We, as parents and educators, have a limited time to develop proficiency in reading for our children. Why? For a variety of reasons, not least of which is self-esteem. Children begin to compare themselves as early as preschool and kindergarten. My children entered kindergarten already knowing the alphabet. They could read a very limited number of words. They were considered slightly ahead of average. One of them had a classmate who could read Harry Potter with comprehension. You better believe that my kids found that intimidating, especially my younger son, who had a hard time reading when he was tired. The words would start to swim by the time he got home from school, and he would pull words from lines below the one he was trying to read. He got incredibly frustrated. I did a lot of extra work with him on the weekends, when his eyes were fresh. We also had him tested by a vision therapist and discovered that he needed prism glasses and vision therapy in order to see 3D. I could practically hear the clock ticking: would I be able to make this easy enough for him to master, so he considered himself smart, or wouldn't I?
"...millions of American children get to fourth grade without learning to read proficiently. And that puts them on the dropout track." According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, "Up until the end of third grade, most children are learning to read. Beginning in fourth grade, however, they are reading to learn, using their skills to gain more information in subjects such as math and science, to solve problems, to think critically about what they are learning, and to act upon and share that knowledge in the world around them. Up to half of the printed fourth-grade curriculum is incomprehensible to students who read below that grade level, according to the Children’s Reading Foundation. And three quarters of students who are poor readers in third grade will remain poor readers in high school, according to researchers at Yale University." Many of our children who live in poverty have been traumatized. When traumatized, our primary reflexes either don't get mastered or get reactivated, making 3D vision impossible. Children of poverty are much more likely to have learning disabilities because of this. In an ideal world, kids like these could get their primary reflexes properly integrated, and get prism glasses to allow them to make the most of their innate intelligence. How? Through educational kinesiologies like Brain Gym, the Masgutova Method, Books Neural Therapy, brain training programs like Interactive Metronome, and treatment with vision therapists. Again, the Annie E. Casey Foundation: "Analyses of data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) indicate that the United States will need 60% of its population to possess a post-secondary degree or credential by 2025 to remain globally competitive. Currently, 30% of all adult workers in the United States hold four-year degrees, an attainment rate second only to Norway. But if we look at the rate among the youngest adult workers—those workers on whom our future depends—the United States ranked sixth among OECD nations in 2006, behind Norway, the Netherlands, South Korea, Denmark, and Sweden. If we look at two-year degrees, the U.S. attainment rate for all workers is only average and has fallen over time. To achieve the OECD goal for workers with post-secondary degrees, the United States will need to produce 16 million more graduates above the current rate of production.” That cannot happen unless we increase the number of high school graduates. And that requires significantly more children getting on track to graduation by reading proficiently by the end of third grade." But the bottom line is: do children feel competent at reading, or do they feel incapable? How they feel about reading is a deciding factor in what they dream for themselves, if they believe in themselves, or whether they give up on themselves, and opt out of school at the earliest opportunity. As Maya Angelou almost said, "children may forget what you said, maybe forget what you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel." As a parent or as an educator, how do you make your children feel? I got lucky with my younger son. I caught him in time, and he ended up graduating high school as a National Merit Finalist. His brother did just as well, and made it into a university rated in the top twenty in the world. My secret? Making sure they felt like winners at school, and backing it up with integrating primary reflexes, vision therapy, educational kinesiology, and Interactive Metronome. http://www.ccf.ny.gov/files/9013/8262/2751/AECFReporReadingGrade3.pdf
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Or did you walk early, thanks to a jolly jumper or exersaucer?
American parents are taught that the earlier our children meet developmental milestones, the better, but that's not necessarily true. In the case of creeping, crawling, and learning to walk, there's a downside to moving through each phase too quickly. If primitive reflexes aren't properly turned off, and we don't spend enough time creeping, then crawling gets impacted. It may look like crawling is happening, but it's done in a way that's compensating for non-integrated primitive reflexes. Additionally, bright kids can figure out how to game the system. Maybe they don't like the feel of the carpet on their knees, so they scoot instead. The downside is that crawling for six months allows for proper kneecap development. Kids who crawl for less time, or who scoot instead, will be more likely to have knee injuries. Until the work is done to make up for underdeveloped lower regions in the brain, the compensation for non-integrated reflexes is done by the cortex. The cortex, which is what we should be using for excelling at schoolwork, is instead taking over for the midbrain and the primitive brain. Non-integrated reflexes hold back many children and adults from achieving their full potential. My child development books are all packed up until I'm ready to write a book about that, so I'll recommend one website as a resource: braingym.org. This was created by a Touch for Health energy kinesiology instructor, who modified TFH to help his own learning disabilities. It's been used by parents to help their kids and by teachers to help their students since 1986. The practitioners and consultants at Brain Gym are all about how to help restart delayed development and enhance potential, as well as how to tune in and activate different types of learning. I recommend Brain Gym even for neurotypical kids. This is because kids these days are fast-tracked into reading too young and aren't allowed enough time for gross motor movement. It can make even neurotypical kids stressed out to be in a classroom environment all day. Brain Gym has simple movements specifically geared towards helping all kids have their nervous systems calm down and be ready for schoolwork, while honoring their bodies' needs. There's a lot of debate on the right timing to start kids on reading, writing and math. Gross motor skills need developing young and instead we're largely restricting their movement to desks and fine motor movement instead, especially with smart phones and tablets. Young eyes need strong daylight when developing in order to mature properly. Instead, they're inside, spending most of their time under too-dim fluorescent lighting. It is leading to a generation almost entirely in need of glasses in every culture doing this. Since most of us can't home-school our kids, one way to help make up for these deficits is to learn Brain Gym yourself and bring it into the classroom when you are volunteering in class during nursery school, kindergarten and first grade. When teachers see the difference it makes in behavior and learning, they'll tell the principal and teachers for the older grades. Before you know it, you've created a movement that will benefit all kids coming through the school, including your own. Be the change:-) One great thing about the brain is it is neuroplastic no matter one's age. If you're having trouble with reading, either with comprehension or staying awake, or with organization, or focus, with listening or speaking, Brain Gym can help too. As we age, it's common for us to have more issues with learning disabilities. It doesn't have to stay that way. I also have a one-on-one program to help people like me overcome their ADHD. If you are an adult with ADHD, feel free to contact me to find out just how much potential you have. Warmly, Elizabeth Photo by Picsea on Unsplash I was talking to a friend last week who's been suffering from complications from cancer treatment. "I know I'm going to die from this," she told me in a chipper tone of voice.
Truth be told, I was a bit taken aback. "Your doctors have been telling you that?" I asked. "Because I know it helps to keep a positive attitude." "They told me they can buy me a few more years, but I'm realistic. Unless something takes me out first, like a bus, this is how I'm going to go. I'm a realist." I asked a few more questions and it became clear. She likes what she's been telling herself based on her doctors' information. She's not willing to take in new information. She's got a set of beliefs in place and they are comforting to her. They are providing order in a chaotic world for her, this world that in her mind has now orchestrated her death. If you're like this and happy to be like this, read no further. This post is not for you. I respect where you're at, life is hard enough, and I don't want to rock your world. If you'd like to know more about epigenetics and how you might be co-creating your world, read on. Epigenetics is the study of the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself. In one study, researchers found that mice who were repeatedly shocked in the foot while smelling the scent of cherry blossoms passed the fear of the scent of cherry blossoms down to their children and grandchildren. It seems reasonable to assume the human mind likely can do more. Think of all the close-calls your parents had from before you were born that might be impacting you. Then think of your grandparents' close-calls before your parents were born. It might someday be found that humans need to look back many more generations than that. Now think of your own traumatic events through your lifetime. These things are resonating within you, increasing the tension that you live under. Now add to that the self-talk that you do. Are you positive and supportive of yourself all the time, just as if you are a loving parent or coach? Or do you get frustrated at yourself when you fail at something? Do you call yourself names that you wouldn't allow someone else to? Any negativity is increasing the tension that you live with. You might say that you're being realistic, but if you put a child down, you are stopping their motivation to try, which stops their growth. We all have parts of our childhood selves within us throughout our lifetime. Read Getting Unstuck by Dr. Don Kerson if you have any doubts about this fact. All of your accumulated tension and all of the accumulated intergenerational tension you were born with is locked within you. Your unconscious is communicating with your cells and making changes minute-by-minute to them based on whether you think the world is a safe place or not. If the world is unsafe, you're more likely to be making excessive amounts of adrenaline and cortisol. You're stuck in fight-or-flight, which ultimately becomes an inflammatory process to your body if your body forgets how to reset. Inflammation leads to disease. Getting back to my friend, it's possible to go into spontaneous remission from cancer. Read Dying to Be Me, by Anita Moorjani if you doubt it. Do you think spontaneous remission is more likely to happen to a person who's decided they're dying or to a person who's decided to be a loving coach to themselves, learn how to reduce fight-or-flight to heal their body and mind, and figure out what self-love truly means and practice it? It's possible to change. That's what I write about in my book, Your Best Health by Friday. Find the mind/body techniques you feel comfortable with to help change. Maybe it's yoga. Maybe it's meditation. Maybe it's one of the many other ways I delve into in my book. Try different things that put you into a sense of safety and flow until you find a fit, because you are retraining your stress patterns away from fight-or-flight and into wellness. Your unconscious is sending tens of thousands of messages to every last cell in your body every single day. Will you let those messages undermine your life, health and potential, or maximize them? Look at the picture above--will you let your potential lie fallow or make it fertile? Whether you work on your own, with me, or one of the many other mind/body coaches out there, know that I believe in you. Know that you can do it. From my heart to yours-- Warmly, Elizabeth Photo by Graeme Walker on Unsplash. Our community of Santa Barbara has been hard hit lately with fire and flood. The 101 freeway was closed at Montecito for almost two weeks after intense rain caused a flood on January 9th. We lost 23 people to the storm--21 dead and 2 children still missing. In the aftermath, there has been a wide range of responses, everything from incredible generosity of spirit to looting. Fortunately, the generosity of spirit is the most abundant. There was a sense of isolation with 101 being closed again so soon after reopening from fire closures. Right after the fires, we have had several small but noticeable earthquakes. People seem to be carrying around a great deal of stress from the disasters and we're being urged to be especially sensitive of others. Almost everyone knows someone, or has friends of friends who have experienced great loss. People are in grief and everyone processes grief differently. Through it all, I've been grateful for the everyday gifts of waking up, breathing clean air, having a roof over my head, and being able to stay in the moment and not spiral down into worry about the unknown. At times, the fire was advancing towards us at 60,000 acres a day and the weather forecast looked grim, yet I slept better than I typically do. I wasn't always like this. I've had a huge growth curve on that front. I talk about it in more detail in my recent Thrive Global article, New Year, New You: How I Rewired My Brain for a Better Life and How You Can, Too. Life has changed in Santa Barbara, and the neighboring towns of Montecito, Summerland, Carpinteria, Ojai and Ventura. It will take years to get back to normal, if it ever does. Maybe that's part of our communities' growth. Life is uncertain. Any attempts we make to control it are ephemeral and Mother Nature can do what she wants. We're at risk for more floods and mud for the next few years. We're almost always in danger of fire here. Best for me to learn how to ride the wave of whatever's next by staying centered, grounded and grateful. Life can be uncertain anywhere, though. We all benefit if we have tools to stay centered, grounded and grateful. On a personal note, I'm starting to reach out to libraries and adult ed programs in California to give programs in what I've learned about health. Look for me if you're a local. The step after that will be to branch out to other states. Invite me if you're interested in having me speak near you. I'm always happy to Zoom or Skype if I can't get there in person. Warmly, Elizabeth When I first heard about Earthing years ago, I laughed. It was not a kind laugh. Then at least a decade went by.
The first time I tried Earthing was when I went to a chiropractor in Santa Barbara, California. He attached a cord to my ankle and it felt like someone had plugged me into a mild electric current. I asked what it was and he told me. I have come back most of the way from fibromyalgia, but I still don't make enough endorphins. I'm very sensitive to sensations. By the end of the session, I felt like I was floating on a cloud, it felt so good. I bought an Earthing fitted sheet and went home, excited to try it out that night. That night, my partner did not share my enthusiasm. He wanted to know what the big deal was. I was lying there, soaking up all that amazing energy. "Don't you feel it?" I asked him. No, he did not, not one little bit. Meanwhile, I felt so much sensation that it was hard to ignore it enough to go to sleep. All my nerves were singing, but the volume was up way too high. Eventually, I got tired enough to fall asleep. The next morning, I bounded out of bed with way more energy than typical. I felt great. I felt amazing, actually. And then I went and sat in front of a computer for hours and by the third hour, I noticed something interesting: my spine started hurting and drooping like it was a flower that had been left out of water too long. "Interesting," I thought. So if the Earthing theory was right, I needed a recharge. I took my shoes off and went outside to sunbathe. In fifteen minutes, my backache was gone and my energy was strong. I so often felt back pain that I had never been able to isolate it like that before to find out what made it better. Over the next three weeks, I noticed something else interesting: I felt less and less sensory feedback from using the sheet. And then came the day that I could no longer notice any sensory feedback at all from it. I still use it nightly, along with a band for when I use the computer. Every now and then if I forget to plug the grounding wire back in after I change the sheets, I pay for it the next day when the backache returns. I can see how much sunshine and outdoor barefoot time means to my body. I realize that part of what fibromyalgia is could be called indoor-itis. Outdoors, sunshine and Earthing are medicine for me. If you're healthy, I don't know what Earthing can do for you. But if you've got fibromyalgia, I highly recommend Earthing. With love, Elizabeth
Every few years, I buy a new copy of this book, after I splash my way through my current one. I hope you like it as much as I do!
I keep coming back to this book. It was a gift from my beloved great aunt Jean, after I had loved one of the dishes she made from it while I was out visiting. Then my sister wanted a copy, then my mom, after they tried dishes I'd made from it. Faves include Hot Mushroom Dip p 51, amazing with French bread cubes, Whole Wheat Bread p 82, which I consider the best ever, Sour Cream Coffee Cake p 90, Peter Peter Pumpkin Bread p 94, Banana Bran Muffins p 100, Plucky Enchiladas p 224 (I make these with leftover turkey the day after Thanksgiving), Madora's Corn Pudding p 293 (be sure to at least double the recipe to prevent fistfights breaking out among the dinner guests), Chocolate Shortbread Crescents p319, Shortbread p325, French Poppy Seed Cake p 337 (yummy and elegant!), Lemon Applesauce Cake p338 (excellent and easy!) and the hit-it-out-of-the-ballpark dessert, Regal English Trifle with homemade English Custard p357. Make it and your toes will be kissed by your significant other. It's almost easier to list what recipes didn't work, because I've only been disappointed twice (I did NOT like Breast of Chicken Chesapeake p205 or the Georgia Brunswick Stew p127.) As you can see, I take my vittles seriously:-) Dive into this book and you won't be disappointed. It's getting to that time again, that run up to calorie-heaven between Thanksgiving and New Year. It's kind of a hard time for those of us who are gluten-free and dairy-free. One way I get through it is by enabling others' wheat and dairy addictions. Another way, since I'm much healthier and I don't have celiac, involves a tiny bit of cheating.
It's hard, because I can bake really well, and I know what it tastes like. I think of the quality of whatever the forbidden food is. A bite of scone from Starbucks? I can pass that by. One of my own scones, hot out of the oven? I may not be able to hold out. I time my baking so I'm not tempting myself if I'm hungry. I remember well what it felt like to be surprised and humiliated by my baking back in my twenties. Some days everything tasted great. Other days, it was like eating loofah. What turned things around for me was Rose Levy Beranbaum's book The Cake Bible. Rose made me realize that cakes didn't have it in for me--it was all about chemistry. Once I read my way through her book and started trying recipes, it became clear that I could be a very good baker. Suddenly I could count on compliments. Over the years, I've come to a few realizations:
At some point, I'll start posting recipes, both gluten-free and wheat. It's a joy to share good food. I hope you'll share some of your favorites too. Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
If you have some doubts if Brain Gym could help you or your loved ones, it might help to look at these videos. These two career principals found Brain Gym helpful enough to become instructors, so they could help improve their schools. One of them is the principal of a Blue Ribbon school. Brain Gym is the creation of a Touch for Health Instructor with a learning disability. It's considered educational kinesiology. It takes Touch for Health kinesiology, adapts a lot of it, and targets it to help increase learning capacity and focus for everyone, as well as clearing learning disabilities. If you can concede Brain Gym is useful, doesn't it show you that Touch for Health is real and useful? Doesn't it then beg the question that Applied Kinesiology (the core work that Touch for Health is based on) is also real and useful? I've found all three modalities to be enormously helpful. I talk a lot in my book about how Touch for Health helped with reducing tension in my muscles by resetting them. I've had treatment by an AK chiropractor as a test subject during a conference that reset one of my cranial bones and suddenly I could remember everyone's name at the conference, when normally I have difficulty remembering names. Specialized kinesiology and educational kinesiology have been very helpful for me in healing. https://youtu.be/ozatELpY7Fg https://youtu.be/TY4YmX-kLBA I've learned the hard way what listening to the news can do to my body and my health. During the first Gulf War, for the first time ever, CNN had 24 hour coverage. I didn't have the good sense to limit how much I watched that channel. There was a recession, I was fresh out of fashion design school and unable to get a job, which led to be being a bit depressed about feeling unneeded in my chosen profession. Our country being at war had me on edge and I felt I needed to keep informed, so I constantly had the news on. I got more and more wound up by what I saw on tv, which sent my anxiety levels even higher. My sleep became more broken and I got sick more often.
It was a downward spiral until I realized that watching the news was the problem. Watching the news is for healthy people. I quit almost cold turkey. I rarely miss hearing anything important because everyone's talking about it anyway. One minute of interaction on a news topic with a friend or loved one every few days is so much easier than all the stress I used to get from listening to the daily news. If you're dealing with chronic stress or illness, you might ask yourself how you feel after watching the news. Take stock of your body, heart rate, blood pressure and pain levels before and after watching it. You might want to cut back watching, if not cut it out entirely. There's a lot of brinksmanship going on right now between us and North Korea, but my focus is on what I have power over like staying positive and continuing to write and edit. Being positive and calm helps others around us to be calmer. The more we can stay in that space mentally, the better for us and our health. I fill in some of the time I used to waste on the news with yoga and meditation classes. You might be surprised at how productive and creative you can be if you're not so stressed. Photo by davide ragusa on Unsplash This is a little post about gratitude. This morning I got up incredibly early for me and had a Skype session with an Australian friend. The sun came up while I was on the computer. Once the session was over, I came out to the kitchen and caught the sun doing this amazing thing. You know, like shining on a wall. The sunlight slants in like this for just a few minutes in the morning at certain times of the year. Most of the time, I'm either still sleeping or too busy to stop and enjoy it.
I've tried a few things as part of a gratitude practice. One of my favorites was writing something down on a post it note when I caught myself in the act of being grateful and putting that note into a box. The idea is to empty it at the end of the year and read them all. It's great, because you get to re-experience the gratitude all over again. I think maybe the next step is to sometimes catch a picture when I'm grateful about something. Particularly for the ephemeral things, like light. Light has often been something I hungered for. In New York City in the 1990's, my apartment faced north. The building across the street blocked most of the window. I felt stunted, like my plants. Once I was finally in a house in the suburbs north of the city, sweet rays of sunlight filtered into my kitchen on a slant on cold January mornings, just when hope for summer was at its dimmest. I sat in them, let them wash over me, let them light up my eyelashes. Gratitude gives me a feeling of resonance in my body, like somehow I'm connected to everything and everyone else. In physics, resonance means the reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection from a surface or by the synchronous vibration of a neighboring object. Maybe when we are grateful we give off a synchronous vibration that others can pick up on unconsciously? However it works, gratitude has been shown to help our happiness and health. Have you added a gratitude practice in your life? How has it helped you? |
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