Problem Solving For Kids

Help Your Kid Become An Ace At Solving Problems With These Problem-Solving Activities And Games 

As children grow up they’ll be faced with several problems. These problems can be complicated, they’ll challenge the kids intellectually, physically and mentally and emotionally. Dealing with all of these can leave them feeling stressed and anxious. That’s why it’s important to equip children with problem solving skills. These problem solving skills will help the children deal with and tackle these problems without any stress or anxiety.

Teaching Problem-Solving For Kids

Problems aren’t something that only adults face. Kids have problems too, it could be a conflict over toys or candy, a math test or even negative peer pressure. As parents and educators, you can’t always be there to resolve conflicts and solve problems for them. A parent’s job is to raise a confident, independent, and successful individual, equipped with the right problem solving skills.

Young children often get frustrated and give up on things when they encounter an obstacle or a problem. With the right problem solving skills, kids learn to think creatively, and work persistently until they find a solution. This equips them with the tools to develop their cognitive abilities and face challenges without fear of failure. Here are some age-appropriate tips to teach problem solving for kids.

Problem Solving For Kids of 3 – 6 years

One of the most important parts of problem-solving for kids is emotion management. Often, when kids encounter challenges that frustrate them, they throw a tantrum. They won’t consider finding a logical solution to the problem in the middle of a tantrum. Teaching them to process and control their emotions helps them think and find a solution easily. 

Once they are calm, help them brainstorm solutions by asking leading questions. Once they learn this process, you’ll find that they tend to practice problem solving skills rather than throwing a tantrum.

Problem Solving For Kids of 6 – 9 years

By the time they are six years old, kids learn to control their emotions better. But they still can get frustrated when faced with challenges they cannot overcome. It’s a great idea to help kids find the root of the problem. This makes it less intimidating and helps them understand the problem, which makes it easier for them to solve the problem. 

Kids at this age are quick learners. Help them learn problem-solving skills using stories, creative play and activities. Teach them some problem solving strategies for kids by acting out scenarios.

Problem Solving For Kids of 9-11 years

Children at this age are better equipped to solve problems on their own. However, problems only get bigger as we grow older and their solutions become equally complex too. One great way to solve a difficult problem is to break it down into manageable steps or smaller chunks. 

For example, if your child has a low grade in history, find out why? Maybe they didn’t submit the assignments on time. So help them make a list of assignments and tackle them one by one.

Reading stories and crafting are great activities to instill problem solving skills in a child. Often, children tend to give up if they find a problem too challenging. The characters of a story and their trials and the end product of crafting teaches them to embrace the challenge and persevere until they finish. Here are some great ideas for crafts for kids to teach problem solving for kids.

Benefits of Performing Problem Solving For Kids:

• Problem-solving activities build self-confidence and self-esteem in a child
• Problem-solving games help children to develop a positive attitude towards life
• Problem solving for kids is necessary to build solid social and emotional skills in the kids
• These problem solving games and activities improve the child’s confidence, critical thinking skills, logical reasoning skills and perseverance.

Problem-Solving Activities And Puzzles For Kids:

• Introduce Problem Solving For Kids Using Rubix Cubes: Rubix cubes are one of the best ways to introduce your child to problem solving for kids. As they patiently align the multicolored blocks, children learn a few key problem-solving skills. Rubix cubes are square-shaped, 6 sided blocks with multicolored cubes. These blocks come in 3×3, 6×6, or 9×9 grids. Rubix cubes are available in stores and online. The cubes and different grids are twisted and turned in different directions to ensure all the colors are aligned. This can be a little challenging initially, but once your kid gets a hang of it, they can easily solve the Rubix cube in a couple of minutes. Solving Rubix cubes enhances the child’s brain activity and boosts their logical thinking skills. 
• Crossword Puzzles Are One Of The Best Problem Solving Activities for kids: Crossword puzzles are a brilliant vocabulary game that helps children improve their vocabulary skills along with problem-solving skills. Crossword puzzles are available in books, newspapers and online. These Word Search Puzzles for Kids contain square-shaped blocks that are horizontally and vertically aligned. Some of the blocks may be filled with letters while the rest of the blocks are empty. These puzzles are solved with the help of the hints that are given alongside the puzzle. Crossword puzzles for kids help children find the solution on their own to a particular problem by looking at the hints. 
• Jigsaw Puzzles To Help Children Learn Problem Solving In A Creative Way: Solving jigsaw puzzles are a very popular activity to build problem-solving skills in kids. These puzzles are available for kids of all age groups ranging from 3-12. Jigsaw puzzles contain several wooden or cardboard pieces along with a board and an image for reference. Kids should connect the puzzle pieces to create a replica of that reference image. Solving jigsaw puzzles is a fun and engaging activity to enhance your kid’s problem-solving skills. To make this activity more interesting and challenging, ask your child to solve the puzzle in a certain amount of time. This activity boosts the child’s critical thinking, logical reasoning skills and builds their patience.
• Learn Problem Solving By Navigating The Maze: Navigating or finding the best route through a maze is a wonderful game to stimulate your child’s brain. This game involves a maze with many routes to reach the destination. The child should navigate through the maze and find the best route to reach the destination. For example, the rabbit wants to eat the carrot but there is an impossible maze between the hungry rabbit and the carrot. Your kid must help the rabbit find the easiest and quickest route to his carrot. Children can use pencils or crayons to trace the route through the maze. Some of these routes might be blocked or have an obstruction. In such situations, they have to start all over again to find the best route.
  This activity can get frustrating at times, but it is one of the best ways to enhance your child’s problem-solving skills. Additionally, this problem solving activity helps boost the child’s logical thinking skills and build patience. It also teaches them to not give up and try again until they succeed.
• Teach  Problem Solving For Kids With Simple Coding Games: Coding for kids is a great tool to teach problem solving for kids. It is not just an activity meant for adults or older kids anymore, younger kids can learn the basics of coding too. Coding games are great tools that improve the child’s problem-solving skills. You can choose from the myriad simple coding games and activities available online for young kids to learn the basics of coding.
  These coding games for kids mostly involve the fundamentals of math, which also boosts their mathematical skills. Kids can also learn different computer languages like HTML, X, C++, Java, Python, etc. If your child is a computer geek, then look no further. Coding games are a great way to turn your kid into a computer whiz to improve their coding and problem solving skills.

Kids are taught to solve simple puzzles and games from a young age. These simple learning activities are great tools to build a solid foundation for problem-solving skills. Not only are they fun to play with, but they also teach children to find an optimum solution to a particular problem. These games and puzzles also help in enhancing their logical reasoning and critical thinking skills. These skills are necessary to build problem-solving skills in kids.

Problems are aplenty in our lives. From math problems to emotional problems, we all have them. The best thing we all can do is learn to tackle them efficiently so that they don’t affect us.

Osmo has a wide variety of activities for kids to do at home, games and worksheets for kids, alphabet coloring pages on several topics to aid in your kids learning – math activities for toddlers.

Frequently Asked Questions on Problem Solving For Kids