My mother is absolutely fascinated by puzzles. She always has at least two 1,000-piece puzzles going at any given time. She will sit there for hours methodically working the parts of the picture in to place and have it finished that day. Whereas I can sit there for hours and put two pieces together to create a blob of an indecipherable image.
Go figure. I was always more focused on playing and being rambunctious and could not contain my eager excitement for adventure long enough to focus on a puzzle where all the pieces looked the same to me. Yet, I wonder what would have happened had my mother found a way to make me more interested in them.
Imagination and creativity are prevailing tools for a childs growth. Puzzles are an excellent facet to showing your child how to tap in to their inventiveness. While they are learning to be ambitious and empathetic in other ways, they can learn problem solving, and how to strategize. Marlene Barron, head of West Side Montessori School in New York, did a study on children and the influence of puzzles. She found that when small children were given 100-300 piece puzzles, they were able to share strategies and finish the puzzles. They were inventive in discovering their strategies and were surprisingly concentrated on the task.
Playing with puzzles will help your child learn concentration and focus. It adds to the very round world of creativity. Equip your child with abilities. Arm them with the knowledge they are so very capable of acquiring.
