Jigsaws

[squashpie]

My DS (6.5) has never been a great lover of jigsaws and I've never forced him to do any. The other day a school mum told me it was essential I encouraged him for brain development. Is this true? What benefits are there to jigsaws? I thought they were just for kids who liked that sort of challenge but if they are actually neurologically useful, then I might be more proactive on it!

I understood that jigsaws help with sequencing and therefore reading (ie: what comes next). One of my DD loves jigsaws and is an avid reader and the other can take them or leave them and is not such a keen reader. COuld be coincidence I guess. I have found the best jigsaws to be those produced by 'Horrible Science' or 'Horrible Histories', they keep me interested too!

I have two dds. One loves jigsaws, the other has never done them.

They just like different activities and we leave it at that. As long as children aren't sitting around watching tv, then everything they are doing is a learning activity.

I would go with your son's interests...

Oh, and the jigsaw hater is superb at drawing and good at reading.

The jigsaw lover is a little thug!

funny I noticed this thread as I've been a bit concerned my DD, while really good at most things a just-3y/o should be doing, she's not good at jigsaws! she loves them but we never did many of those lift out wooden ones when she was younger and we've got her a few proper ones for her birthday.

the thing is she gets really frustrated and even though she knows which way round the piece goes she can't quite get it right so it doesn't fit and she gets annoyed - totally unlike her in every other way, she has great gross/fine motor skills etc.

very odd. and I know, a totally PFB thing to worry over. any ideas though?

bump, just in case

DS was never keen on jigsaws, but is a very keen reader. I'm sure there are civilisations on earth which just don't have jigsaws, and I'm sure their childrens brains developed just fine without them. As long as children have opportunities to learn about matching, sorting, sequencing, etc, then it doesn't matter how they learnt those things.

MMM - DS also got frustrated by them, but as I say he had no problem picking up reading, and plays musical instruments, so I really don't think that not doing jigsaws is any sign of problems.

One things about jigsaws is learning to do them two handed ie. picking pieces and placing them with both hands is a great skill to learn, if you then become a surgeon you are likely to be more dextrose in surgery if you learn this. There is one medical school in the UK that asks prospective students to complete a puzzle at interview. Other skills you can pick up from toys your are more likely to be skilled with the gastro\endoscope if you play computer games due learning to watch screen and do things with hands without looking.