Help Your Child Think Better
8 Reasons Why Mind Mapping is So Powerful and 10 Tips for Making It Work
What do dandelions, sailboats, and parachutes have in common? Or hexagons and nector? If you guessed wind and bees, you’d be right.
Mind mapping.
Through it, you can see the connections between a central idea—for example, BEES—the words in the hexagons, and the ideas they represent.
It’s a powerful learning tool you can use with your kids to encourage creative thinking, improve memory, develop problem-solving, collaboration, and communication skills, and promote self-directed learning.
All from relating dandelions and sailboats?
Yes, absolutely. Here’s how.
The Basics of Mind Mapping
Mind mapping, popularized by Tony Buzan in "Mind Maps for Kids," revolves around a central word or concept, adding branches to visually organize, and connect related ideas. Buzan emphasizes its non-linear nature, offering a holistic understanding of subjects through visual connections.
Mind Mapping for Young Kids
Younger children are often considered visual learners. Kids naturally love pictures, colors, art - anything they can see. They may not have the vocabulary and reading skills of older students yet. So the visual nature of mind mapping is especially useful.
Connecting ideas with a visual format of a map, but also with drawings or pictures helps make connections between relatable things kids already know about or have an interest in, and more abstract ideas.
1-The Significance of Visual Learning
The visual process of mind mapping mirrors the brain's innate preference for visual-spatial representation over linear outlining.
Imagine your child is learning about winter weather and the properties of frozen water (think ice, snow, hail, frost). While images of snow and ice and winter storms might be exciting and capture your child’s interest, a longer explanation about the properties of ice or snow is likely to be met with yawns.
Now imagine, handing your kid a big piece of blank paper and crayons or colored pencils. And having them draw a picture of snow and ice—anything that comes to mind—in the middle of the paper.
Next challenge them to think of as many related ideas as possible.
Things they might think of:
Snowflakes
Penguins
Polar bears
Icebergs
Snowball fights
Icicles
The North Pole
Slushie drinks
Glaciers
It’s a pretty big range of topics and ideas. Your kid will likely have lots of ideas to add too. They can start adding each of their ideas anywhere on the paper as a word or drawing or both, then drawing a connecting line from the central idea of ‘snow and ice’ out to each of the related ideas.
It creates a radial web—a mind map—of related ideas that your child can see to understand the connections.
2-The Importance of Non-Linear Thinking
By creating their mind map stemming from the central idea of frozen water, your child is making connections across all kinds of ideas that have some relation to ice or snow. It doesn’t matter how loosely connected the ideas are, the point is they are connected, and your child saw the connection.
Instead of glazed-over eyes, you might be met with curiosity. They’re tapping into their own powers of creativity, and innovation. They are making pathways in their mind and generating questions about the relationships. A slushie and an iceberg have a connection. Penguins and snowflakes. Ice skating and icebergs.
Ice skating and icebergs? What could they have in common other than just ice? This will lead to the process of exploration—something you can do with your child.
3-The Value of PLAY
Non-linear thinking encourages kids to stretch their imaginations across subjects that we might otherwise keep compartmentalized in separate ‘boxes.’ Geography, math, science, stories, food, weather, their favorite toy—once kids start chasing connections in a non-linear way, they see relationships, even across wildly disparate ideas.
Non-linear thinking puts the emphasis back on ‘play.’ And it is when we are playing and having fun that our minds become elastic and we tap into our imagination and powers of innovation.
Think about inventors, innovators, engineers, writers, entrepreneurs—we expect them to dream big, think outside the box, make connections across topics, and develop new products and ways of doing things.
When we encourage our kids to ‘play’ mind mapping games, we are encouraging them to develop the type of creative thinking skills to ‘dream wide’ and see relationships that will help them think better.
4-Engaging Kids’ Imaginations.
Pictures and visual representations allow kids to make connections between abstract concepts and real-world examples.
For example, maybe your child has included an iceberg in their mind map, or ice cubes in a glass of water. The abstract concept that connects these two things is density (the density of ice is less than water, allowing it to float). Your child may or may not understand the science. But they’ve made a link, even if it is intuitive rather than objective, between something very relatable—ice in a glass of water—and something less familiar—an iceberg.
By making connections (maybe with a hint of encouragement) kids start to ask questions about what these two things have in common. And then ask—WHY?
The important point is that they are making connections. And asking questions.
5-Mind Mapping Improves Memory and Retention
The visual aspect of mind mapping creates an anchor and helps kids more easily connect new knowledge to things they already know about, and are interested in. Every time they can connect concepts, they form neural pathways and an interconnected web of ideas.
Even if you only explore a few of the ideas your child generates on their mind map, the fact that they’ve created one will have a lasting effect.
The next time they’re out playing in the snow, they may think about penguins in the South Pole. They may remember that penguins' backs are black and absorb more heat from the sun. That might lead to thinking about the color of their jacket, or wondering about other colors and which absorb more heat… or why snow is white …
The next time they put an ice cube in their glass, they might think about the fact that it floats, which may lead them to think about an iceberg, which may trigger thoughts about skating on a lake and the fact that the ice is on top of the lake…. Who knows—the possibilities are endless.
As kids get more practiced at mind mapping, they get more skilled at anchoring new information to things they already know.
The relationships they form help them remember topics more easily and retain new information more quickly.
Kids also learn to see more relationships between their own life experiences and things they are learning ‘in school.’ Any time your child learns something new, the more it is anchored to something familiar or a life experience they have had, the stronger ‘place’ it has in their internal learning web and is easier for them to recall.
6-Developing Organizational and Communication Skills
While your kid’s mind maps might look like abstract art, they are developing organizational skills through the process of making the maps.
Let’s return to our ‘frozen water’ topic. Penguins is one of the ideas we listed. Next, we take penguins as the central idea and develop a new map.
The penguin map might include:
Antarctica
Fish
Antifreeze in fish near the South Pole
Penguin habitats
Penguins in zoos
Animals in the South and North Poles
Penguin characters in stories
Each idea can be a new central concept and the starting point of a new mindmap. It can become a new map full of ideas that generate a new web of curiosity.
The ideas relating to penguins will overlap with those relating to snow, but will also have a unique set of connections. The process of making the map is a process of creating an organizational structure.
We could keep going, building new maps and discovering more and more interconnectedness across ideas. Your child’s maps might spread across the table or floor and spark more and more ideas.
With each map, your child will be developing their ability to organize their thoughts and identify relationships. As they express the connections they are discovering, they will be developing their powers of communication as well.
7-Fostering Collaboration and Problem-Solving
As kids grow older, they can also use mind mapping in collaborative projects. The visual nature allows kids (and adults) to share ideas easily, even when they shift from picture-focused maps to word-based maps.
Mind maps can serve as a quick reference during projects, enabling kids to express complex ideas succinctly and clearly to others.
8-Empowering Self-Directed Learning
When kids create their own mind maps, they are taking an active role in their learning. They are teaching themselves how to learn, how to form connections, to believe in their ideas, and ask questions, and pursue ideas.
Holistic Understanding
Non-linear thinking encourages a holistic understanding of a topic. Instead of viewing topics in isolation, kids learn to recognize the interconnectedness of ideas and concepts, which helps promote a deeper and more comprehensive grasp of information.
Complex Problem-Solving
Non-linear thinking helps kids approach problems from multiple angles. This is an advantage in all types of projects, from solving real-life problems to games, and project-based learning, and is essential for tackling complex issues, as it allows for more innovative and effective solutions.
Adaptability
The world is dynamic and constantly changing. Non-linear thinking teaches kids to adapt to evolving situations by promoting flexibility in their thought processes. This adaptability is a crucial life skill for navigating life into adulthood.
Innovation
Non-linear thinking lays the foundation for innovation by promoting a mindset that questions traditional norms and seeks novel approaches to challenges.
By tapping into visual learning and non-linear thinking, mind maps boost creativity and most importantly, engage your child’s curiosity to explore and learn independently.
Practical Tips for Teaching Mind Mapping
Here are a few strategies to incorporate mind mapping into your child’s activities. The goal is to make starting mind mapping easy and fun while providing scaffolding for increasing complexity over time.
Start simple. Begin with basic maps about your child's interests like friends, hobbies, or favorite animals or foods. Things that are relevant to your kid. This makes it fun and maintains focus. Try different art supplies like colored pencils, markers, or stickers to spark creativity.
For younger kids, start with visual representations. Ask them to draw pictures of each idea in the style of a mind map and draw connecting lines out from the central concept. Gradually add more words along with the images.
Pick a key central idea. Help your child identify the core concept — their ‘home base.’ This anchors the mind map and makes it relatable.
Don’t worry if your child doesn’t have lots of ideas right away. Ask open-ended questions that might spark their imaginations. If they need help getting started, ask them leading questions. But resist the urge to do the thinking for your child! Let them struggle a bit if they can’t think of ideas right away. Keep trying leading questions…”What about X? Remember when we saw Y?”
Make unexpected connections. Ask them ‘what if…’ questions that might sound crazy at first but get them thinking about even far-fetched connections … like what do a sailboat and a dandelion have in common?
Work on your own mind map as a way of modeling the process. Try setting it up as a challenge and doing your own alongside your kid.
Integrate Mind Mapping into Everyday Activities. Incorporate mind maps into assignments, projects, or playtime and map out stories, characters, and crazy questions.
Use mind mapping with any topic—fun topics AND with ones your kid might not like so much. It is especially helpful with subjects like math and science as a way of helping kids make real-world connections to abstract ideas.
Make it relatable, even if it is math! Take math functions like adding, subtracting, and multiplication for example. Introduce a simple word problem that requires one or more of these functions. Like having three chocolate bars that need to be divided among four kids. If your kid draws an image of this and then starts mind-mapping related ideas they may think along the lines of other yummy foods that could be shared among four kids, other ways to divide the chocolate bars, etc. Suddenly an abstract concept has real-world relevance, and a visual impact and empowers kids to think of how else they can apply the idea.
Use mind mapping for projects. Start off the project with the core idea and take a day to let your child mind map all their thoughts connected to the project theme. This increases their connection to the project, piques their curiosity, and gets them thinking about what they might want to learn from the project.
Happy Mapping!
Mind mapping goes a long way to empowering your kid and giving them a sense of agency over their learning. Especially if you take the time to ask them about their mind map and engage them in an open-ended conversation about their ideas and how they see them as relating to each other.
Talk soon,
Shari