1920, two wolf children were found in the northeast mountain of Kolkata, India, that is, children raised by wolves since childhood. Both wolf children are women. The older one was found to be about 8 years old, and was later named kamala. The younger one is about 2 years old and his name is Amara. After people took them out of the wolf's den, they were sent to an orphanage, and Pastor Singh took good care of them and educated them. Kamala lived to the age of 17, and Amara died the next year. Although Pastor Singh has been educating kamala 10 years, kamala just got rid of some wolf habits, learned to dress and walk upright, learned some simple mathematical concepts and said some simple words. Although people spent a lot of energy, kamala's thinking level at the age of 17 can only reach the level of normal children aged 3-5.

Why is this happening? The reason is that the development of thinking ability has a critical period. The so-called critical period means that at a certain stage of human development, certain behaviors will only appear when appropriate environmental stimuli are given, and if there is no appropriate environmental stimuli during this period, such behaviors will no longer appear or be difficult to appear. For example, it is suggested that any child before the age of 8, no matter where in the world, can learn the language of that country smoothly. It is very difficult to master the language when you go to other countries after the age of 8. Therefore, before the age of 8, it is a critical period for language development.

The development of anyone's thinking ability has stages. The development of children's thinking has gone through a very complicated and long process, from low to high, from imperfect to perfect.

After a lot of observation and experiments, the famous Swiss child psychologist put forward the theory of four stages of thinking development:

1. Sensory motor stage (from birth to about 2 years old)

At this stage, children mainly explore the world and think through sensory actions, which is the embryonic stage of children's thinking. For example, a child holding a wooden stick in his leg can think by riding a wooden horse. When a child carries a wooden stick on his shoulder or chest, he thinks of "carrying the gun of the People's Liberation Army"; When a child plays with a stick in his hand, it becomes the Monkey King's golden hoop. When the child throws away the stick, his thinking is over.

2. Preoperative stage (about 2 ~ 7 years old)

At this stage, due to the appearance and development of children's language, children begin to think in images with concrete things. Children think more about themselves. For example, a child thinks it is too lonely to play alone. When he sees a swallow flying by, he will stop the swallow and say, "Swallow, swallow, come down and play with the baby!" " "At this stage, children can't separate themselves from other things, just think about themselves.

3. Specific operation stage (about 7 ~ 12 years old)

This stage is the initial logical thinking stage of children. Children at this stage can't do without taking concrete image things as the object of thinking. The content of their thinking cannot form a complete and structured system, so it is only a preliminary logical thinking stage. Primary school students' thinking belongs to this stage.

4. Formal operation stage (about 12 ~ 15 years old)

This stage is also called abstract logical thinking stage. This is a kind of thinking form that is close to adult thinking and basically mature. This form of thinking can separate form and content in the mind, and can leave specific things.

Primary school students' thinking is mainly figurative thinking, and gradually transits to abstract logical thinking. Therefore, in this critical period of transformation, it is very necessary for parents to train and guide their children's thinking correctly.

It is generally believed that this critical age is about 10 ~ 1 1 year (fourth grade). Of course, this critical age is also variable and plastic. If properly educated, the critical period of primary school students may be advanced, which may occur in the third grade of primary school; If the education is improper and there are no suitable educational conditions, this critical age may be postponed to the fifth grade.

For example, Professor Lin Chongde, a child psychologist in China, found in the research on the development of primary school students' mathematical generalization ability and arithmetic ability that under the general education conditions, the development of fourth-grade primary school students' mathematical generalization ability changed significantly (10 ~ 1 1 year). This is a turning point for primary school students to master the concept of number, from concrete image generalization to abstract logic generalization. This is a leap period of primary school students' mathematical generalization ability. Emphasizing this critical age requires parents and teachers to adapt to the leap period of primary school students' psychological development and give appropriate education. When this turning point occurs depends mainly on how to educate children. Take primary school students' thinking training as an example. By the second semester of grade three, after many tests of thinking development level, the average is 86? 7% of primary school students have reached the advanced level of mathematical operation thinking in primary schools. In this way, the trained students have achieved a leap in digital generalization ability in the third grade. At the same time, some students were experimented. Due to improper teaching, only 75% of students reached the advanced level of mathematical operation thinking in primary school in grade five.

All these show that the critical age of primary school thinking development is flexible and can be advanced, postponed, accelerated or slowed down. As long as there are good training methods, the key age of primary school students' thinking development can be advanced to the third grade, which means that primary school students have great potential for thinking development.

Knowing the critical period of children's intellectual development, mastering the critical period and effectively grasping the critical period are something that every parent can't ignore.