Promoting Lateral Thinking

Michelle
July 6, 2011

With summer in full swing, opportunities abound for informal learning. Basic skills can be practiced, but the flexibility of summer also lends itself to nurturing your child's lateral thinking skills. Lateral thinking, a term coined by Edward de Bono in the 1960s, refers to indirect and creative problem solving.  Instead of using step-by-step logic, lateral thinking promotes solutions not readily apparent.

A quick Google search on lateral thinking yields a lot of brain teasers, many of which involve dead people (the reason for this is that a silent witness is key in many of these scenarios). While these type of lateral thinking activities may occupy an older child, they are not really appropriate for young children. Just like most skills, lateral thinking is best taught in a hands-on way. 

Building blocks: A set of wooden blocks or interlocking plastic blocks can keep children busy for days. Challenge your child to use the same set of blocks to build different types of structures. 

Puzzles: Puzzles promote many important skills, including lateral thinking. To promote lateral thinking, help your child put a jigsaw puzzle together without looking at the picture on the box first. Another option is to have your child create a puzzle by drawing a picture and cutting it up himself. Reassembly may not be as easy as he anticipates. 

Alternate use for toys: Some kids do this naturally. The garage becomes a base camp for toys other than cars, the doll clothes find themselves on stuffed animals, toys never meant for the tub find their way to the water. Encourage your child to explore other ways to use some of their favorite things. 

Create from household objects: Give your child a collection of household objects, such as wooden spoons, gift wrap tubes, empty boxes and empty containers and challenger him to create a new toy or tool. 

Imagining other ways to do things: When talking with your children, encourage them to come up with alternate solutions. This is fun to do while traveling. When crossing a bridge, pose the question, "How could we get across if the bridge was closed?" If cooking, ask questions like,"If we didn't have this big pot, how could we cook the soup?" Basically, questions to promote lateral thinking get your child thinking of alternate solutions. 

Lateral thinking is a skill that come in handy throughout life. Being able to think of alternate solutions is a life skill that will serve your child well not only in school work, but in real life as well.