T. asks: My three-year-old son loves to watch the same videos over and over again. This is driving my husband and me crazy! But our son throws a fit if we don’t put on the video he wants, so we almost always give in. Is it okay for him to watch the same video a hundred times?

Dear T., Anything you can’t do without is called an addiction. Addictions are not good at any age, let alone at three years old. Although TV can be a great educational tool and a good source of entertainment, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Children at your son’s age are prone to getting stuck on things, and at the top of the list are particular videos or specific characters (such as the dreaded “Barney”). But if your son is watching the same video repeatedly, he is not learning anything new. He is developing a habit fed by having memorized the video and anticipating what is coming next. Every time an anticipated event occurs, the brain reacts by producing a flood of powerful “feel-good” chemicals known as endorphins. Because the video remains the same every time he sees it, your son is able to count on the pattern of anticipated events and the endorphin rushes that follow.  The cycle repeats over and over, creating a chemical addiction in your child’s brain. His physiological system actually begins to crave seeing the video in order to get the guaranteed rush of endorphins again. That is why he throws a tantrum when he cannot have the “fix” of his cherished video. If this sounds a little scary, it is. The brain can produce chemicals as powerfully addictive as cocaine and other illicit drugs.  Therefore, the best thing to do with videos your child is obsessed with is to have him go with you and give them away. After the initial fit, he should stop demanding them within a couple of days.

When it comes to television and videos, a general guideline for a three-year-old would be to provide as much variety as possible, continually exposing the child to new input. Limit total TV and video time to two hours per day. And make sure at least one of those two hours is spent viewing educational TV and videos.

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M. Asks: My two teens want to stay up half the night and hate getting up in the morning for school. Do you have any suggestions?

Dear M., Many teens are wired such that they need a lot of sleep and prefer to get it from 3:00 a.m. until noon. Some schools are finally acknowledging this and are starting school earlier for the elementary school children, who tend to get up early, and later for the teens. However, most schools still follow a traditional early-morning schedule for teens. So, let me start by saying there are no really great solutions, but there are some basic guidelines that can help.

First, establish a specific time your teens must get up, and maintain it throughout the year as much as you reasonably can.

Second, avoid having entertainment sources in their rooms. TV’s, computers, and video games are all going to add to the problem. Keeping these sleep-avoiding instruments out of their rooms can help teens get to sleep earlier. As much as you can, make their room a place where they read, do homework that does not require a computer, and sleep. Entertainment should be something that happens someplace else in the house. Third, create the proper atmosphere. Environmental sounds are available on CD that include everything from the sounds of ocean waves to the pleasant rhythms of a light rain shower, and many CDs designed for relaxation incorporate classical music selections in which the beats per minute correlate with sleep patterns. Fourth, make getting up their responsibility, not yours. You should not be pulling them out of bed to keep them from being late for school. Make sure they have a loud alarm clock, and then lay down significant consequences for being late for school. Wish them luck, and stick to your guns.

Reprinted from the Journal of The NACD Foundation (formerly The National Academy for Child Development)

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 20 No. 2, 2007 ©NACD

The post Parenting 101: Questions for Bob Doman, Part 1 appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

In my last article I introduced “sequential processing” and encouraged readers to find out how well you and those in your family can process information. I hope you all took advantage of the opportunity. If you didn’t, you can still go to www.thenacdproject.com and take the free memory test. [This test is no longer available at this time.]

Over the years we have discovered that sequential processing, which is the brain’s ability to process pieces of visual or auditory information in a sequence, normally develops in a predictable pattern as a child grows.  As sequential processing develops so does the complexity of thought. A child’s ability to think determines their ability to understand, learn and act.  If anything interferes in the development of sequential processing, the child’s ability to understand, learn and act will be affected in a number of ways.

The first seven to nine years of life provide the best window of opportunity to learn about the significance of sequential processing because sequential processing – particularly auditory sequential processing – has a lot to do with determining your child’s overall (or “global”) level of maturity as well as their ability to pay attention and learn.  When a child comes to us with a label of learning delays, behavior problems, trouble concentrating, or just being immature for their age, the child will almost always be found to display lower than normal sequential processing abilities.  As we correct the delay in sequential processing by teaching the brain to process more pieces of information, we find many learning, behavior and attention deficit problems resolve without further intervention.

Sequential processing usually develops at the rate of one piece of information per year up until about seven to nine years of age. At that point, it tends to stop increasing without specific intervention. In young children, we can determine their processing level by looking at how many directions they can follow in a sequence.  For example, a child who is between one and two should be able to follow a simple direction like, “touch your nose”, which amounts to processing one piece of information. With a child between ages two and three, you should be able to open a book and ask them, “Where is the horse and the dog?’ (two pieces of information).  When they are three years old, they should be able to repeat three things in a series, such as “yellow, green, and red” (three pieces of information). As the child grows, their sequential processing should continue to advance by one piece of information per year, so that by age seven they are able to process at least seven pieces of visual or auditory information in a sequence.

Many of the typical challenges parents face in dealing with their little ones relate directly to the child’s level of sequential processing.  Up until two years old, or the point at which the child can process two pieces of information, they are very easy to get along with. Give them something to play with and they are happy; take it away and they will probably still be smiling because they will just redirect their attention from the object to you, processing one thing at a time. When they hit two, things get interesting because the thought process becomes “I want” or “Don’t want,” and that is the end of the thought because they can’t think beyond two pieces of information at one time.  Functionally this produces the “Terrible Twos” in which the child tantrums because they inevitably want something or don’t want something and cannot process a “but” or a “later.”  When the child reaches three years old, you can begin to reason with them because they can process a third piece of information – including that important word “later.”

But children at a processing level of  three are still rather challenging because they hit what we refer to as the “Lock and Block” stage.  At the “Lock and Block” stage, the child can process the concept of  “later” but cannot process well enough to think their way out of a situation they perceive as threatening in any way.  If they perceive something as fun or okay, they are all smiles.  But when faced with new situations, new people, or if you simply ask them to do something without using your friendly little kid voice, they may give you trouble.  And once they have locked and blocked, forget it!  But often, if you wait a few minutes and come back to them with the same request, they will be fine and comply without any difficulty. It all depends on their perception of threat. Around four years old, the brain is able to begin processing four pieces of information, and the child moves out of the Lock and Block stage and into a whole new set of behaviors that keep parents on their toes.  And so the process goes year by year.

Dealing with little ones can be challenging, but the real challenges come when your seven or eight-year-old processes like a four or five-year-old and you start hearing things like, “Johnny is distractible,” or “Johnny isn’t following directions,” or, perhaps, “We should test Johnny for ADD.”  The root of many developmental problems – from language delays to behavior and learning issues – lies in the fact that their sequential processing has not developed properly. The good news is that sequential processing can be increased fairly easily with the proper intervention.

Reprinted from the Journal of The NACD Foundation (formerly The National Academy for Child Development)

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 20 No. 5, 2007 ©NACD

The post Parenting 101: Processing, Behavior, and Maturity appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

Dear Bob,

I am becoming very concerned with my two-year-old son and his lack of language development, he only says a few words and recently just put his first two words together “top it”. Should I be concerned and what should I do?

Thanks,
K

Dear K,

I’m glad you asked this question; it is a question many parents should be asking. There is a wide range of function that falls within “normal” limits, so you don’t need to panic or go looking for a label. In general, however, we would like to see children functioning at the upper end of the spectrum. At age two, your son should be using between 100 and 250 words and use many couplets (two-word phrases), so with having only a few words and one “almost couplet,” it would be good to give things a push.

In evaluating children’s development, when we see a problem with what is coming out, (in your son’s case language) we look for a problem with what is going in. When it comes to language development the concerns are tonal processing (the ability to hear the various tones utilized in speech) and auditory sequential processing (the brain’s ability to link sounds together as in syllables and words). Later, as we become more concerned with how clear the speech is, we look at oral-motor ability, which involves the actual mechanics of producing the sounds vocally.

To start the process of identifying possible causes for a speech delay, take your son to an ear, nose and throat doctor (ENT) for an evaluation. An ENT specialist will check your son’s hearing, which will help identify any actual hearing loss. The hearing test itself will not be able to identify a tonal processing problem, however. At this time, voice analysis is the closest thing we have to a test that identifies tonal processing problems. However, we know that fluid accumulation in the middle ear is the most frequent reason for lack of tonal processing development. And, although the ENT doctor cannot test your son’s tonal processing directly, he can check for fluid in the middle ear with a quick, painless test called a tympanogram. Our Medical Director generally recommends you get a series of tympanograms over several weeks to establish a baseline and make sure the ears are clear and staying clear.

If your doctor finds fluid is accumulating in the middle ear, this is called otitis media. When there is a problem with language development, aggressive treatment of the otitis media is recommended to clear the ears of fluid so that your child’s tonal processing can develop normally. Parents need to be aware that otitis media can exist without any external signs or symptoms, so your child could have a chronic problem and never complain. Our experience has shown that one of the major causes of otitis media appears to be consumption of dairy products because they tend to produce mucus. In many children, otitis media can be reduced or eliminated completely by avoiding dairy products in the diet. If otitis media remains a problem, ear tubes can be placed to drain the fluid on a constant basis to prevent it from building up and interfering with auditory development.

If we suspect a tonal processing problem exists, we initiate a home-based sound therapy program to help correct the problem. Nothing is going to really help, however, unless the ears are kept clear of fluid.

The second area to investigate is auditory sequential processing. At age two, your son should be able to process two-step directions well. You should be able to say to him, “Touch your nose and tummy,” or, “Get your pig and horse,” or, “Stand up and clap your hands.” He should be able to follow directions like these without having been taught the sequence and without visual cues. Sequential processing should develop at the rate of a piece per year for the first seven to nine years, which means that a typical two-year-old can process two pieces of sequential information (i.e., follow a two-step direction), a three-year-old can process three pieces of information (follow a three-step direction), a four-year-old four pieces, and so on. Lack of auditory sequential processing ability leads to labels such as Developmentally Delayed, ADD, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Learning Disabled. To learn more about sequential processing go to www.nacd.org and click on “Free Memory Test.” [This test is no longer available at this time, but you can visit mysimplysmarter.com and take the test with your Free Trial.] (While you’re at it, check the processing levels of everyone in your family by participating in the Simply Smarter Project. This Project is part of NACD’s international effort to increase critical processing abilities in children and adults all over the world.)

If your son has clear ears and good tonal processing, and if he sequences two pieces of information well, then make sure he needs to speak. Try not to respond to gestures and grunts but rather encourage him to say a word or short phrase for what he wants. If he doesn’t come up with his own words at first, model the word or phrase and let him repeat it. Listen and respond to his talking, and make sure older siblings are not speaking for him but take time to let him speak for himself.

Best of luck,
Bob Doman

Reprinted from the Journal of The NACD Foundation (formerly The National Academy for Child Development)

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 20 No. 3, 2007 ©NACD

The post Parenting 101: Questions for Bob Doman, Part 2 appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

Changing the brain (i.e., learning) requires providing the brain with specific, appropriate input that must be delivered with sufficient frequency, intensity and duration. Of the three components—frequency, intensity and duration—the least important is duration. Unfortunately, duration is the one component “education” tends to concentrate on the most. Most educators and legislators believe that “in order for our children to receive a good education, they need to go to school for six hours a day, 180 days per year, and spend 2.5 hours per day on homework and study.”

However, what children learn and how much they retain is not a reflection of how many hours they spend working at it. Rather, the intensity with which they take in the information determines how much of it is truly learned and will be remembered.

Unfortunately, as you increase duration you tend to decrease intensity. So, spending more time going over the same material can be counterproductive and actually slow down the learning process.

The brain responds to intensity. When information goes into the brain with low intensity, it has little or no impact on the brain. When information goes in with high intensity, it has high impact and actually changes the brain by stimulating the growth of new connections between brain cells. These new connections are required for “learning” to occur. A typical question asked about children with supposed learning disabilities is, “How come John, who after twelve years still doesn’t know his math facts, can tell you the statistics of every player in the NBA?” The answer is intensity. John is turned off to math and turned on to basketball. For John, math has low intensity and basketball has high intensity.

The primary goal in any learning situation is to turn the student on to the subject matter.

Just today, my son who is a college freshman told me he will be signing up for a physics class next semester. As we talked about his choice, I asked him if he remembered what his junior high science teacher had done with the bowling ball. He not only recalled the event, he recalled it with the same clarity and intensity with which he had conveyed it to me the day it occurred.

On that particular day my son’s science teacher Mr. Jenkins took his class down to the gym. The group entered the gym and discovered he had attached a rope to the very high gym ceiling. Hanging down at the end of the rope, almost touching the floor, was a bowling ball. Mr. Jenkins then proceeded to haul the bowling ball up to the top of the bleachers where he stood and held the ball to the tip of his nose. As my son and the rest of the class watched in amazement, the ball swung away from the teacher, across the gym, and returned to stop precisely at the tip of Mr. Jenkins’ nose. Intensity! I suspect that my son will never look at a pendulum or listen to a professor discuss kinetic or potential energy without thinking of Mr. Jenkins and his wonderful demonstration. I have often wondered how many future scientists were created that day.

Obviously most teachers and parents cannot replicate the demonstration provided by this gifted science teacher, but they don’t need to. Whether you are teaching your child to ride a bike, shoot a free throw, do algebra, or bake a cake, it is not how long you make them endure the lesson or how often you make them repeat it that will usually determine if they will learn it—and, once learned, will use and repeat it. Rather, how much learning occurs is determined by whether or not you taught them to love it.

Most children as preschoolers love learning anything. Tell a preschool child you are going to teach them how to clean a toilet, and they’re off running for a brush! But then, sadly, at the end of twelve years of “education,” many hate the thought of learning anything.

Teach them to love it.

Reprinted from the Journal of The NACD Foundation (formerly The National Academy for Child Development)

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 20 No. 1, 2007 ©NACD

The post Parenting 101: The Love of Learning appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

An unfortunate reality is that many important aspects of your child’s development are left to chance. Fortunately, one of the most important pieces in the developmental puzzle, if understood by parents, can be significantly and often dramatically improved. That piece is “sequential processing” – the stuff of which memory and thought are made of.

Sequential processing is the ability to take in pieces of information that you hear or see, then hold and manipulate those pieces in your mind. This ability is one of the most basic and most significant of all human functions. To a great degree, sequential processing determines how well you learn, think, communicate and function. Yet it is something that is rarely measured unless you are taking an IQ test.  In our society today, the significance of sequential processing is hardly ever understood and virtually never specifically developed.

Sequential processing is most often measured in “digit spans.” A digit span refers to how many numbers, presented in random sequence at one-second intervals, you can listen to and repeat; or, how many numbers in a sequence you can look at for three seconds and remember.  A digit span can also measure your ability to see or hear a sequence of numbers, remember them, and then repeat them back in reverse order. “Normal” sequential processing for adults is considered to be 7 +/- 2 numbers, a range of 5 to 7.  This ability to process and manipulate pieces of information generally develops at the rate of a piece per year up until seven to nine years of age when the development of this critical ability tends to stop.

If you or your children are not processing information well, you or they will likely have problems with learning, problem solving, attending, following directions, communicating and understanding, just to mention a few. You might also get labeled as L.D., Dyslexic, ADD, ADHD, Spacey, Dozy or Dumb. You might wonder why you are really good at some things and have a big problem with others.  Or, you might just skate through life relying on what access you do have to your innate intelligence and never realize your true potential.

To help parents understand sequential processing, the first step is to find out how well you and your children who are three or older do in fact process information.  Fortunately you can do this quickly, easily, anonymously and for free, and at the same time participate in a very important research study.

To test your sequential processing go to www.nacdtheproject.com, then click the prompt for the free memory check. [This test is no longer available at this time, but you can visit mysimplysmarter.com and take the test with your Free Trial.] Find out how well you and your kids are processing, and in the next article we will teach you more about what sequential processing is and how improving it can help you and your children realize your innate potentials.

Reprinted from the Journal of The NACD Foundation (formerly The National Academy for Child Development)

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 20 No. 4, 2007 ©NACD

The post Parenting 101: The Development of Memory and Thought appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

One of the keys to development and education revolves around the word specific. How specific the input is, and how appropriate it is to the individual child, largely determines how much impact it has on the brain. Random, disorganized input, which I call “stuff,” does not develop brains; specific, appropriate input does. Understanding the importance of being specific and how to be specific can aid tremendously in the educational process.

Historically, parents interacting one-on-one with their children have provided the majority of the specific input crucial to their children’s development. Imagine a parent looking at a book about dinosaurs with their child. The parent intuitively knows how to speak so their child can process what they say. If the child is three years old, the parent uses short sentences and point to lots of pictures. If the child is six, the parent knows to speak in longer sentences and short paragraphs, and to look for the child’s feedback. The child will give constant feedback as to whether or not the parent is being appropriately specific to the child. If the parent is being successful, the child is engaged, excited and wants more. If the parent starts talking too much and does not engage the child with the pictures, the child will start to fidget, yawn, or need a potty break. The parent, however, will often sense the shift in the child’s attention before it goes too far astray and will modify what he or she is doing without even being aware of it. Because the parent is able to respond and react to the child in this one-on-one situation, the parent is able to tailor their input to fit the child. This is being appropriately specific.

The younger the child is, the more he or she needs one-one-one interaction with a caregiver offering specific input and stimulation. The further we get from one-on-one interaction, the further we get from being able to deliver specific, brain-changing input.

Now think about the challenge facing a schoolteacher who is attempting to provide her students with specific input. Consider an algebra teacher, for example, with thirty children in her class. Scores on her students’ standardized math tests span a range of five grade levels. Some of her students could cover the year’s curriculum in a month, and others don’t even know their math facts. She has children who love learning and others who hate every minute they have to spend in the classroom. Her class includes strong visual learners as well as students who have visual learning issues. Some have great auditory learning skills while others can’t follow a three-step direction. There are children who have attention issues and those with long-term memory issues. And, as in many classrooms, there is a child who cannot speak the teacher’s language. How can this teacher be specific? The reality is that for many of her students she can’t.

If input is not specific, it tends to be just so much “stuff,” which is why many students fail to learn algebra and other subjects. Learning occurs only when information is delivered in a way that the brain can receive and process the information. How a child’s brain receives, processes and remembers information depends upon their stage of development and the degree to which their unique neurological system has become properly organized. Specific input appropriate to the individual student is imperative to the learning process! Until our educational system reflects this essential truth about how children learn, we will continue to have children slip through the cracks and drop out of school. The more parents and educators understand the key principles of learning, and demand that our educational system incorporate those principles, the more we can help all children learn and fulfill their potential.

As parents, one of the best things we can do for our children is to spend time interacting with them. Ironically, in an attempt to provide our children with “opportunities” we run them around to piano lessons, gymnastics and soccer games when often the most enriching thing we can do for them is just to be with them, talk with them, read to them, and play with them. Parents who give their children focused, one-on-one interaction on a daily basis provide vital stimulation their kids need to thrive and succeed.

Reprinted from the Journal of The NACD Foundation (formerly The National Academy for Child Development), Volume 19 No. 7, 2006 ©NACD

The post Parenting 101: Being Specific – Parent Power appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.

“When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments: tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become.” – Louis Pasteur

One of the great mysteries of life has to do with the big question of our children and their potential. What is it, and how do we help them achieve it? No job any of us will ever have is more important than the job of raising a child. Unfortunately, no job comes with less training on how to do it! As a result, most children never come close to achieving their innate potential because parents are not taught how to unlock it.

This article is the first in a series providing expert knowledge on child development to parents and to young people who will be the parents of the future. Our goal is to raise the bar for our children by educating parents, which is what the National Association for Child Development (NACD) has been doing for almost forty years. We help children from all over the world including typical and highly capable children as well as those with brain injury, cerebral palsy, autism, Down syndrome, Dyslexia, learning disabilities, ADD, and other challenges. After implementing our programs, each of our clients has been able to do more than they could before, often achieving beyond everyone’s expectations. Yet their success has come not through our directly working with the children, but through our education and guidance of their parents.

Parents are children’s first and most important teachers. If anyone questions the role of parents as educators, they need only to look at the fact that most children will learn more by the time they are five years old than they will during the entire rest of their lives.

Although parental involvement in the first few years of a child’s life is crucial to development, the individual attention parents can provide continues to be tremendously important throughout a child’s education. Good schools and great teachers are important, but good parents and great parenting are imperative.

Who is the world’s greatest expert on an individual child? It’s neither the teacher nor the school psychologist nor the pediatrician – it’s the parent! In most cases, however, the parent who is the greatest expert on their individual child is not an expert on children in general, and they need specific knowledge and experience in order to help their children develop their potential to the fullest.

One glaring topic consistently absent from the national debate about the American educational system is that of teaching high school students in depth about child development. With growing concern about the soaring drop out rate and the reduction of highly skilled individuals in our labor force, the debate currently centers on how to raise math and reading scores, and how much time and funding can be redirected away from the arts, sports and other programs. Ironically, if we spent more time teaching our future parents about child development, we would be empowering them to dramatically increase the abilities of our future generations even if we did nothing to change the schools.

NACD’s track record of success with over 30,000 families during the last forty years has proven that providing loving and dedicated parents with the expertise they need to assist their children results in amazing growth and achievement in children of all ages and capabilities. Stay tuned for upcoming topics and tips we will share with you in this column to help your children become all they can be.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation (formerly The National Academy for Child Development), Volume 19 No. 6, 2006 ©NACD

Article updated July 2016

The post Parenting 101: A Child’s Education Begins with Educating the Parents appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.