Dr. John Medina: Brain Rules for Parents

Brain Rules for Parents

Dr. John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist and author of the New York Times bestseller, Brain Rules was a guest speaker on Thursday evening, January 20th at PEN. (http://www.parentseducationnetwork.org)  He is also an affiliate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington, School of Medicine and the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University. 

This evening his topic was Brain Rules for Parents. Dr. Medina is an energetic man with a robust physique and voice. His approach to lecturing involves stories that prove his points, facts quickly offered and a point of view that stops the listener in his or her tracks. He has much to share that is cogent and exciting. He envisions how it could be in the future implementing the information that he and other brain scientists know for sure about the brain.   

At the outset of the evening he kept reiterating that the brain’s unified performance envelope is designed to solve problems, related to surviving, in an outdoor setting and to do so in constant motion. In other words, the brain isn’t interested in learning, it’s primary concern is surviving. 

With this fact in mind he moved to the topic was stress. Stressed brains don’t learn in the same way as normal brains. He suggested to parents that if your child is stressed see what they are running from. The trigger points are the problem. The more out of control the child (or adult) is feeling, the more the learning, including short and long term memory is affected. 

Dr. Medina then turned his attention to the “home” stating that the single predictor of academic success is the emotional stability at home. Marital conflict causes stress not only for the couple but also their children. If there is marital conflict when the baby is in utero and the partners work on their relationship during this time both the baby and the relationship benefit. In other words when adults are able to control themselves both individually and in partnership, they change the nervous system of their kids. He said that if the woman is feeling she is being heard by the man, the marriage works. An important key to being heard is that the woman is able to communicate her psychological behavior in the way a man can understand it. He can then respond by examining his behavior.  

 A stable home environment is particularly important for kids with learning disabilities. There are some kids who are hyper active because they don’t feel safe.

There is good news around what improves the stressed conditions. Aerobic Exercise:  Aerobic exercise affects something in the brain that assists the memory process. It has been proven that memory can change as a result of this type of exercising. The caveat is that the exercise program must be continuous (30 minutes of aerobics 3 times a week). Scientists are now researching the value of exercise for both ADD and ADHD conditions.  Reason: exercise affects the brain chemistry. The more an individual saturates the blood with oxygen, the less there is depression (merely increasing the amount of oxygen without aerobic exercise did not have the same effect.) He emphatically stated: PE, physical education, is the most important hour in a kid’s academic life! 

There is more information on Dr. John Medina’s lectures for PEN.  See blog Brain Rules for Teachers. Dr. Medina’s website is: http://brainrules.net. His books are: Brain Rules and Brain Rules for Baby.

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