As adults, we know our memories can diminish as we get older. But children also can have difficulties with their memories. Children need to have excellent recollection, particularly in their classroom activities. Information from classroom tasks and homework assignments needs to be recalled at any given moment, especially during testing. The good news about memory in children is that there are strategies they can implement that will help to improve memory. Top teachers in New Jersey like Shari Duddy recommend employing a few of the following strategies that can help to improve your child’s memory and boost their ability to remember important details.
Reduce the amount of TV
There have been a number of reliable studies that show children who watch too much television have poor memory skills. Watching excessive amounts of TV actually hampers brain activity, thereby resulting in poor academic performance. One of the main problems with a child who watches too much TV is that he or she often can become detached from the outside world. This acts to disengage the child from otherwise important connections with their world and those around them. Limit your child’s television time to an hour a day. Set the time to begin after their finish their homework, and enforce this rule daily without exception. If you schedule allotted TV-watching time, they’ll learn to limit the shows they watch to only those they care about most. Also try to encourage them to watch some educational programs in order to boost their memory skills. One of the (few?) good things about TV today is that many educational, informative programs are also entertaining. Try to choose one or two of these and encourage your child to watch. If you watch it together, it can be more fun for kids, especially since you can talk with them about what they just watched or even make a game out of it!
Good sleep schedule
Regular sleep habits are vital for a child’s well-being in so many areas of his or her life, including in their school work. Children who have poor and irregular sleep habits often have poor grades. Their school assignments and tests suffer because their memory skills are not as sharp as required. Parents should make proper sleep schedules for their children, and they need to enforce these regularly. Consistency is key when it comes to kids and sleep in order to promote a positive outlook, a healthy body, and a healthy mind. Make a sleep schedule and stick to it. Don’t allow children to stay up past bedtime, and see to it that they obey rules. The more you enforce a proper sleep schedule, the more your children’s memory skills will improve and so will their grades.
Proper diet
Poor diet can have a hugely negative impact on anyone’s memory, especially in the case of a child whose body is still growing. Proper nutrition is vital to a child’s memory. For, without the right amount of vitamins and minerals, their brains are not getting the nutrition they need to survive, let alone thrive. What your child puts into his or her body has a direct effect on what’s going on in the brain. Be sure they eat a balanced diet every day that is low in processed foods and refined sugars, and high in nutritional value. Some foods that are excellent for brains include:
Fruits and vegetables:
Apples, strawberries, blueberries, melons, lemons, limes, and oranges.
Dairy products:
Cheese including cottage cheese, milk, and yogurt.
Proteins;
Eggs lean chicken, lean beef, salmon, mackerel, and sardines.
It’s important to note that some children’s memory issues may be caused by medical conditions. Some injuries or genetic disorders can cause loss of short-term memory and negatively impact other memory skills in children. Head injuries, convulsions, brain infections, and even stroke all can be factors in a child’s difficulties with remembering things. In this case, proper diagnosis and treatment are vital. For children whose memory skills can be improved with the above techniques, Shari Duddy and other top teachers in New Jersey recommend employing one or more of these in order to boost a child’s memory.