Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from April, 2013

Dealing with an Angry Child: Being the Change you Want to See

Are you a parent of a child who fly's off the handle easily? Have you been making unprofitable attempts to modify your child's behavior? Try a back-door approach next time. Put on a mindset of "small beginnings." Introduce some new activities, like meditation (start at 10 seconds if that is what they can endure  (with a sleep mask to keep their eyes closed, and you holding their hand in a comforting way) Other Executive Function/ brain balancing activities and sports to put into your arsenal are  ping pong, role-playing, yoga, tennis, swimming, paddleboarding, hiking, or working with coaching cards (parentcoachcards.com). Likewise, introducing acceleration interval training (30 seconds speed burst, 1minute rest, repeat 8x's), and chess, teaches kids social skills, and refines their frontal lobe self-management activities. Through the context of these very engaging activities, parents and coaches directly facilitate executive function skill development, but...

Coaching Tip 4 Parents: Preempting the End of the Honeymoon Phase

What do you do after the adrenaline wears off? The honeymoon phase with the new coach, or new parent program loses its initial novel appeal? This chapter deals with foresight. How do we anticipate and predict success, failure, and setbacks, before they happen? As a coach, it is part of my job to anticipate, and predict possible gains, identify possible shortcomings, and factor those into my own expectations of my student. This helps everyone manage their idea of when they can start seeing visible results, what these results will look like, and what kind of possible setbacks they can expect. In laymanā€™s terms, forecasting the future allows the coach to help regulate emotions, which are held in check to a great degree as the learning process, and rapport establishment unfolds. Expectation setting can also be viewed as an agreement. On the one hand, the parent, coach, Teacher is saying that they will facilitate the production of a certain result by a given timeframe, whereas the...

Preventing the next Newtown from Happening

Many by now have thought long and hard about what it will take to drastically diminish, or cold-stop these 'wild, shoot everyone in sight' sprees. It seems like a monumental task. We are over 300,000,000 strong in America. How can we bring coherent impact to solving this dilemma? I believe that much of what I have to say below has already been said. So in essence, I am joining the ranks of civic-minded citizens, educators, and mental health professionals, when I say that we must change: Family: Put a strong focus on strengthening the family unit in America. Teaching executive function skill developmen t early on. Make it a national priority! Personalize educational instruction to students, in order to maximize repetitive successful outcomes over time. Quiet the mind: Make it a law that all schools must teach and make time for quiet time meditation 2x's per day at school. Get Olympic-style serious about physical education programs in public schools. Pass a law a...

Roughhousing Increases Emotional Intelligence

Do you roughhouse with your child? Far from having to perform the suplex wrestling maneuver on your kid, (or your spouse), roughhousing is a practical way to sustain, and build emotional intelligence, and executive function skills, including metacognition in children. Unfortunately, many a times, especially in single parent households, roughhousing is an activity that can be easily forgotten. Parents can become too focused on work, schedules, and the routines of the day. Even so, 10 minutes a day of this can make most kids start the day supercharged and happy. This activity increases kids behavior modulation, self control, creative play, and provides kids with an opportunity to physically interact with their parents in a way that is self-regulating for them. Their faces light up. They love to do this with Mommy and Daddy. It brings parents to the floor, a level kids are very comfortable with, and it allows children to even vent out energy in a positive way.  Roughhousing ev...

Metacognition Development in Persons with Autism

As an Executive Function Skills Coach who works with individuals with Learning Disabilities, Executive Function skill deficits, or with Autism Spectrum Disorder, I am constantly on the lookout on refining and adding to my metacognitive tool chest. These are tools which can help facilitate shifts in attitude, mindset, and/ or perspective.  To illustrate this point, consider a cruise ship. It is exceedingly long, tall, and wide, and yet, a large ship is moved by a small rudder. It is with this instructional outcome perspective that I employ metacognitive tools, and strategies, in order to foster 'thinking about thinking skills.' Five tremendously effective ways to build metacognition are: Role-Playing using 'thinking side/ reacting side' versions to the same situation Creating visual story books whereby pertinent scenarios are played out using 'thinking side/ reacting side' versions. Walking/ Sitting with the child/ adult and having a dialogue about how t...

Activities for Father's to do With their Children

Dear Fathers, More than ever, it is apparent that our function in society is much needed. Although Mom's are indespensible, Father's are important too. Many are doing their job, but it is easy to slack, or hide behind work. There needs to be a balance between our provider role, and our affectionate Daddy role. Dad's are pivotal in many ways. They provide the context by which daughters shape up prospective husbands, and for good or bad, how to deal with a variety of situations. Our imprint, is there at all times, be it from our pro-active involvement, or our lack thereof. If you feel that your not doing as much as you should, and we all feel that, then get your ass in gear. Dad's job is not just to bring home the bacon, but to hit the ground running when he comes home from work. Or before work if you go to work later in the day, and to be fully invested in your children's lives...even if you are a single parent. Some activities you can do with your kids...

Autism Awareness: 625% rise in Autism by 2030 thanks to #vaccines

Autism is set to rise at least 625% by the year 2030. That is an astonishing piece of information. At that rate, who can be spared? Moreover, future generations who are not diagnosed as being on the Autism spectrum, well most certainly be diagnosed with other neurological disorders, including well-known ones, such as AD/HD. Is this ok with us as a nation? Are we okedoke, artichoke with this scenario? Must we watch like a 'dear in the headlights' as the number of neurological disorder rates climb through the roof, out to space, and around the sun? Who will be left to manage affairs? What are the major problems are that leading to neurological disorder? It is what we are consuming in our bodies: Plastics Harmful ingredients in vaccines, as well as overvaccination aluminum formaldehyde mercury Food filled with pesticides/ herbicides genetically-modified chemtrails release aluminum, barium, lead, calcium, magnesium in the air from government planes that ar...

Changing our Minds: Metacognition and Motivation

Do you feel unproductive in the mornings, even though you have a great deal of work to do? Is it hard to laser-focus on what is most important? How does that impact your sense of accomplishment? What about your sense of self-worth? Metacogniton, or awareness of one's on thinking, is pivotal for a person to be able to modify thinking and behavior patterns. The desire for positive change may be there, but the habituated thinking and doing patterns that pervade everyday life may be very strong, hence, the individual may feel stuck. Well, perception is stronger than reality. A problem may appear big, especially if you focus on its problematic characteristics in detail. This unproductive focus can derail motivation, desire, and leave one feeling dejected. It can actually stall forward-momentum, and 'arrest' potential talent keeping it locked up in your mind to gather mothballs. What is worse is that over time, derailed attempts gather steam, much like a runawa...