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Talk 1: Understanding The Process Behind How Children Behave
With the proper support and guidance, every child can achieve excellence. Everyone has their own comfort zone and we can reach into that area by giving our children little words of encouragement everyday. This will motivate them to slowly step out of their comfort zone.
The prefrontal cortex of the brain is responsible for rational thinking. Those include sensory movement, cognition, and reasoning. The cortical and somatosensory cortices instruct muscle movement and receive sensory emotions as well as behavioral movements. In addition, the limbic system below the cerebral cortex also participates in important brain activities such as emotion regulation and responding to rewards. Since the prefrontal and limbic systems are not mature at the same time, the frontal palm is slow to develop and only matures before it reaches adulthood while the marginal system would develop slightly faster.
Therefore, children are easily controlled by the limbic system reward system under the cerebral cortex. That is also the reason behind why they like to play games. This is due to the emotional impact of this reward system. This happens especially during adolescence, as the limbic system grows much faster than the prefrontal corpus, this causes their emotions to peak.
Most parents would want their children to have the following qualities: be focused, have self-control and self-discipline, think out of the box, be organised and listen to instructions. These are all functions of the prefrontal cortex and these demands are too high for children whose prefrontal cortex is still growing.
So what can parents do?
Observe and Communicate
Parents must observe more, ask more questions, give more choices for answers, and find out what your child is dealing with. Of course, there are children with major problems, but many problems have symptoms. Dr. Qu has listed a number of real cases, so that parents can understand that some of the normal performance may be really a problem. Learn to help children diagnose the real problem. If necessary, look for professional help.
Wait patiently
Every child has a timetable of their own development. If he or she has not reached the point whereby they can understand what you are trying to tell them, wait for them. Parents should wait patiently for their children to develop and not force them to digest something that they cannot understand.
Be a child's role model and coach
"In terms of emotional regulation, adults are the emotional coaches of children." Parents should be calm and help their children analyze what is going on. Analyze the situation and do not make assumptions. Ask your child questions to find out what they are going through and what they need.
Through questionnaires, parents are self-assessed which questions such as which type of parent would they prefer. The study concluded that supportive and reassuring parents are positively associated with adaptive emotionally adjusted children. This correlation is not necessarily causal, but it is indeed related. “Parents that are open-minded and flexible in assessments can help their children adjust their emotions, mood swings and negative emotions.”