Positive Emotions = The Perfect Brain Food
Years of research show us that keeping positive emotions present in your life is increasingly important to your child’s mental and emotional health. They not only improve your sense of wellbeing, but they also improve your cognitive skills as well. As parents of children with learning problems, it is very important to build their self-esteem by finding activities they enjoy or excel at and encourage them to pursue those activities. Celebrate all their accomplishments, and always remember that they are looking up to you for guidance and approval.
For kids, schools and classrooms are filled with emotions. Emotions bring texture to their lives and are an important aspect of growing up. Our ability to feel emotions separates us from other animals. Our ability to choose our emotions make us healthy and successful adults. For most parents, that is one of our main goals for our kids.
The trouble is it's easy to overindulge in the unhealthy emotions. Negative emotions or stress can compromise the health, academic performance and over-all sense of well-being in our children. A child that is experiencing high levels of stress, due to academic or social anxiety will have a lower chance of being successful academically, no matter how smart that child is.
What students crave, especially students with learning and attention challenges are an appreciation for their talents. Most kids with academic learning difficulties have strengths and abilities in areas outside of the classroom. Unfortunately, they rarely ever get the recognition for these as they would with math or reading.
I know you know how good you feel when you perform well. But did you know students work better when they feel good too? That's because positive emotions act like brain food: When they sincerely feel appreciated and valued, they create a physiological state called coherence that has been shown to improve cognitive performance:
- 40% improvement in long-term memory
- 24% improvement in short-term memory
- Increased ability to focus
- Increased ability to process information
- Increased reaction times
- Higher test scores
So remember to do your best and a gatekeeper for your child’s stress and negative emotions. The better your child feels about his or herself, the more you will see that positive
To learn more about how training the brain can improve learning ability and school performance, attend one of our Free Parent Seminars to help your child become a more confident, independent learner.