How can movement help our children develop brain function?

As I was going through my martial arts training, it often intrigued me that the children in the program seemed to not only get better grades, but also have better thinking skills. This sat in my mind for a few years and I would occasionally see an article in a magazine about movement and brain development in children. Yet I never saw any real research.

 Then I started having my own children (I have four boys). As I watched them play and saw them develop I developed some theories of my own, regarding movement and their development. I saw them as definitely related. Just look what small children instinctively do. They move, run jump and it is very hard to sit still in desks. Even babies wave their hands when they are awake. They hate being confined in seats, they love to move.

 Later more articles came out suggesting this relationship between exercise, movement and brain function and development. So I looked for them and read everything I ran across. Also, being a musician it was known that musical skill and mathematical skill go hand in hand. As life progressed and we decided to take our little Kitchen Karate Class out into the real world and open a school, I learned even more.

The research started pouring in, people were talking about Kinesiology, Brain Gym and rhythm to help with brain development. At I time when we see kids more and more sedentary, we get more and more evidence that they need to move to develop. Martial Arts training turns out to work on brain development in several ways. One is rhythm. We do warm-up strikes in cadence and with rhythm. The second is cross lateral motions. When one works the cross laterally, meaning across the body, the brain builds better cross lateral connections across the corpus callosum in the brain.

The other ways in which martial arts specifically helps is with focused control. We practice focus. Lastly, I want to point out that every child needs physical exercise, far beyond what they are getting in school, for proper brain development and function. If they had more, I don’t think we would see as many diagnoses of ADD and ADHD and hyper activity. Some of these kids just need lots and lots of physical motion.

I hope this peaks your interest in movement and brain development. It is fascinating to read about and see in practice. I hope you will support our plans to integrate and educational excellence center and a martial arts school. This is our vision for a better community.

Blessings,

BE -moving, yes you too!

It used to be that chewing gum and talking in class were the biggest problems facing teachers. Now we hear about pregnancy and gang violence. As an educator I find that this is a problem, yet it is not the biggest problem facing teachers. The biggest problem that I see facing not only teachers, but also parents currently is passive defiance. That is when a student is given an assignment and they just refuse to do it. They do not necessarily create problems in the classroom. They just refuse to do their assignments.  

Teachers and parents deal with this all of the time. We encourage, we nag, yet without consequences this falls on deaf ears. There is no consequences for many of these students. They have video games, entertainment, phones and all kinds of privileges that parents can take away for leverage. Yet teachers have less and less leverage, and little that is not punitive. Frankly, many of our students not only do not care about their grades, they do not seem to care if they graduate.

As adults we have much more power than we own, we buy a lot of leverage for these kids. We are not required to provide entertainment, rides and phone priviledges to kids.We can start by owning that leverage and being the adults we mean to be. Say what you expect once clearly and walk away, give a consequence once without a long explanation. Kids get it!

Blessings,

BE -adult

This is the last part of our series on motivating your children by Debbie Elder.

 The “E” in “Motivating Your Child is as Easy as P.I.E., is for Enthusiasm. Success breeds success! Have your student describe the reason for their school success. Have them name their successful strategies. Have them keep a victory journal of all their life successes and victories including school success! Have them write out their 101 wishes and explain them in detail. In this way schooling can be tied directly to the things that they desire.

Be Their Cheerleader! Catch your student being good! Acknowledge the good habits you see. Be careful with praise, yet lavish with specific encouragement and acknowledgement. Encouragement is the process of focusing on the child’s assets and strengths in order to build their self confidence and feeling of worth. Encouragement holds a student as capable of finding the answer or solution for themselves: “I know you can handle it,” “I know you can do it,” “I like the way you are working.”

 You can coach your student to success by acknowledging specifically what you want repeated. Encourage immediately. Be Consistent and genuine. Give recognition for good habits, not just scores, readily. Let them over-hear you talking positively about them. Be careful with “But that is expected.” If you want a behavior to continue –acknowledge it! Have a vision for your student. Ask them what motivates them and be ready to support them in a way that works for them.

One idea I found successful was after a really great day asking my student, “What five things are you going to do differently because of today?”

 Thanks, Debbie

 And I would add, that is a great question for all of us, each and every time we are successful!

Blessings,

BE -inspiring

Listen to the news these days and you will hear lots of fault and blame. In education you will hear fault and blame pointing toward the teachers. Too much homework, not enough homework, too little test preparation, too much test preparation, teachers just are not motivating our kids.

If you think any of these things, I will not argue. I will just say, if you have not spent a day at a local school, you do not understand the situation. I challenge everyone to spend a day at a public school as a volunteer especially a middle or high school. Sure lots of us volunteer at our child’s elementary school. The secondary schools need it more, however.

Keep an eye on the quantity of work done in the classroom and the quantity of wasted time. See how the students respond to directions. See how they respond to instruction. Then share your comments here on what you see. Watch a secondary P.E. class. Count the assignments completed in Science class. Read some of the papers completed in an English class.

So many of us are prone to form opinions without first hand information.

Blessings,

BE