“The most important is to devote time to the activity, train, work, make mistakes, educate yourself and invest in yourself.”
Jan Mühlfeit with Kateřina Novotná
Every parent gives to his child genetic information that cannot be influenced. As a parent, you cannot do anything with child’s appearance and talents. But the predispositions can be influenced. The fact that someone has more talent in a particular sport because of the genes does not mean that he or she will be automatically successful in it.
Genes can be viewed as a box full of certain innate precondition that everyone gets at birth. Someone receives bigger, someone smaller. But if the baby’s brain with a small box is effectively stimulated, captured and used, it creates positive habits that make it much more successful in the area than the one who has twice as large box. The most important is to devote time to the activity, train, work, make mistakes, educate yourself and invest in yourself. Many people think that genetics is everything, but that’s not true. We work with docent Radek Ptáček, one of the most eminent Czech clinical psychologist, intensively on our program. According to him the environment, our experience, how we think and live, have a crucial part on engaging and disabling our certain genes.
The brain as a sponge
Parents often long for their children to be successful as much as children of others. Their descendants are basically trophies. They often upload their own programs to them. Children should do what parents have not done themselves and have success at the same strong points of the parents. The fact is that child is not the same as the parent, is forgotten by many. Another common mistake is that parents take the child’s pre-school age slightly. But the very important foundations for the future development of each individual are created during this period. The neural connections of the neurons, the so-called synapses, are created in the brain from the third trimester of pregnancy to the seventh year of the child’s age. This period is also called “Window of opportunity”. It is a time during which it is very important to stimulate the brain and support it in learning new things and in building positive habits. The brain of a pre-school child works on theta waves, which is a very low and slow frequency. The child is basically in hypnosis at this age. Adults mostly feels, meditates, etc at this frequency. The child absorbs everything he or she sees, does, and experiences in his or her subconscious as a sponge.
Parents think it does not mind if they chew out their child for the mistake he or she has made. They think children are not aware of it and if they do, they will forget about it. But it is not the truth. The child stores all the stimulation and patterns of behaviour. In addition, mirror neurons cause imitation of close behaviour. A parent should just watch out for what he gives to his offspring.
Impacts of negative effects often do not occur in half a year, a year or three, but perhaps up to 15 or more years – at school, in relationships, in their own family or in solving work problems.
Optimum performance
The human brain contains hundreds of billions of cells. These include neurons – nerve cells that are capable of receiving, conducting, processing, and responding to signals from the internal and external environment. Each nerve cell belongs to 20-1000 synapses – interconnections. Overall, our brain probably contains trillions of them. The synapses of the neurons capture everything we learn about the world around us and what we do. They arise and disappear throughout our lives. Fifty percent of them, however, are usually created within fifth years of birth, 75% to seventh and 95% to twelfth. That’s the reason, why our aging brings with us a worsening ability to learn. At the age of twenty-five, to learn a new language is much more difficult than for a seven-year-old child.
The strength of synapses increases with repetition and training. In the brain, there is a substance called myelin and it wraps neurons if the brain is exercised. We automate some activities thanks to the repetition. The more often children train, calculate, play the piano or simply dedicate to any activity, the easier will be the performance to them. When they start playing hockey, they first focus on skating. If they train regularly, skating becomes automatic and they can focus on handling the stick properly or playing of the opponent.
It is important to promote positive habits. It strengthens the brain and facilitates learning new things. Talent is not granted and does not mean success. Human and his talents can grow only with positive habits. The trick is that the more we use our natal talents, the more fun we have, and the myelinisation occurs faster.
The highest number of synapses increases and brain activates the most at the moment when a child gets into the flow – a state where she does something which she is good at it, enjoys it, and makes sense for her. What circumstances are needed to get into the flow? A Child cannot get into it by dealing with her weakness, but through work on her talent. And the child will know by herself what energy gives her something (talents) and what it takes something (weaknesses).
Children tend be in flow when they play. This is the moment when their parents can call them and they do not hear or they are not even aware of the time. In addition, they do not have any self-critic. So, when they build something with Lego, they do not think it’s terribly difficult, but they take another block and ask themselves, “Where do I put it?” And so they learn. Because they are not afraid and do not perceive the time, they learn in the flow and they learn faster in comparison with when they are not in it.
Cristiano Ronaldo has been playing football since he was about three. His success is an absolutely clear result of practise. His results were studied. He and his teammate were on the pitch. The coach should have put Ronaldo in the lead and he should try to score a goal. The catch was that when the first footballer touched the ball, the light went out of the stadium. Ronaldo had ten attempts and scored ten goals. How did it happen?
His subconscious runs as a computer with a program that calculates what happens when a teammate touches the ball in certain way. He knows where to go, what rotation the ball will have and he scores. It’s automatic. And he has already done it. Therefore, he is able to play 90% of the time in the flow. Whatever he does, he has already done. We can see similar situation observing Jaroslav Jágr, who almost does not move during the game. Tennis player Roger Federer runs one third less than others. And when I asked Jaroslav Svěcený when he was in the flow, he answered that he was in the flow during those songs he played a thousand times, in which he was feeling absolutely sure.
Build associations
Another question is how to stimulate neurons in the best way. A number of doctors, pediatricians and psychologists do research on this topic. We were inspired, among others, by Serbian physician Rank Rajovic, who invented the unique NTC Learning System (Nicola Tesla Center Learning). His method is based on proven scientific knowledge that the efficiency of work with the capacity of children’s brains increases through exercises. The essential key is to involve children’s hearing, smell, sight and touch. It also includes lot of coordination, which is generally underestimated. Therefore, Rajkovic also recommends that the child daily rotate around her own axis. In addition to coordination, it develops both brain hemispheres.
If children learn about the world by the NTC method, they recognise flags of countries according to colors. The lecturers talk about typical food, music and culture that can be seen in a certain country. Three-year-old children can remember easily the names of all metro stops or car brands, so it’s good to work with this ability to build associative thinking.
Unfortunately, school often divides topic into subjects. There are lessons of Czech language, history, natural history. Mathematics often gives formula to pupils and then they apply it to the assigned examples. Teachers often use reproductive questions, which are those that require memorization – learning what a student hears from a teacher during a lesson or reads somewhere. There is usually only one correct answer to the question. Unlike the productive issues, they do not require thoughtful operations with the student. The goal of NTC Learning is precisely to bring the child into thinking.
Make them think
Enigmatic puzzles work perfectly. Typical enigmatic puzzle is the numerical series with the missing ending number – there is a sequence in the row, and one has to figure out the missing number. Apparently, it seems like a series that does not make sense. The aim of the puzzle is to get people to think on the basis of information they already know from the past. For example: What is the connection between the letter M and Božena Němcová? The solution is that M is Roman 500 and Božena Němcová is depicted on Czech banknote CZK 500. When an individual is forced to come to information beyond the memory, he will remember it more easily.
The similar method is used by Professor Milan Hejný. His method of teaching mathematics uses approximately one fifth of schools in the Czech Republic. The principle of his approach is that children receive a task and they have to solve by themselves. they create their own way of solving the particular problem. When the solution is found by some of the children, they can tell others their procedure. This way is more effective than giving it just by the teacher. Children can often explain things better than the best teacher in the world. They do not have the same view on the issue as children do.
Jan Amos Comenius’s axiom “education through game” is still valid. When a teacher merely tells his pupils, they forget it, because they focus only on one sense – hearing. When he shows them, he involves two senses, which increases the chances of remembering. But if he involves his students in the learning process, they use all their senses, and the substance not only understands but even fixates it.
Research on different types of learning models has revealed that when a person uses more senses to solve a task and he finds solution on his own, parts of the brain involved in creativity are much more stimulated than when he applies the learned technique.
The Montessori education program also works on the same principle. His lecturers try to get children into the flow and keep them in it. That’s why lesson lessons at Montessori school do not last 45 minutes but at least ninety. And when kids want to even longer. There they learn in a way that suit them more than at school. In addition, human creativity increases up to 400% in flow conditions. This is obviously the reason why the majority of directors of multinational companies in Silicon Valley are graduates of Montessori schools. Their creativity was not killed in the same way as in the ordinary school system, which uses only memorizing. The brain does not develop as it can without looking for connections and enjoying one’s own head.
The monkey on the leash
When we are in the flow, we are always in the present moment – here and now. That’s why we do not care about time. The classical case when a pupil is pulled out of the flow is when the teacher or the child himself says “ten minutes till the end of the writing”. At that point, the student usually begins to panic. If he knows a number of problems he can solve in ten minutes due to training and counting, he will calm down, return to the present moment, a part of the brain in charge of logical thinking finds out what else he can do and counts further.
When the information is not recorded in the subconscious, how to deal with the situation or the task, our “monkey” takes control – emotions that advise us to “run away or fight”. And it is this “monkey” that always acts first, and then begins to think about what it has done. The monkey will always be in us, and it is important to learn how to work with it.
The bottom line is to realize that this happens to all of us.
How do we discover if our behaviour is controlled by “monkeys”? Try to ask yourself: “Do I want to to behave like this?” in a certain situation, If your answer is “no” then you are controlled by your monkey.
This flare is also manifested by a tingling in the breath, redness or nervousness. You can do the something to work with it: stop the activity, go for a walk, breathe, count to ten.
At the moment you start to control your breath, it gets regular and the “monkey” thinks that everything is all right. Meditation helps a lot in the long run.
And why is so important the neurotransmitter formation and myelination? When we want to deliver optimum performance, we need to get into the flow and stay in it. During flow, we are 450% more efficient than normal. When we are in the flow, we use so-called autopilot. In order to get to the flow, we need to have positive habits as much as possible. And you cannot get into the flow without using your talents. Parents can help their offspring to find their talents and develop them. They should not leave everything on teachers. The goal is to make the children get through the school system as easy as possible and learn as much as possible.
Jan Mühlfeit in cooperation with Kateřina Novotná
Are you interested in how to work better with your child’s talents? Parents and teachers can learn how to effectively coach and mentor children with the latest findings of positive psychology at the Parent Workshop as a Positive Coach, so children are not only successful but also happy in their lives. The themes are based, among other things, on the book by Jan Mühlfeit Positive Leader, which has become one of the best-selling books in the Czech Republic. The workshop also focuses on the topics of personal development, inspiration and motivation not only in the way of self-knowledge but also in the development of our children. In addition to the theoretical part, the seminar is also conducted in the form of practical demonstrations of various forms of coaching and interactive exercises, including model situations. Learn more about all our workshops at janmuhlfeit.com. Also watch our shows “Unlock the Potential of Your Children” and Your Talent is Unique at www.flowee.cz.