Dedication
For my boys,
Gavin and Gareth,
because you inspire me.
Title Page
BRAINCHILD
Secrets to Unlocking Your Child’s Potential
Shen-Li Lee
Publishing
First published by
MPH Group Publishing Sdn Bhd
Lot 1, 1st Floor, Bangunan TH, No. 5 Jalan Bersatu 13/4
46200 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
email: mphpublishing@mph.com.my
Copyright © 2016 Shen-Li Lee
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior permission from the copyright holder.
Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia
Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Lee, Shen-Li, 1977-
BRAINCHILD: Secrets to Unlocking Your Child’s Potential / SHEN-LI LEE.
1. Child development.
2. Child psychology.
3. Parenting.
I. Title. II. Series.
649.1
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Chapter 1 The ABCs of Child development
Chapter 2 If Children Don’t Snooze, They Lose
Chapter 3 Love Makes Children Smarter
Chapter 4 Food and Water for Thought
Chapter 5 Exercise: The Magic Bullet
Chapter 6 Discipline: To Teach
Chapter 7 The Characteristics of Success
Chapter 8 Building the Brain for Success
Chapter 9 The All-rounder Triumphs
Chapter 10 Final Words
Acknowledgements
My gorgeous models and their awesome mothers who endured the ungodly hours and the heat: Sharon Chan, Falz Pilos, Karen Loong Thomas, Karen Warren, Lisa Yap, Gavin Goh, Gareth Goh, Ahsen Jauhar, Asyiqah Tsara Nicholas, Iyesha Rhiannon Nicholas, Kaeden Luqmann Nicholas, Chris Quinn, Emily Quinn, Cahaya Rain Thomas, Matthew Warren, Alyssa Warren, and Natasha Yeo.
Li Goh and Nikki Goh, my super supportive sisters-in-law, thank you for indulging the countless discussions, providing endless advice, and sharing your brilliant ideas.
Charlie Goh, my awesomely patient husband, who endured terrible neglect when I went off to write this book.
Vicky O'Callaghan, thank you for generously offering your time and expertise in reviewing my drafts.
Daisy Ng, the catalyst without whom this book would not exist.
Sammie Tan, from Grey Rabbit Studio, for taking these beautiful pictures for my book.
The team at MPH Group Publishing: Oon Yeoh, Kuah Sze Mei, Lilian Ng, Amy Heng, and the others, for making this book possible.
Preface
We want the best for our children. We want to give them every opportunity for that extra edge in life because it is a dog-eat-dog world out there. So we rush them from school to their extra classes and fill up their days with activities designed to make them smarter and help them score higher grades in school.
But the choices and opportunities are endless with new centres springing up like mushrooms after the rain. So we flit from one enrichment class to another, like butterflies in a garden searching for the nectar of success. Meanwhile, our weary, exhausted and unwilling children have shut down because they are overwhelmed.
Stimulation for the mind, body, and senses are great for our children, especially when they are still rapidly growing and developing. Nevertheless, there must be balance. More isn't necessarily better, because we can end up with too much of a good thing. Just as vitamins in excess can lead to overdose, we need to make sure we do not overdose our children with all these great activities and forget about other elements that are inconspicuously vital to their healthy growth and development.
There is a popular story floating around on the Internet that many of you may have heard before: "Rocks, Pebbles, and Sand".
A teacher stood before a class and placed an empty jar on the table. She filled it up with rocks then asked her students if the jar was full. The students agreed that it was.
Next, the teacher picked up a bag of pebbles and poured them into the jar, shaking it to allow the pebbles to fit into the spaces between the rocks. Again she asked her students if the jar was full and, again, they agreed.
Finally, the teacher picked up a bag of sand and poured it into the jar. The sand scattered into the remaining spaces in the jar.
The teacher looked at the class and said, "I want you to recognise that this jar symbolises your life. The rocks signify the important things in your life, like family, health, and relationships. If everything else was lost and only the rocks remained, your life would still be meaningful. The pebbles are the other things that matter in your life, like work or school. The sand represents the little things in life, like material possessions. If we fill the jar with sand first, there would be no room for the important things like the rocks or the pebbles."
In our take of this analogy, the jar epitomises our children's time. The rocks are the essential elements vital for their healthy growth and development. The enrichment classes and extracurricular activities are the pebbles in this story. Although they are important, they are not as essential as the rocks. The sand is all the other little things.
What are we filling our children's lives with? Are they rocks, pebbles, or sand?
That's what this book is about: how to make sure that what we're focusing on are really the rocks and that we're not getting side-tracked by the sand because when it comes to child development, sometimes the rocks are not what we think they are. If we focus on the right things first, our children will have a strong foundation for whatever life throws their way.
Shen-Li Lee
June 2016
Chapter 1: The ABCs of Child Development
In a first-aid course, one of the first things you learn is the acronym DRABC, which stands for Danger, Response, Airway, Breathing, and Circulation. They teach you this because you need to follow this order in an emergency situation. Deviate from this order and the consequences can be disastrous. Here's why:
Danger: When you enter an emergency situation, the first thing you need to do is check for potential danger to yourself. If you rush in and get hurt, you'll become another victim that needs rescuing.
Response: You need to check the victim for a response to be sure that the victim isn't just sleeping. I'm sure you can imagine the trouble a man will get into if he tries to resuscitate a woman who is merely sleeping.
Airway: Is it blocked? Sometimes the victim can't breathe because an object is obstructing the airway. Breathing may resume on its own if you remove the obstruction.
Breathing: The purpose of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is to deliver oxygen to the victim's lungs for transfer to the blood.
Circulation: Once the blood is oxygenated, you can get the circulation going with cardiac compressions (when you pump the victim's chest). There is no point in getting the circulation going before breathing because the heart will be pumping deoxygenated blood around the body.
MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
Maslow's hierarchy is a theory that human motivation is dependent on a series of needs. It was developed by Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist.
In a way, parenting is similar to what you learn in first aid except that DRABC, in this case, is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. At the top of the hierarchy is the ultimate goal of self-actualisation where our children have reached their full potential and found meaning in their lives. Like the importance of following the order in DRABC, you cannot reach the top of Maslow's pyramid unless you approach it in a step-wise fashion, beginning at the bottom.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs applies to us all - adults and children alike. Children, with their limited life experiences and smaller bodies that are more susceptible to change, are more easily affected by the withdrawal of these needs.
The Story of Johnny
Johnny is nine years old. Every morning, he gets up at 5:30 a.m. so he can catch the bus to school by 6 a.m. After school, he takes another bus to his after-school tuition classes where he spends the rest of his afternoon. He even showers and has dinner at the tuition centre. By the time he gets home, it is 9 p.m. He has an hour to wind down and then he's off to bed. The next morning, he starts all over again. On the weekends, he has weekend tuition. Over the school holidays, he attends school holiday tuition. Johnny's Dad is very concerned because Johnny is still failing despite all the extra classes he takes.
At nine years old, Johnny needs 10 to 11 hours of sleep a night. Assuming he falls asleep at 10 p.m. on the dot, he is still only getting 7.5 hours of sleep a night.
He doesn't get enough sleep, he doesn't have enough downtime, and he doesn't get recreational activity. He's not active in sports or physical activity and he isn't getting enough time with his family. It is not surprising that Johnny is failing because his brain is too tired to learn. He doesn't get enough time for his brain to process and consolidate the material that he learns - whatever he is taught is easily displaced by the constant barrage of new information.
In Johnny's case, it is no longer a question of the quality of the extra classes he receives. Because he has unfulfilled needs, he can't pay attention to his teachers no matter how great a reading programme they are teaching or how interesting they make the math lesson.
The Physiological Needs
The most easily overlooked physiological needs are hunger and sleep. Mild deprivations are easily overlooked but the effects can be quite significant. Children whose physiological needs have not been met are essentially in survival mode. It prevents them from attending to other needs higher up in the pyramid, such as making friends, working towards a goal, or listening to a teacher at school.
Consider a time when you were hungry or tired. Remember how you felt - grumpy, withdrawn, struggling to concentrate, easily upset and quick to rage. If we translate these emotions into those of a child's, it suddenly becomes clearer why children behave poorly at times. Even adults, with their knowledge of social etiquette, struggle to maintain propriety when sleep-deprived or famished.
The Safety Needs
Historically, safety needs meant being safe from predators but in modern society, how our children require these needs to be fulfilled has changed. Children may require the physical closeness of a parent to feel secure, such as when a child displays an unwillingness to fall asleep alone. They may require emotional support provided by their parents when they feel overwhelmed by strong feelings they don't fully comprehend or know how to handle.
It may seem counter-intuitive, especially when our children are often challenging our authority, but children feel more secure with parents who provide firm discipline. Permissive parenting challenges the safety of the child because children know they need their parents to keep them in check when they have gone too far. The boundaries that parents provide through discipline give children the confidence to explore.
Safety needs also include emotional security. When we're overloaded with extreme emotions, it can be very difficult to concentrate on anything else. If we recall the times when we were really upset - when someone made us really angry or scared, or when we were very sad - these were times we lose our ability to focus on our work and surroundings. If we as adults, with all our years of experience, still struggle with our emotions, imagine how difficult it would be for our children who have even less experience dealing with difficult emotions. If our children are facing these challenging emotions at school, how can we expect them to learn?
Love and Belonging Needs
For children, love is as essential to life as food or water. Without love, children fall sick more easily, they struggle to learn, and babies die. As they grow, their love and belonging needs may change as their circles expand beyond their parents to their friends, teachers, and mentors. Regardless of how they change, the needs remain.
Children also need parents to help them feel grounded as it conveys love and a sense of belonging. As parents, we need to recognise this and provide emotional support when it is required rather than brushing it off as simply a "part of growing up". We need to be conscious that we are adults with years of experience while our children are still in the process of learning how to handle these "growing pains".
As our children grow up, they will face many challenging life experiences, such as moving schools, losing friends, setbacks and failures, changes in their bodies and emotions as they mature, and many more. Some of these difficulties may seem insignificant compared to the trials we face as adults but it is important to understand that they can appear colossal in the eyes of our children. As parents, it is easy to forget what it was like.
Sometimes we underestimate the impact certain events may have on our children. For instance, when our children move schools, we often don't think it is important to let our children say "goodbye" to the friends they have made - especially when it is a preschool and our children are "too young to remember anyway". But young children, especially the sensitive ones, can feel the loss quite acutely. Being young and inexperienced, they struggle to make sense of what happens when their friends stop coming to school.
Esteem
Esteem needs may be external (the need to be accepted and valued by others) or internal (being confident and liking ourselves as individuals). While we may contend that external validation is an unnecessary evil that we should rid ourselves of, the fact remains we still seek and desire it.
For children, esteem needs are threatened when they are bullied or discriminated against. They may also struggle to move up the hierarchy because society rewards motivation based on esteem, love and other social needs. Children may also be waylaid by misguided but well-intentioned parents who, in seeking "secure careers" for their children, encourage their children to follow the career goals they have set.
Self-Actualisation
This is our goal for every child - to reach the level of self-actualisation. At this level, our children are fully engaged with purpose. These children are ready for learning, achievement, and leading fulfilling lives.
THE ROLE OF MASLOW’S HIERARCHY IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Being aware of Maslow's hierarchy of needs allows us to identify why our children may be struggling, whether it is academically in school, socially with friends, or generally in life. It can help us to understand why a child, like Johnny (in the previous example), may still be struggling despite all the learning resources he has at his disposal. There may be unfulfilled needs that prevent our children from reaching their full potential and, if we can attend to them, we may be able to resolve some of the issues they face, similarly to how clearing the victim's airway may allow them to breathe in the analogy at the beginning of this chapter.
The education of a child can never be just about shaping a child's mind because everything is interconnected - the heart, the mind, and the body. To unlock our children's full potential, we have to address the development of the whole child - physically, emotionally, and mentally.
Chapter 2: If Children Don’t Snooze, They Lose
It's the 21st century and life moves at a frenetic pace. The kids have full-day schedules packed with school and extracurricular activities from sports and music to languages and tuition. Many parents work long hours and kids are fighting to stay up for that precious hour or two with their mums and dads in the evenings. Throw in computers, handheld devices, and 24-hour children's TV channels into the mix and we have overstimulated children who are too wired to sleep at night. What's worse is that overtiredness can sometimes compound the problem, making it even harder for children to fall asleep.
Over 40 per cent of Malaysian children don't get enough sleep(1). This is not surprising, considering that many of these children have a regular bedtime of 10 p.m.(2). School-going children up to the age of 12 years need at least 10 to 11 hours of sleep a night. Given that the majority of schools in Malaysia start around 7:30 a.m., that gives these children 8.5 hours of sleep at best, assuming that they fall asleep almost immediately and are allowed to sleep in until 6:30 a.m. This best-case scenario, which is 1.5 hours short, is hardly ideal.
Sleep is one of the most fundamental of basic needs we all require - as adults or children. Study after study demonstrates just how essential sleep is for any individual. When it comes to children, it is even more important because they are still growing and developing. If adults need sleep, children need it even more.
The Effect of Blue Light from Electronics on Sleep
Ideally, there should be no electronics two to three hours before bedtime. Our digital devices emit a blue light that throws our circadian rhythms (sleep-wake cycle) off. Because it has the quality of daylight, it tells our brains it is time to be awake, increasing our overall alertness. It also reduces the secretion of melatonin (the hormone that helps us sleep), delays REM sleep (which is important for consolidating our learning memories), and reduces our alertness the following morning.
SLEEP AND TEENAGERS
Teenagers need as much or even more sleep than adults do, but during the teenage years, they experience a change in their circadian rhythms which tells them to fall asleep later and wake up later. The hormone melatonin, which is responsible for inducing sleep, is produced later in the night during the teenage years, making it harder for them to fall asleep. Since the early hours of school-starting times remain the same for teenagers, they can end up accumulating a significant sleep deficit over time.
Aside from having a negative impact on their academic performance, this sleep deficit makes teenagers more susceptible to making risky decisions, such as using recreational drugs. It also makes them more dangerous behind the wheel of a car, combining their lack of driving experience with slower reaction time.
SLEEP DISORDERS
Sleep disorders are another reason why some children may not be getting enough shut-eye during the night. Frequent night-waking resulting from a sleep disorder disrupts the sleep cycle, making children feel as though they have not slept enough.
HOW MUCH SLEEP SHOULD CHILDREN GET?
WHAT’S THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AN HOUR OR TWO OF MISSED SLEEP?
Even though we know how important sleep is, it is easy to overlook a missing hour or two. Surely it can't make that much of a difference to delay bedtime by one hour, can it? Apparently, it can.
In primary school, missing one hour of sleep can cause a drop in academic performance by as much as two grade levels. In other words, the average child in Standard Six can end up functioning at the cognitive level of an average Standard Four child. In secondary school, every 15 minutes of missed sleep is equivalent to a drop in academic performance by one letter grade. That means an A-grade student could potentially end up scoring Ds by consistently losing one hour of sleep a night.
As parents, our first instinct would be to send our children for extra tuition to help them pick up their grades. Extra tuition means more homework, less time to wind down, and potentially less sleep which only serves to further compound the problem.
SLEEP AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
Sleep can have such a significant impact on academic performance that the first question we should be asking when our children's grades start to slip is whether they are getting enough sleep. Research supports the link between sleep deprivation and poor academic performance:
- Children with sleeping disorders have poor grades in math, reading, and writing.
- Students pulling "all-nighters" are more likely to
Imprint
Publisher: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG
Text: Shen-Li Lee
Images: Shen-Li Lee
Editing: MPH Publishing
Publication Date: 10-02-2019
ISBN: 978-3-7487-1692-1All Rights Reserved