One year ago this month I wrote my first article for Ramblings of a Country Preacher. Since then it has been read in thirty five countries. I have written seventy-two articles covering the spectrum of history, advice, politics, religion and family. It has been an interesting year both in the world of religion and politics. I probably have been more political than I should have been but I just couldn’t let injustice go unanswered. Even though I understand it is the duty of the wicked to bring trouble to the righteous it doesn’t mean I must like it.
With that said let me change my ramblings to a subject that has been of interest to me--the brain.
Many years ago, two men were working at the same job on the outskirts of a European city. A stranger asked them, "What are you doing?" The first man replied, "I'm hauling rocks." The second man, enthusiastically replied, "I'm building a cathedral!"
Train up a child in the way he should go:
and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Prov,22:6
We are the products of our families, our culture, and our time-- and of these three, family has the strongest influence. My parents gave me more than they ever received. They both had a difficult time growing up in large families. My mother was the next to the youngest of thirteen and my father the fourth of twelve children. The primary focus in both families was survival; the primary value was work. My parents transmitted those values to me. With the best intentions they did all they could for their nine children.
Many people operate under the assumption that since parenting is a natural function we should know how to do it -- and do it well. The truth is, effective parenting requires study and practice like any other skilled profession. Who would even think of allowing an untrained brain surgeon loose in an operating room? Yet we "operate" on our children's brain every day. Unless you have studied developmental psychology and family systems, you learned to parent from your parents. Our parenting skills are much like our marriages, for better or worse. You were taught by the example your parents set: what they were you learned.
Today we are becoming more and more aware of the impact our choices have on our children's future. Both negative and positive experiences contribute to the development of our children.
Little children have wonderful memories. They are, by nature, very impressionable. It is these impressions that influence the development of their minds. Many children's minds our endangered because they are living in a chaotic home. You might ask, "Why do children need a peaceful home?" Researchers who study the social changes affecting children have found:
Forty-two percent of U.S. families with children start out with three strikes against them--they are: lack of education, lack of commitment, and lack of maturity. These three areas result in brain damage. Brain damage caused by bad experiences can increase the risk of developing a wide variety of ills. These include: aggression, language failure, depression, mental disorders, asthma, epilepsy, high blood pressure, immune-system dysfunction and diabetes
Let me add, this damage is not caused by a physical blow. It is caused by the improper wiring of the brain's neurons. Child stress research has found developmental experiences determine the capability of the brain to do things. If you don't change those developmental experiences you’re not going to change the hardware of the brain.
The things that are associated with giving a child the proper developmental experiences are: quality of home life, parent-child relationship, education of the parents and other relationships that provide some security for the child.
Researchers are using terms like enriched environment as the real brain food of children. In children the IQ's can be raised as much as 20 points by exposure to an enriched environment. The circuits controlling emotion are laid down before birth. Then the environment takes over.
Neurons that fire together, wire together. If a child's emotional responses are consistently mirrored, then the circuits for these emotions are reinforced. This is done by a chemical reaction in the brain.
Serotonin is the brain's master impulse modulator for all our emotions and drives. Serotonin keeps aggression in line. When serotonin levels fall, violence rises. When the levels are too high a person becomes fearful. Lowered levels don't compel you to be aggressive. It just permits you to be aggressive by lowering the threshold. That’s why is important to train your child. Training establishes set points of serotonin. These are learned levels.
Chemicals which allow brain cells to talk to each other are part of our physiology. Most people are born with a balance that allows them to act in a reasonable way. It is the environment which triggers serotonin and noradrenaline to cause an imbalance in people.
Noradrenaline is the alarm hormone which organizes the brain to respond to danger, producing chemical that prepare the body to fight or flee. Hot blooded people have high noradrenaline levels. Cold blooded people have low levels.
High levels of noradrenaline are an indicator of Post-traumatic stress disorder. As parent we are the influences on are children's development. At 20 months, babies whose mother talk with them daily knew 131 more words than mothers who did not talk with their child.
In the past people taught that the mastery of vocabulary was an innate capacity of the child. That's not true it has to be learned. The critical period for learning a spoken language is totally lost by about the age of ten. You can learn a second language later in life but it is highly unlikely you will speak with the correct accent of the language. The critical period for learning syntax is before age 3. Children speak much like their parents. They model the language and accents. Movement and muscle control is established by the age of 4. By the time a child is 3 year of age much of its behavior will be established.
The first few years of a child's development are critical to their emotional and spiritual behavior. If we are going to shape the direction of the world we must first shape the lives of our young children.
(Information came from a workshop I conducted on Understanding the Brain Development in Young Children)
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