Various Intelligences Determine A Child’s Success
Chicago, IL — Child expert Dr. Kathy Koch believes that each child learns and studies in particular ways, based on their specific strengths and weaknesses. In 8 Great Smarts, an extensively expanded re-release of her 2007 book How Am I Smart?, Koch more thoroughly explores how children are specifically wired to learn. Changing the question every child asks from, “How smart am I?” to “How am I smart?” is very powerful. This allows all children to identify their particular intelligences, or smarts. Now, their brother isn’t the smart one. The kid in the front row isn’t the smart one. Everyone is smart!
She writes, “If some children believe others are smart and they’re not, they can give up. They lower their expectations for today and tomorrow. They may not accomplish what God intended them to. This is also true of adults. Language is powerful. Words matter.”
Based on research from Dr. Howard Gardner and viewed through the lens of the Bible, Dr. Kathy explains everyone is born with eight distinct intelligences. These smarts have to be awakened, but they’re there, built into each person at birth. The earlier they’re awakened, the better. God uses our nature (our genetic makeup) and nurture (experiences we have and attitudes surrounding us) to create us as He wants us to be.
Dr. Kathy says that nature and nurture together determine both which intelligences will interest your child and which will be strengths. “That’s where strengths always start—with interest. Some smarts will become strengths, some may not develop much at all, and some will plateau at a point in between. When you exhibit healthy and positive attitudes and provide a variety of interesting experiences for your child, you cooperate with God in the development of his or her smarts and full potential.”
Imagine everyone engaging in all of life and fulfilling their potential. Children who know how they are smart will more likely flourish and use their gifts for God and others.
An important resource for parents and teachers alike, 8 Great Smarts focuses on aspects of each of the eight smarts, asking questions that will help lead not only toward children’s God-given intelligences, but also toward their purpose and passion.
Highlights for readers include:
- Identify how your child can best learn and study
- Explore your child’s characteristic spiritual struggles and his or her ways of connecting to God
- Learn how you can awaken and nurture your child’s weaker intelligences
- Uncover how your behavior can paralyze your child’s smarts, and how to change
- Recognize how your child’s misbehavior may be connected to his or her strengths
- Discover creative teaching methods and potential careers that are ideal for each intelligence
- An interactive website will also be utilized with the release of the book to allow parents to identify their child’s smarts: www.8GreatSmarts.com.
ENDORSEMENTS
8 Great Smarts equips parents to discover the unique ways in which each child is smart. Dr. Kathy helps parents identify, nurture, and impact their children’s strengths so kids can understand themselves better and maximize their potential rather than being confined to a limited view of intelligence. Because we live in a culture that makes comparisons a part of life, it’s easy for kids to feel “dumb.” Dr. Kathy, however, leaves parents empowered to help kids understand how they are smart—all without an added tutor, activity, or class.
Marianne Miller, Author of The Gift of Enough: Raising Grateful Kids in a Culture of Excess
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As you read 8 Great Smarts, you are convinced that God Himself knitted together every child in his mother’s womb. You are also convinced that He did not design every child identically. Helping children today requires an understanding of how they differ in the way they receive and digest truth.
I do not know of anyone who speaks to that issue with more clarity and practicality than Dr. Kathy Koch. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know how to effectively present the Gospel to children and how to present Biblical truth in a way that makes them eager to learn and grow. Additionally, Kathy speaks out of vast experience. As a gifted servant of God, she has used the Scriptures and her experiences to teach her how to minister and train tender hearts.
Dr. Larry Moyer, Founder and CEO of EvanTell
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We recently had Dr. Kathy Koch speak to our moms ministry about 8 Great Smarts. This book opened my eyes to the miraculous ways God designed our brains to learn and has been incredibly helpful to me in relating to my family, including my young grandchildren, as well as co-workers and friends. I would strongly encourage everyone to read this book in order to understand how God made us uniquely different.
Jennine Ulibarri, Director of Women, La Casa de Cristo Lutheran Church
More endorsements available within the book.
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Dr. Kathy Koch is the Founder and President of Celebrate Kids, Inc., a Christian ministry based in Fort Worth, Texas. She is an internationally celebrated speaker who has influenced thousands of parents, teachers, and children in 30 countries through keynote messages, workshops, seminars, assemblies, and other events. She also blogs regularly at www.DrKathyKoch.com and is a popular guest on many radio talk shows. Previous books published include: Screens and Teens: Connecting with our Kids in a Wireless World, No More Perfect Kids: Love Your Kids For Who They Are (co-authored with Jill Savage), How Am I Smart? A Parent’s Guide to Multiple Intelligences, and Finding Authentic Hope and Wholeness: 5 Questions That Will Change Your Life. Dr. Kathy earned a Ph.D. in reading and educational psychology from Purdue University. She was a tenured associate professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, a teacher of second graders, a middle school coach, and a school board member prior to becoming a full-time conference and keynote speaker in 1991.
Moody Publishing, The vision of Moody Publishers is to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and a biblical worldview in such creative and powerful ways that individuals worldwide will live in increasing measure as His fully-devoted followers. Our mission is to educate and edify the Christian and to evangelize the non-Christian by ethically publishing conservative, evangelical Christian literature and other media for all ages around the world, and to help provide resources for Moody Bible Institute in its training of future Christian leaders.
