Dr. Randy Wysong asked:


At age seven months in the womb, humans begin language coordination in response to what they hear through the mother’s belly wall. Some 52 muscles learn to respond to the various phonemes (a basic language sound like ‘b’ in boy and ‘m’ in man) of the language surrounding that belly. There are also studies showing that the emotional state of the parent imprints as do things like music and other environmental conditions. Nutrition, drug use and pollution spill right through directly to the fetus via the placenta and umbilical cord. Parenting begins way before the bassinet.

At eighteen months, the child has a brain 1/3 the size of an adult but the same number of neural connections. These connections are called synapses and relay information – outgoing from the nerve cell through axons, ingoing by way of dendrites. It is the number of connections of nerve cells that relates to intelligence, not the number of neurons.

As the brain grows, by age 6 we have about five times the neural connections we do as adults. These trillions upon trillions of connections are there waiting to be imprinted by the environment, parents and society. This is probably the reason, some 2000 years ago, the church started the sacraments at ages 6 or 7. (It is remarkable how so many ‘new’ scientific discoveries were anticipated by the intuitive traditions of, what we believe to be, unsophisticated minds of the past.) Beginning at about age 12, the fatty myelin sheath covering connecting neuronal tendrils not used, are literally dissolved, absorbed into the cerebrospinal fluid. Thus 80% of the neural brain mass present at age 6 is gone by age 14 as a result of disuse. Further belittling is the fact that of the remaining 20% of the brain, we only use 5%. That means, of our full potential, we only use about 1%! (For evolutionary materialists out there, please explain to me how something as complex as a brain – infinitely more complex than anything humans have ever invented – developed so that 80% of it could dissolve and 95% of what remains go unused.)



This ‘devolution’ of the brain applies to the neocortex, that big part of the brain with all the folds and grooves that humans are so proud of because that’s where all our smarts (are supposed to) come from. The more ‘primitive’ parts of the brain, the ‘reptilian’ brainstem and limbic systems responsible for stimulus-response sorts of actions and emotion-cognition, remain intact and do not experience this loss. In other words, our ability for ‘fight-flight’ (running from predators), self-awareness (me, I, look at me), *** (fun stuff and children hatching), eating (wouldn’t want to miss that) and road rage (essential in modern living) are never at risk, just our ability to be intelligent about all that base reptilian stuff is.

Nothing new here, right? Is it not clear which parts of the human brain are in full function today? Just watch a little television, listen to ‘with it’ music, go to some movies and pick up some of the tabloids at the grocery counter and you’ll see the human brain stem has suffered no melt-down. But that 3-pound blob on top of it, the seat of intelligence, is evidently just filling up space.

What is primarily responsible for making and holding neural connections is not what we can beat into our kids with rules, instructions and performance pressures, but what they experience around them. At least 95% of the imprinting a child receives, neither the child nor the parents are aware of. Who we are emotionally, ethically and intellectually at our core in our day-to-day routines as parents – not what we pretend or preach – is picked up by the child as its most important lessons and is then ‘neural connected.’ So telling a child to be something we are not doesn’t work. If we want better children, then we must be better people.

This also speaks to the importance of a loving and nurturing family nest. We learn love, in large part, by experiencing it. The erosion of the family in our libertine society thrusts the child into a peer group for imprinting. This begins with technological births in hospital wards, then continues with isolating infants in their own bedrooms, pseudofood in bottles with nipples, television, day-care, broken homes and on to public schooling…you know, the ‘modern’ way to rear kids. The premature unfolding of development is accelerated through exposure to adult themes pressing in from everywhere in our society. Menstruation is beginning in 8-year-old girls (partly the result of hormone-type pollutants in food), there is an outbreak of pregnancies in 9-year-olds, and violent *** crimes among children under the age of 10 are becoming common. Children are being thrust into full operational adult thinking way before they are capable of handling it properly. That is why some 70% of teenagers are functionally illiterate: they may be able to learn, but cannot grant meaning. They have not been properly imprinted, don’t have sufficient life experience for context and don’t have the neural connections.

So yes, the home, family and parents are responsible for the development of children. On the other hand, there is a lot of nature involved too. Any parent raising a child into adulthood will see that the child at 40 is pretty much identical to the child in earliest infancy. So don’t be too quick to blame yourself for a child gone bad. Don’t spend your fortune in therapy either, whining about how your parents didn’t love you. We can lose important neural connections in childhood but once you realize who you are – very early in childhood – the ball is ultimately in your court. There are people with essentially no brain in their skull (compressed to a thin membrane from hydrocephalus) who excel intellectually and ethically. So, as an adult, buck up, take responsibility for yourself and make good use of the neural connections remaining. That’s in your court. You are not a victim.

But the present circumstances for children are a peculiar situation with no historical precedent. There is no solution other than for the adults to not be distracted by the veneer of civilization, its glamour of modernity, and its amoral and libertine pressures. Even though we are left with 1% of our mental potential, we can make a lot of good use of that. It means reaching inside for the goodness that is there in our hearts and extending that to our fellow humans. It means not following the conscience of others but learning what is already within and being true to it. Children don’t need money, videos, signature shoes and pressure for grades and sports performance. The inner needs of children don’t care about being raised in a pigpen so long as there is love. If that critical emotional relationship is not there, children will seek it in peers, including the perverted, money grubbing, media models. Then we have the ethically blind (other children, brainless idols and profiteering media) leading our blind children. This is the proper incubator for the adults of the future? What then, particularly when everyone has been indoctrinated into thinking they are victims and any failure in life is the fault of somebody else? What a formula for the collapse of society!

The answer is that greatest of all intelligences, love. That is not a platitude. Love requires an expansive and wise mind. Even with the puny 1% of our brain that we use, the capacity for love is infinite. In the end, what else really matters anyway? In the process, by being a person of goodness and reaching out in this way to others, we become the perfect model for the development of a loving and well-adjusted child. And hardly a word needs to be spoken in the process.

For further reading, or for more information about, Dr Wysong and the Wysong Corporation please visit www.wysong.net or write to wysong@wysong.net. For resources on healthier foods for people including snacks, and breakfast cereals please visit www.cerealwysong.com.

Blondie asked:


Holly is 11 weeks old and is already going after a ball and bringing it back to me. She’s 80% house trained. Should I give her snacks when she does her business outside in addition to good behavior? I’ve broken the bones into small pieces. I’m crate training her and she’s doing well with that also.

JASMINE! asked:


he is actually intelligent but he is too slow at his classworks. and he is sometimes slow to respond to questions even when he know the right answers.

Toys Direct asked:


Parents often seek assistance in selecting the right toys at the most ideal stage of their child’s development. Many toys are designed for particular ages based on safety concerns; however, many others are designed to specifically encourage the development of certain abilities in a child.

In this article we will explore the fundamental skills developed by infants at varying ages, and the types of toys that can encourage children to reach their potential.

The Baby’s 1st Year

In the first year of a baby’s life, they begin exploring and experimenting with their most important senses:

Sound & Smell – In the first instance babies begin to match voices with certain faces and ****** expressions, mainly from being held, fed and nurtured. Likewise, certain smells can be recognised and associations are gradually made. As they begin to establish these social attachments they become more receptive to different sounds and smells. Toys with sound and music that react to a child’s action are especially good at this stage, and simply letting your baby smell something and then see it can encourage development in this area.

Touch & Sight – As babies begin to take a little control of their hands; touching and feeling things become an important part of an infant’s development. Similarly, as sight becomes clearer, babies become more receptive to visual aids. Toys for this age are designed to enhance and encourage these traits. Toys should be for seeing, hearing and touching - this encourages the child to respond to the sights and sounds they see and hear. Picture books with sound, teddy bears with different textures and pulley toys that respond to a child’s movement are especially beneficial after 6 months old. Toys in bright, monochromic colours can also help to stimulate eyesight in the first year of a child’s life.

Ages 1 to 2

This stage is an important time for developing independence and important social skills that will never be lost. Between the ages of 1 and 2 it is surprising how rapidly a child develops from a tentative toddler saying only 1 or 2 words, to a confident child able to easily run and speak around 50 individual words.

From the age of 1, infants begin taking an interest in the effects of their manipulation, and it is very fun to sit back and watch children at this age. They particularly enjoy throwing toys and building things, so building blocks Duplo, and stickle bricks are fantastic toys at this age for encouraging hand and eye coordination, as well as a sense of balance.

From around 18 months, infants are able to walk very well and can run to an extent. When objects are in the way - running can prove difficult. However, with their newfound freedom, children love to explore and try everything out, without a sense of danger, so toys that encourage active play at this age are well received. Balls, Sit n’ Rides , Activity Stations, toys that speak or make noises and toys of characters they see on TV are advantageous additions to a toy box at this age - they will encourage children to play actively, and it will also help them sleep well at bed time (an added bonus!).

Language progression is also crucial at this age. Children will begin responding when spoken to and chattering away when playing. This makes it important for adults to talk to children in conversations, read stories and sing nursery rhymes whenever possible.

Ages 2 Years +

As a child turns two years old their abilities in counting and speaking becomes clearer, and bodily strength in running and climbing becomes more refined.

At the turn of two years old, toys that have movement and sound and allow the child to throw and drop are ideal, as they will help to refine their physical strengths. Toys that allow the children to push themselves along, such as sit ‘n’ ride toys that allow children to steer are very desirable.

As they approach 3 years old, outdoor toys such as climbing frames and garden swings are great. Children at this age have good spatial awareness, and refined bodily strength. They can move large toys easily, kick balls forcefully and they also have the ability to use pedals on a bike.

An infant’s imagination will develop greatly at this age as well, which is why dressing up and a fascination with make believe is noticeable. Doll sets, action figures, train sets and such toys are favourable at this age and help children express themselves and explore their independence. Children will also start to play with others and learn social skills through play. Cooperation and taking turns are examples of skills that will become extremely important both at a young age and throughout life.

Showing off new skills to family is also a very common trait for children around 3 years and upwards. Toys that mimic adult tasks, such as vacuum cleaners, cookers, shop tills and lawn mowers are especially good for engaging with a child.

While we have focussed on the initial, most advancing years of a child’s life in this article, toys have been proven to encourage creativity, self-confidence and academic skills throughout every stage of childhood.

About the Author

Having once owned the second largest toyshop in the UK, the owners of Toys Direct to Your Door (http://www.toysdirecttoyourdoor.co.uk/) have been in the toy business for over 40 years. Today, they continue to proudly provide quality children’s toys across the globe.

Jonathon Hardcastle asked:


Everyone knows it is essential to remain fit and healthy throughout our lives. It is important to keep a healthy, balanced diet and to keep up a course of regular exercise to avoid susceptibility to illness and disease and to keep our bodies happy. This is never truer than during our teenage years, where it is important to maintain a healthy body for a variety of reasons.

The teenage body is growing at developing at its quickest rate, covering the transition to adulthood. Furthermore, the impact of increasing hormonal activity and intellectual development make the teenage years a difficult time for both parents and the kids themselves. To fuel all this growth and development, it is essential to provide a healthy diet for your kids. The usual things: eight glasses of water, five portions of fruit and vegetables, whole grains and vitamin supplements are obviously a good idea, although it is also important to ensure a suitable health/happiness balance. The teenage mind is sensitive and perceives situations in ways which many adults forget. To avoid drastic conflict with your teenager, it is important to ensure a careful approach to healthy dieting, to minimise the risk of contempt and counter productive arguments.

To keep your teenager healthy you should never hinder social development. Allow your child to go out with friends and to start enjoying their youth. This is far better than keeping your kids inside to avoid dangers and temptations. The latter in most cases will almost certainly lead to social retardation and a life as an outcast. The teenage years are the most important to keep your child mentally stimulated, and another part of this is accepting opinions and moods. Don’t rubbish your child’s opinions, be they political or about life in general, but do take the point of challenging what they say. Encouraging processed, logical thought is the best way to improve your child’s overall intelligence beyond their primary years.

Encouraging exercise should certainly be high on the agenda for any parent of teenagers. Exercise can be great for boosting self confidence as well as improving fitness, and this can help with the muscular development of your child. Stress the importance to your child but don’t nag, because at the end of the day that won’t solve anyone’s problems.

All in all, it’s a case of being careful, and allowing your child’s autonomy to develop their personality and mental capacity. Other than that, maintaining a fairly healthy diet is the key to your child’s effective development.

mattclaptongad asked:


We have been on 4 dates. She changed plans for tomorrow due to her kid needing attention and I for now am trying to believe her. Now its lunch tomorrow but we both admitted we don’t have anything particular to do tomorrow so maybe it will be as fun as dinner. I wonder how long to go on for, that is how many more dates. I like her but she acts a little guarded and not willing to be vunerable, but she’s smart to do that especially since she’s probably been hurt before(99% of people). I hope she opens up soon so I don’t lose interest. I do like her but I am not smitten. I haven’t seen her enough to be smitten!

Michael Grose asked:


Some kids turn every activity into a competition, especially when their siblings are involved.



Getting into the car becomes a race for the front seat.



A backyard game of cricket suddenly morphs into a Test match.



Simple learning activities such as reading a book become a competition to find out who is the BEST.



This constant competition is tiring for parents, particularly mothers.

It usually leads to arguments and mind-numbing statements such as “I am better/smarter/faster/nicer than you!”

I recall hearing one of my kids tell her brother that thefamily dog loves her more than him. Good grief. You can’t argue with that!!!!

So where does kids’ competitiveness come from and what can we do about it?



Temperament plays a part. Some kids are just naturally more competitive and like to be the best. If they can’t be the best then they often won’t compete or do an activity.



Gender impacts as well. Due to their physiology boys tend to be more competitive than girls. The amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for emotional arousal and innate competitive spirit is about a sixth bigger in boys than girls. As many teachers know one way to get the best out of boys is to turn a simple learning activity into a quiz or game. Hey presto, they turned on the learning switch by introducing a competitive element.



Family position plays a part. You may notice that kids adjacent to each other in families tend to fight a little harder with each other for supremacy than they do with other kids. So two child families experience a lot of competition.



Family atmosphere contributes to competition. Some families are more competitive by nature than others. Parents can unwittingly turn simple activities into competitions with statements such as “let’s see who’s the best at…….”



Praise can contribute to competition. High praise parents are more likely to raise competitive kids as siblings compete with each other for parental approval. Encouragement, which focuses on the processes rather than the results of kids’ activities is the alternative to praise for parents who want to reduce sibling competition.

.  This aspect is more relevant than many parents realise. As a competitive person I have had to curtail my innate competitiveness when my kids were around. This meant being less overtly competitive than I wanted when watching, playing and talking about sport and focusing more on participation than on winning.  It also meant resisting turning every activity into a full-on, points-scoring, I’ll-beat-you game!!

Competitive role models impact as well



Is competition positive?

Sibling competition is part nature, part nurture. It has a positive place as it is often through competition that we improve and get better.

However in extreme cases it can make family-life hell for parents as competing kids refuse to cooperate with each other or always put each other down.

Kids grow into sibling competitiveness rather than out of it unless some changes are made.

Parents need to contain the competitiveness within their kids. There is a time and a place for competition just as there is a time and place for cooperation. In many ways, it is the true test of family leadership where parents develop a sense of ‘we’ within their family while welcoming some of the competitive elements in their kids.

And if children turn simple activities such as getting in the car into a race for the front seat then remove the competitive element as much as possible. That means insist the kids swap around, or even leave the front seat free if kids fight over it.

Strong, firm parental leadership that reminds kids about acceptable behaviours is always the best approach when kids behave inappropriately – especially when competition is driving the poor behaviour.

CrazyGirl asked:


How do I make my kid smarter, is there a way to make my child the ultimate smart kid!!! is there a way to make her crawl faster and talk faster? Please tell me when your kid started crawling and stuff

Penelope Przekop asked:


Growing up in the midst of alcoholism has received considerable national attention over the last twenty years or so.  It’s widely known that as adult these individuals often struggle with common issues such as feeling isolated, a dependant personality, and judging themselves without mercy (www.adultchildren.org).  Another less exposed, dark and embarrassing affliction is growing up in a home overshadowed by mental illness, of which there are numerous varieties. Perhaps even more than alcoholism, the stigma of mental illness creates a veil of secrecy.  This curtain can be so tightly woven, that it not only brings profound loneliness, but also a skewed sense of normal reality for the innocent bystanders in the family.

In my new novel, Aberrations (Greenleaf Book Group), aberration is defined as the negative or tragic in our lives. Everyone has at least one issue; it’s the human condition.  These aberrations may be caused by our own misguided or foolish choices, or they may result from something far beyond our control such as illness, deformity, family history, etc.  The underlying theme of Aberrations is truth.  How do we honestly face the truth in our lives, and then how do we deal with it?  How can we use these seemingly negative aberrations riding our backs to embrace a unique existence filled with positives? Sometimes reality can be downright ugly; however, if we make the effort to search for beauty, we can almost always find it hiding in the shadow of our pain.

There are many types of mental illness.  Some cannot be hidden from those outside the home and family while others seem to disappear once the front door is thrown open, delicately and brilliantly cloaked by those who seek to hide them.  Have you ever wondered what goes on behind your neighbor’s door?  Hopefully, if you could peak in, the picture would be one of sunshine, the normal ups and downs of relationships, laughing toddlers, and boisterous teens, everyone spreading their wings, trying out life, sometimes stumbling between those exquisite moments that take the breath away.  But some families live in quite a different world.  For them, there is an insidious aberration adding extreme complexity to all of the above.  This aberration twists the normal experiences of life into painful, misunderstood, and/or misinterpreted realities that are not easily washed away despite the most skilled coping mechanisms.

Even when mental illness isn’t carried forward into the next generation, a legacy of confusion, low self-esteem, out-of-whack emotional development, and fear creates a new kind of aberration that may take years to overcome.  This is the legacy of the forgotten child.  Much like that of children of alcoholics, these children often share a common struggle as adults.

 

If you were one of these forgotten children, know children struggling in such a household, or perhaps know an adult who lived it, the following points may be helpful:

 

1) Forgotten children often struggle with a complex mix of emotions for the suffering parent.  The nature of our love is a confusing mix of love a parent has for a child and love that a child has for a parent.  These should never have to mix but they do in this case.  The emotional turmoil of wanting to parent someone and wanting to be parented by that same person is an aberration that can often be tucked away just neatly enough to pursue a normal life.  The tucking process takes some time and is often achieved the hard way, but in the world in which we grew up, the hard way was the only way.  No one remembered to make it easy; there were other issues to resolve.  Now with children of my own, I realize that the easy way was so clear, and wonder why the adults in my life could not rise above the situation to see that.  It has to do with care, comfort, responsibility, example, and safety … something soft and warm, caring and accepting … the definition of mother in my novel, Aberrations.  In times of stress, this conflict can rear its ugly head.  It screams at us as if we were children again, reminding us that we were never quite good enough to wash away the pain shown to us as very young children.  This message lives outside the bounds of logic or intellect. It hides inside the emotional core that defines us as solidly as the beating heart that makes us live. Please don’t treat it lightly, even when we try to.

2) The hardest part of being a forgotten child is finding oneself.  The normal coming-of-age experience is complicated by a lack of proper mirroring and out-of-whack emotional development.  Internalization of childhood experiences is diverse and depends upon many individual factors.  My brother’s life took a different path than mine due to our individuality; however, we did not go forward without an equally intense internal struggle for normalcy.  All we wanted was normal but all we could relate to was abnormal. 

3) I still fear that if I share the facts of my life with others, I’ll be branded. People may think that I’m mentally ill.  This is a common issue for children of the emotionally disturbed.  And is there something so terribly wrong with me that I was not worthy of my mother’s love?  Perhaps this is why she couldn’t pull herself together for me.  She was my mirror and when I looked into it, I saw myself; therefore, when others look at me, perhaps they see her.  This logic spreads to my ability to feel loved and accepted by others.  Again, these fears do not listen to logic; they are embedded like roots I cannot pull completely out.

4) Sometimes we laugh to keep from crying. We forge on, knowing that we have so much to be grateful for, and to look forward to. But that dark spot hangs in the heart, tangling, groping for a place of comfort. And so we still long for a caring smile, for understanding and acknowledgement that what we bear is sacred. It played a huge role in making us who we are. Like the edges of a puzzle, it somehow holds us together although we long to break away.  If others can embrace it kindly, our plight to do so becomes a bit easier.  Remember this next time you ***** a joke. Even though I may laugh, it hurts like hell.

In her book, My Parent’s Keeper: Adult Children of the Emotionally Disturbed, Eva Marian Brown writes that the task of repairing a parent’s psyche is impossible for the child whose main goal in life is to make mommy happy. We were all fated to fail in that task. Our childhoods were stolen by that overwhelming, impossible goal. We were adults at five, six, or seven. Now, as true adults, we are sometimes wise beyond our years, and yet we are too young, never having had the opportunity to mature at a steady pace. We are 200-year-old souls in middle aged bodies. We are giggling children commuting to work. This unusual, divergent mix provides tremendous treasures if we look for them. This is the positive that we can cling to, explore, and apply to our lives.