Did you know attention is a skill that must be developed? Today, I share why children struggle to focus and introduce my concept of “brain currency” – how your brain evaluates what actions to take based on past patterns.
Everything your child practices becomes their neural pathway! If they’ve practiced avoidance or device dependence, that becomes their default mode. The good news? We can reshape these patterns!
Join me for a FREE webinar on May 14th at 7PM where I’ll expand on these concepts and provide practical strategies. Visit my website to register!
Remember parents – you’re the role model. What are YOU practicing daily? Your habits shape your child’s brain development!
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Full Transcript
Introduction and webinar announcement 0:00
Hi everybody, it's Dr. Laura and welcome to Connecting the Dots Truth Bombs. This is our five-minute. We're coming in with some great pieces of information. Now I have been doing the developmental journey and I'm going to take a little pause because we have an event coming up on May 14th at 7 p.m. And this is a parental information webinar. This one's complimentary. If you're interested, I want you to go over to the website and sign up. It is on executive function and how it impacts mood and attention.
Teaching attention as a developmental skill 0:35
You know, that is always the big thing that people are focused on is my kid doesn't know how to pay attention, and I hear this all the time. Why? Why can't your child pay attention? So one truth bomb is it is a developmental journey. You don't just pop into something, you have to practice it. You have to learn how to pay attention. And this is the time when your child is little and you are gearing your children through picking up toys, being present at the dinner table, making their bed, laying out their clothes, Being active, paying attention to the environment we call life.
And then as we go through different developmental journeys, we need to bring up the ability for you to be able to pay attention to other things like hygiene, like making good choices at school. being present at school, doing your homework, knowing what a schedule is.
Building executive function through daily routines 1:44
As parents, this is our responsibility to teach. And you need to start as early as possible, but of course, always age appropriate. The truth bomb that I really wanna bring to you today starts at that foundation. If a child has not practiced, how to be motivated, to BE driven, be able to pay attention, execute a plan. If something is always done for them, if they're never initiating, don't know how follow directions, we're not looking at those elements. then we can't expect that frontal lobe to come on board as it is expected.
When you are born, you're fully formed, but you aren't fully functioning. You have to wire up this brain and it starts in the back of the brain. And whatever is going on becomes the role model for how the front of brain is actually going to mature.
How brain wiring and habits shape behavior 2:50
So that's why you have look at what happened in past. Many things that I hear today Like my child never turns in their homework. My child is always on devices. We have to break those patterns. I know it seems hard and I knows sometimes we just get to a place that we're tired and we don't wanna deal with it anymore. However, if we let it go, it will not magically get better. It is literally shaping what I'm going to call brain currency. So, truth bomb again today is what is brain-currency? Brain currency is how your brain evaluates what should we do.
And if my currency got started with somebody else will do it for me, I'm just gonna withdraw away, I am gonna go into devices, i'm going to refuse to do things, and refuse go to school, refuse talk, going refuse eat a good diet, everything my parents have asked me to, building a brain currency that i am going call zero. And so when they become older and they're still doing these things and you start worrying about high school and college,
Brain currency and chronic patterns 4:19
you have to realize that the brain currency has been changed and it is going to take a lot of work in order to break that pattern. Everything that we do is set up from back in the womb coming forward. Whatever has-been practice is exactly what you're going Anything that has gone on for a long period of time, I'm gonna use the word chronic. And this is your other truth bomb for today. Whatever you have practiced, and this for you too, have you practiced being present? Have you practice being motivated?
have practice following the steps that you said that were gonna do? That is a role model to your child. So whatever is practiced, whatever becomes chronic, literally your brain says, okay, this is what you wanna keep doing. So I'm gonna take some real estate up here and I am going to break it apart and apply it to what it is that you practice all the time. Okay, here's your truth. What have you been practicing? Thanks for tuning in.
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