Working With, Not Against, How Young Brains Grow!

Whether we live with children, or work with them, or both, most of us know that they do not always embrace the opportunity to learn, grow and develop. From personal experience, I know that the desire to play Roblox, or watch You Tube videos of somebody (with the world's most irritating voice) play video games usually trumps following more meaningful pursuits.

It's sometimes hard to believe that they are born with an extraordinary capacity for learning but, with 86 billion neurons inside the heads at birth, science tells us they are also designed to love learning; young brains are hard-wired for curiosity, imagination, the desire to ask questions, solve problems, and to think creatively.

Sometimes we need to look beyond the 'slow', 'disengaged', 'difficult' or 'disruptive' child, because our increasingly understanding about how young brains grow means that it is not that simple.

'Neuroplasticity' describes the brain's life-long capacity to continually re-shape and re-configure itself according to the world in which it lives, so what does that mean for us?

One of the most affirmative statements I ever heard, during a school training I was delivering, was "We're not so interested in ensuring our children are ready for school. We are more concerned with whether our school is ready for its children."

And ultimately, what this means is creating an environment which nurtures a sense of belonging, provides sensory enrichment, movement, pro-social input and emotional warmth, novelty, curiosity, creativity, the desire to ask more questions than to answer them. These are the experiences that work with, not against, how their brains develop; the ingredients that make children want to engage and learn.

Secondly, this amorphous thing we generally call 'wellbeing' is a huge component in healthy development. It can't just be reserved for the odd Wellbeing Day, or 'Golden Time'; the short window of time when we so often generate the healthiest, most learning-ready brain state (usually just before children go home for the weekend ??).

While the gap between 'mental health' and 'learning' is getting smaller, they're still not properly recognised as the two sides of the same coin that they actually are; “Problem" behaviours are so often just the work of an over-stretched nervous system, or an emotionally hijacked brain, while mental and emotional wellbeing is the neurological scaffolding on which “good learning” is built.

The fundamental truth is every thought, action, decision, behaviour and belief that comes from a child’s brain.

Thus, if we want to change any of these - whether we're concerned with learning, engagement, behaviour, social skills or emotional health - it means changing what's happening inside their heads.

Can you do that? Absolutely. How do you do that?! There's no one single answer to that question, but if you want to dig deeper, you can download this report that I authored (for FREE).

Not only is it full of insights, it also provides practical actions and techniques to make these changes in practice. ENJOY!