent. In addition to that, you will also discover that thinking preferences influence the manner in which your child constructs their learning environment. I provide a few examples of the analyst's learning style, as follows:
Analyst Learning Styles
Analyst Learning Styles
As a parent, it's important to understand your children's learning styles and how they process new information.
As I explained in my previous blog, Become a Whole-Brain Parent, if a child has a dominance for analytical thinking, he or she prefers facts and seeks explanations. They are realistic or rational, but let’s discuss the analytical function of the brain first, I will explain the realistic function of the brain in my next blog.
Analytical learning involves the use of logical analysis to process and understand new information. Analytical thinkers would want to know how things work, to understand the subject. This means that they would gather information by listening to the facts of the subject or conversation and recall the whole conversation by just remembering the facts.
To be a successful parent of an analytical-thinking child, we need to lay the foundation for our teaching, parenting, learning styles and other aspects of life. All the training role-players need to understand the meaning, impact and benefits of teaching and learning based on the learner’s thinking preference, which in this case is the analytical thinker.
Analytical thinking learners structure their learning experience as follows:
- They like to do research when studying,
- They prefer to deal with facts, figures and concrete issues are your favourite subjects,
- They are constantly jotting down notes as they dig deeper into information.
- They are always analysing the content,
- They do not accept all information at face value and can be critical of the plausibility of the learning content provided to them.
Children with analytical thinking dominancy may use the mind mapping learning method to study, by using facts as the keywords in their drawings.
Subject and Career Choices for Analytical Children
Subject and Career Choices for Analytical Children
- Accounting where children have to deal with business matters understanding supply and demand,
- Economics like working with financial ratios to make decisions about the organisations' financial performance,
- Sciences create or synthesize new substances like chemists or medical researchers to improve health,
- Technology like programming, and troubleshooting. Computer scientists use technology to solve problems and prepare for the future like writing programs and creating applications,
- Business Analyst define needs or gaps and recommend solutions to improve and organisation,
- Medical courses like general practitioners, surgeons,
- Market research blends buyer behaviour and economic trends to confirm and improve an organisation’s ideas,
- Wildlife science is the study of living organisms at all levels like animal physiology and biometrics
Children with analytical abilities have a natural tendency to excel in acquiring the most needed skills as defined by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Encourage Curiosity
Encourage Curiosity
Analytical children have a habit of asking the what questions to almost anything they see, hear or learn. This practice can be irritating to parents that do not have the same way of thinking. The interest children show by asking ‘what’ questions should be encouraged. Encourage them to ask questions and explore new topics. This will help them build confidence in their skill to figure things out on their own and be more self-determining learners.
Develop Problem-Solving Skills
Develop Problem-Solving Skills
Children who are analytical thinkers need opportunities to learn through self-reliant actions to develop problem-solving skills and foster independence. It's important to set realistic expectations for them but also give them independence as much as possible so that they can work through challenges and solve problems on their own. For example, give them the freedom to organise their room or figure out how to clean their room without giving them clues or details on how to do it. The more independence they have over their decisions, the more creative they will become, even as an analytical thinker.
Develop Critical Thinking Skills
Develop Critical Thinking Skills
Just like any other skill, analytical thinking needs practice for it to become a routine. Activities that need analytical thinking such as puzzles or riddles are great ways to develop these skills further while playing and having fun. Reading books with them about themes related to science or math as this will encourage their critical thinking skills.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Analytical thinking is a valuable skill that assists children to succeed both academically and socially throughout life. As parents of analytical children, we must allow for curiosity while developing independence and helping our children to study according to their thinking preferences. With the correct knowledge, support and guidance, our children will have successful lives full of achievements.