Coaching Can Improve Performance

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Psychologists review why people “choke” under pressure. We know that preparing and practicing for high-stress situations can improve performance. Coaching is a good way to do this.

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Healthy Eating

Healthy Eating

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The American Psychological Association (APA) posted an article about helping children develop better eating and exercise habits. Below are the benefits of good nutrition and daily exercise, according to the APA.

Good nutrition is essential to healthy brain development in children which is, of course, critical to learning.

Mental and behavioral benefits

– perform better academically
– feel better about themselves, their bodies, and their abilities
– cope with stress and regulate their emotions better
– avoid feelings of low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression.

Establishing healthy eating and exercise habits early in life can lead to long term healthy behavior in adulthood.

Physical benefits

Children need a wide variety of nutrients (e.g., protein, complex carbohydrates, healthy fats, minerals, vitamins) to assist in their daily growth and development and to protect them from childhood illnesses.

Daily exercise also helps children to build stronger muscles and bones and limit excess body fat.

Healthy eating also cuts down on risk for cavities, eating disorders and unhealthy weight control behaviors (i.e., fasting, skipping meals, eating very little food, vomiting, using diet pills, laxatives, or diuretics), malnutrition, and iron deficiency.

Healthy eating and consistent physical activity help to prevent chronic illnesses that appear in adulthood associated with obesity, e.g., heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and several forms of cancer.

The relationship between a healthy diet and a healthy mind is perhaps intuitive. But scientists are discovering more every day about how what-children-eat is related to their behaviors. Particularly ADHD research shows how food allergies and sensitivities can mimic ADHD sypmptoms. Before starting any medication, Dr. Weller recommends ruling-out food-related issues. A visit to a Registered Dietician is a good first step.

Sleep Hygiene

Sleep Hygiene

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Sleep is an integral part of children’s health. Amazing things happen while they sleep, including bursts in physical growth and solidification of learning. Studies show that a good night’s sleep helps buoy moods, improve cognitive performance, and build the body’s resilience against illness and accidents. Problems with sleep are parts of major mental illnesses, including mood disorders. Some scientists suggest that depression is linked to prolonged REM sleep. There is also a growing body of evidence suggesting that ADHD may stem from “a sleepy brain.” Specialists have said that as many as 40% of children who meet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD also meet criteria for a sleep disorder.

An article from the Wall Street Journal reviews findings that link sleep problems with depression, anxiety, substance abuse, aggression, learning problems, and obesity.

Good sleep hygiene is a must. It is also the first place to start when you notice patterns of childhood misbehavior or under-performance. Sleep hygiene includes:

  1. Routine: Regular, predictable soothing activities cue the brain that sleep is on the way. Reading, baths, relaxing music, calm activities, low lights, soft pajamas—integrate these into a pattern for your child. Start 1 hour before sleep is to begin.
  2. Children need more than 8 hours of sleep per night. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends the following sleep guidelines:
    • Infants: 14 to 15 hours
    • Toddlers: 12 to 14 hours
    • Preschoolers: 11 to 13 hours
    • School-age kids: 10 to 11 hours
    • Teenagers: 9 to 10 hours
  3. Turn off electronic media 2 hours before bed. Studies show that children with TVs and video games in their rooms get less sleep. Cell phones (including texts, email, games, and other apps) can also rob many teenagers of a good night’s sleep.

 

Catch Your Child Being Good

Catch Your Child Being Good

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Limit children’s time with television and video games

Limit children’s time with television and video games

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Today’s parents are usually good at monitoring the content of TV and video games, ensuring that children are not exposed to violence, sexuality, and other adult themes. However, in many households, children may spend hours each day watching TV and playing video games. There is solid evidence that too much TV and video games increase the likelihood of a child developing problems with attention. A good rule of thumb for TV/video game usage is less than 2 hours daily, the less the better.

Limiting time spent with TV and video games is especially important for very young children. According to Dimitri Christakis, MD, MPH, Director of the Child Health Institute and author of The Elephant in the Living Room: Make Television Work For Your Kids, children as young as a few months old are watching too much TV, and may be developing permanent attention problems. In an article on education.com, author Rose Garrett writes, “For every hour of television toddlers watch a day, they are ten percent more likely to develop attention problems at school,” according to Dr. Christakis.

What’s more, according to a recent study about children who watched who watched more than 2 hours of TV per week 40% more likely to have symptoms of ADHD in adolescence than children who watched less TV. The problem is the speed of the frames. Fast-paced electronic media seem to train children’s brains to attend only to faced-paced stimulation (e.g., the opposite of a teacher at a whiteboard). Click for video game and TV time recommendations.

I like this MSN Health article by Rich Maloof: It nicely summarizes medical research and recommendations about TV & ADHD.

 

 

How Kids Think, Feel, and Behave

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Children’s brains are not fully developed (and won’t be until they are about 25 years old). This means that they do not solve problems like adults. Younger children tend to be:

  • Concrete (“If Grandma died and went to up to heaven, then I could totally take an airplane to see her”)
  • Impulsive (Karate-kick a houseplant)
  • Inquisitive (“Would my dog like chocolate pudding?”)
  • Magical-in-thinking (“If I think a tarantula is under my bed, then it absolutely is.”)
  • Under-Informed (“Sponge Bob can see me through the television.”)
  • Hypothesis-Testers (“What will mom do if I put my hand on the power outlet…again?”)
  • Repetitious (“Anything worth doing once, should be done ten more times”)
  • Distractible (Attention spans are limited, getting longer over time)
  • Unreliable cause-and-effect understanding (“Mom and Dad got divorced because of me.”)
  • Hyperactive (Most 3-year-old boys would meet criteria for a diagnosis of ADHD, but very few actually have it.)
  • Imbue innate objects with sentience (“My stuffed animal needs a hug.”)
  • Emotionally reactive (“Since I didn’t get ice cream, this is the worst day of my life.”)

With age, children’s reasoning becomes more sophisticated (but may not yet be rational). Then, bodily changes (including hormones and changes in neurochemistry) play a bigger role in the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of older children. Older children tend to be:

  • Convinced of their uniqueness (“No one has ever felt this way, and no one can ever understand me.”)
  • Egocentric (“Everyone in the world is looking at my zit.”)
  • Easily influenced (peer pressure)
  • Peer-focused (social life is more important than family life)
  • Variable in identity (try on different “selves” to answer critical questions about who I am, what I like, what I want to be)
  • Rebellious (challenging social, familial, and cultural norms)
  • Judicious (sensitive to “unfair” behaviors)
  • Impulsive (Diving into a shallow pool)
  • Under-Informed (starting a romantic online relationship)
  • Emotionally reactive (a break-up is the end of life)
  • Limit-testing (seeing how far parents’ rules can be bent)

For more information about normal childhood development, visit this website  (it’s an offshoot of American Academic of Pediatrics):

 

adhd is your workplace-superpower

Best Parts of ADHD

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For these and other ADHD problems, there are evidence-based assessments, treatments, and strategies that can help improve functioning dramatically. These are good things about having ADHD—the available aids.

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Good Old-Fashioned Play

Good Old-Fashioned Play

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Are kids today less creative? Are their over-booked schedules to blame? An article written by Rachael Rettner suggests kids these days are narrow-minded and just not as creative as they used to be. Good, old-fashioned play may be the cure.

Kyung Hee Kim, a creativity researcher at the College of William and Mary, conducted a study in 2010 of creativity tests dating back to the 1970’s. Kim mentions, “children are becoming less humorous, less imaginative and less able to elaborate on ideas”.

Major Causes

– Standardized Testing
– TV Watching
– Excessive Social Media
– Overbooked Schedules

Children are very resilient and good old-fashion play may be the cure. Sandra Russ, a psychologist at Case Western University, says that kids nurture their creativity abilities when they pretend. “Elements of insight, fantasy and emotional expression all go into this type of story-making.”