“If you want your children to be brilliant, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more brilliant, read them more fairy tales.”
Albert Einstein
STORY TELLING VS TELEVISION
‘One of the foundations of play is story telling. Story telling stimulates imagination in the young child. The symbols presented in story telling are the foundations for later conceptualization and creativity and the repetition of stories creates and myelinates neural pathways throughout the brain. This is why young children will ask for stories over and over again. Without these neural pathways, higher learning cannot take place. The outside stimulus (stories) creates an internal response in the child in the form of imagination.
In contrast, television feeds both the stimulus and response into the child’s brain, as a single paired-effect. Television floods the brain with a counterfeit of the response the brain is supposed to learn to make when exposed to the stimuli of words or music. Neural pathways are laid only superficially (on top of the brain), and fewer higher areas of the brain are developed. With television, the creative response is done for the child, and no output of energy is required of the brain. Critical thinking is stunted, and children learn to sense only what is immediately bombarding their physical system. With continual stimulation, children may become restless and ill-at-ease without the bombardment, which is often mistaken for hyperactivity or oppositional-defiant behavior.
SOURCE: Evolution’s End: Claiming the Potential of Our Intelligence- Joseph Chilton Pearce
THE BRAIN
The brain is divided into three major parts. The first to develop is the brainstem, and all information and stimuli we experience in life must pass through the brainstem before reaching other areas of the brain.
PICTURE SOURCE: image of the triune brain - Bing images
Babies are born with their brainstems intact. When hungry, tired, or cold, the brainstem releases stress hormones that alert the body that something is wrong. The baby cries in response to the discomfort. Once the need is met, stress hormones return to normal levels and the baby relaxes.
Starting from birth, children develop brain connections through everyday experiences with their parents and caregivers and by using their senses to interact with the world. A young child’s daily experiences determine which brain connections develop and which will last for a lifetime. The amount and quality of care, stimulation, and interaction they receive in their early years makes all the difference. Brain development builds on itself, as connections eventually link with each other in more complex ways. This enables the child to move and speak and think in more complex ways.
The early years are the best opportunity for a child’s brain to develop the connections they need to be healthy, capable, successful adults. The connections needed for many important, higher-level abilities like motivation, self-regulation, problem solving, and communication are formed in these early years – or not formed. It’s much harder for these essential brain connections to be formed later in life. SOURCE: Brain Development - First Things First
TRAUMA and THE BRAIN
When needs are not consistently met, or when intense, prolonged, or repeated stress and trauma is experienced, the baby-child will remain in a heightened state of hypervigilance.
Every experience that even remotely resembles past trauma will be felt as unsafe as it passes through the brainstem and stimulate the stress response in the infant-child. Often, the stimulus stays in the brainstem, and the child experiences the ‘fight or flight response’ and is unable to process the experience in the higher areas of the brain. The new experience may not be threatening at all, but because it feels the same, the body perceives the experience as a threat and will mobilize into survival mode.
Adverse Childhood Experiences
Children who experience more positive interactions in their early years are normally healthier and more successful in school and in life. However, the opposite is true as well. Poverty,
exposure to trauma or family violence and lack of access to quality early learning experiences can have a detrimental effect on a child’s early brain development, which can inhibit their long-term success.
BALANCING THE BRAIN
Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT)
HOW THE BRAIN WORKS
Stress, Trauma, and the Brain: Insights for Educators-
The Neurosequential Model- Dr. Bruce Perry
Brain Regulating Activities
Cooks’ Hook Up
Cooks’ Hook Up is an amazing and versatile tool which can help you reset after an emotional wobble or upset or realign your energy system. It’s even able to protect you from external energy sources. By using your body and moving it into a specific position, it really can make all the difference.
It can be done any time of the day – sitting, standing, or lying down.
Try it first by sitting down. You cross one ankle over the other. Left or right, it doesn’t matter. Then place your hands together, crossing them so your palms are facing. Interlock your fingers and either loop your hands back to your chest area or let your hands rest on your lap.
Using your body this way, creates a figure of eight: the symbol of infinity. Once you have had a go at the seated one, try it standing up. It is always worthwhile experimenting with this. It’s quick and easy to do wherever you are.
In a sitting position cross your ankles.
Extend your arms in front of you with the back of your hands touching and palms facing out.
Cross your right wrist on top of your left and interlace your fingers. It’s fine if you prefer the left over the right for comfort.
Draw your clasped hands up toward your chest.
Hold this position for a minute or more, breathing slowly, with your eyes closed and the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth when you inhale. Focus on relaxing.
· Hold this position until you give a natural yawn, sigh, or a deep breath occurs.
· Uncross your arms and legs.
· Put your feet flat on the floor and touch your fingertips together in front of your chest.
· Hold this position for another minute with your eyes closed, tongue on the roof of your mouth as you inhale and breathing deeply.
THER RESOURCES:
· Cook’s Hook Up
· Brain Gym Hook Ups
· Brain Synchronization | "This Will Activate 100% Of Your Brain" - Dr. Bruce Lipton
Recognizing and Healing from Trauma
Darren Magee shares clear, therapeutic approaches to recognizing beliefs and learned behaviors (coping mechanisms) that keep us in dysfunctional relationships and cycles of abuse
Positive Relationship Approaches Playlists can be found on our
HOPE JOURNEYS YouTube Channel
www.smoothtransitions4teens.com
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