If your child has problems with screen times, set your devices to black and white to reduce visual stimulation. To adults looking at text, it makes no difference, but to a child hooked on flashing colors, they'll get bored and want to do something else.

In every education one start with the basics: the basics for a six month old child are "how to use my senses to get information, how to use my body to express/reach my aims" and start the basics for later "how to use language to communicate more effectively than with hand and feed only". Because without communication skills, how should your child understand and learn, what you want to teach her? :)

The main problem with videos in this age is: videos are visual/sound only, they lack of information about texture, smell, 3D image and so on. Our adult brains remember the "original" items, we see in video. But if your child have not seen/smelled/tasted the original until now, the child misses a lots of information

The nature of the question worries me. I think there is much greater benefit to be find in first focusing on safe emotional development, then later focusing on academic interests if that is the child's wish. Your relationship with the child and the child's relationship with the world will have a bigger impact on their happiness and success than any IQ Number...

Obligatory warning: while plenty of interventions show improvement in e.g. test scores in childhood there are essentially no interventions where the effects persist reliably into adulthood.

play games. i played memory and puzzles with my son when he was 2+

This question implies a very questionable moral. This child is not a means for his/her parents, he/she is self owning and a purpose in her-/himself. There are strong circumstantial evidence that high IQ doesn't make someone happy in life. For example some research shows that slightly below 120 is ideal for a manager, because then they don't get bored and annoyed by slow thinking employees while they still can challenge high IQ employees.

You shouldn't conflate IQ with intelligence. IQ is just how well you can perform a particular test. Training your child for that test is probably not what you actually want. Focus on the traits you're interested in and are good for your child. Curiosity is a great one - something many children have innately already.

If possible then ask your parents what they did to ensure your intelligence and high IQ.

The IQ tests measure one kind of ability in people. My measured IQ is somewhere between a chair and a fly and I got a PhD in physics. But I cannot draw. But I play volleyball. When I sing it rains. I played in theater, but I have problems with small groups of people. And so on. Everyone is different and the worst measure for "intelligence" is a random number.

Happiness is a far better measure of your success as a parent. A clean, supportive environment, where you are positive and understanding, and social development are things that are far more important for development in a child than trying to teach facts. Over bearing parents that expect the highest outcomes from their kids usually ends up damaging their relationship and back fires.

@d-b Why do you value happiness over intelligence? It seems that you and other commenters are trying to impose your priorities, world view, and personal measures of success over OP's. I find this scrutiny and questioning of the premises questionable, and I am surprised that it gets condoned on this SE.

@anonymous Because the OP seems to think he owns the child and have the moral right to shape that childs future, specifically in a way that favours the OP or the OP think is interesting. That is completely disgusting.

@speciesUnknown You are wrong. IQ is at least 80 % genetic nature.com/articles/ng.3869

@d-b Not only is it OP's moral right to shape the childs future; it is their inevitable duty to do so. OP is responsible for the future of the child, and IQ is a strong indicator of happiness and success in life. Not agreeing with OP's premise, but it's not at all an unreasonable question.

@d-b high IQ doesn't make you happy per se, but high IQ correlates with high income and money generally makes people happier in life. Unless OP is extremely rich and can provide a trust fund to support their kids forever, their child is better off being smarter.

@JonathanReez your premise that high income and money generally makes people happier doesn't seem to have any scientific basis. I believe most data points to the opposite conclusion.

High IQ is not something that can be trained. You can train people to do well in IQ tests by giving them practice but their actual IQ will depend on genetics. High IQ does not correlate with happiness. "Doing" something to your child sounds more like torture than a benefit.

@Servaes you and others have kind of focused on d-b, perhaps because he outright stated 'questionable moral'. I'd like to take a step back and say, this is a comments section and in the context of parenting comments should have more lee-way than in stack-overflow for instance. My experience as a parent and my educational and teaching background both give me credit to at the minimum suggest to a seemingly new parent that there may be different and potentially better ways to view any given parental situation. We all learn as we go. As for me I have no ill will towards op and wish them best

@AdamHeeg there is (read the full article, not just the title which can be a bit misleading)

@JonathanReez you should read their own analysis of the data at the end. The graph implied what you are saying is true, but in the Discussion area of the post there is a much more nuanced response including, " A recent psychological study using priming methods provided suggestive evidence of a possible association between high income and a reduced ability to savor small pleasures". Also it states $75k household income being the point where more money does not in fact create more happiness. :) I think you opened my eyes, but there is room for interpretation here.

@AdamHeeg even getting to 75k means you're in the top ~40% of earners in America. It's far from guaranteed in life.

buy some well rated child mind development books that guide you through every age... if you are not sure at 6 months, then you wont be sure later. you need a book.

@FedericoPoloni I suspect it is the inelegance of the English combined with the bragging is rubbing people the wrong way. For example, if a native English speaker worded things in the same way, it would come off rather crass.

@d-b Like it or not, in the current educational system, parents do "own" their child and have the moral right to shape their future, in practice. Anyhow, what makes you think that you know better than OP what is good or bad for their kid?

And, more importantly, is "happiness" an adequate measure of success? Consider: kid A lived a happy life, loved baking, had 2 kids, and died at 80. Kid B became a drug overlord, fcked btches, got money, and died peacefully in the bliss of a heroin OD at 20. Kid C raided the shores of England, died in battle, and now dines in Walhalla. Kid D was an academic prodigy, found a cure for cancer, was clinically depressed, and committed suicided at 35. Who is "more successful"? By what metric?

@FedericoPoloni The fact that I don't try to force feed a child my values. That is a false dichotomy, what matters is if they had a wide variety of options, and not had walked down a certain path that they had to walk back to arrive where they wanted to be, to pick among.

@Servaes No it is not. A lot of people think so - I'll give you that - but they are wrong and can't motivate it with a moral reasoning. Parents don't own their children, they have forced themselves upon them (probably to find meaning and purpose in life, or similar), without their consent. That means that the parents must back off, they have already transgressed morally acceptable limits.

@d-b Wow... I realy hope you're just some trolling 7 year old. All I can say is that I find that a deeply twisted view of family, almost to the point of disbelief. I don't think we'll agree on anything of substance. I'll certainly be disturbed for the rest of the day by the thought that you might have children (at some point).

@d-b "do what makes you happy" is a value, and you are suggesting to impose it over other possible choices.

@Servaes Please explain what your moral premises are that leads to the conclusion that you can "rule" over a child.

@FedericoPoloni No, the OP in this question wants to make himself happy and ignores the child's need. What if we could prove that life is a negative experience? Then having a child means that you hurt someone just to be happy yourself (which, BTW, is a mistake thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-22/edition-4/…)

@d-b I guess I am not explaining myself well. You are the one suggesting that "have them do what makes them happy" is a good rule to raise your kids on; is that correct? On the other hand, OP thinks that raising their kids to be intelligent is possibly more important. I am challenging your premise (and I am questioning your challenging of OP's different premise).

@d-b I never said that one can "rule" over ones child. Don't put words in my mouth.

@d-b that's... just one opinion. While I fully agree that parents must ensure the wellbeing of their child, they're not obligated to try and respect the "child's values" whatever that would be. Its perfectly fine to spend your entire parenting effort to guide your kid towards a certain career path

one famous example would be Prince William - I don't see many people berating his dad for trying to make him a prince rather than letting him explore and become a chiropractor instead if he so desired