Positive Parenting Article for Optimal Brain Enhancement

The information in this positive parenting article can contribute to your child's brain enhancement or development. This positive parenting article also shows you how to encourage your children to be happy, peaceful, creative thinking, and loving people who are able to make good decisions. Development of the frontal lobe of the brain is particularly important because it acts as a regulator for the more primitive emotional part of the brain. Think about a 2 year old - they often act from their emotions first without a strong ability to regulate those feelings.

The Inner Two-Year-Old

Not everyone gets too far from their inner 2 year old. Parenting articles are full of methods for controlling the impulsive behavior of children. The news is full of people who have not fully regulated their emotional impulses. The news reports may not seem too surprising since the average adult loses around 10,000 brain cells daily through deterioration or lack of use. Brain development works like training your muscles to stay built up. Use it or lose it. A child's brain develops in response to their genes as well as the input they receive from their environment. As a parent, you have the task of helping them learn to regulate their own behavior in loving ways. As you assist your child in making connections between their actions and feelings, you help them literally grow new connections in their neural network.

For example, if your child is disappointed that her friend doesn't want to play with her, say something like: "You seem really disappointed that Haley won't play with you right now. Your arms are crossed and your body is slouching way down in the chair."

Stimulating Brain Development

One way you can stimulate brain enhancement and development in your child's frontal lobe "regulator", is by simply noticing when their actions appear to be based on their own good decisions. Some studies have shown that 85 percent of what an average North American child hears each day is negative - meaning they hear things like "Stop...", "No", or "Don't..." the vast majority of the time. These positive parenting articles on Inspiring-Self-Improvement.com recommend that you draw attention to, and comment on your child's acts of kindness, creative thinking, or loving gestures. Not only do these comments stimulate brain development, they are also helping to develop your child's ability to manage their emotions more effectively, and deal with stress as they grow older.

Noticing vs. Judging

Positive parenting is about "noticing" rather than "judging." This is some of the most powerful parenting advice.  Judging tells the child who you think he "should" be and assigns a value or stamp of approval / disapproval to who they are. At its worst, judging connects the child's self esteem to how pleasing they are to their parents (or other authority figures). Noticing your child's actions has a completely different feel to it. When you practice the positive parenting principle of "noticing", you simply accept the actions for what they are, and highlight the benefits or harm of the action itself to your child. Separate the child's actions from their self esteem.

Optimal brain enhancement occurs when you make things as relevant as possible with a strong emotional appeal. For example, offer your child an image they can relate to and thus fix in their mind. Avoid saying something like "Good job finishing your homework", which may leave them wondering how that homework was possibly good for them. Instead, help them notice some value in what they do.

For example, "You finished your homework and still have plenty of time left to go out with your friends".

Emotionally experiencing the effects of one's actions is one of the best ways for a child (or an adult for that matter) to learn and develop new neural connections within their brain. Connecting a child's actions to an emotional value for them is also one of the most effective ways to help your child make healthy choices for themselves as they grow.