Disclaimer: Many of the stories are completely fictional. Other stories are fictional accounts of true stories. Other stories are completely true. Sometimes the names have been changed to protect the innocent. This one is totally true.
However, a mind that is not tended to properly can be a terrible thing. If we look back at Adolph Hitler, we learn that he was really a gifted artist. He loved to paint and some of his work is very beautiful.
The sad thing is the prestigious art school he applied to turned him down flat. His dreams, his goals, were shattered. He began to drift and then he found another gift he had: The gift of persuasion. The gift of a mind is truly a terrible thing to waste.
Back when Suzanne first became pregnant with our first child, Jared, we began to research the proper way to educate a child. This desire to educate him the best way led us to many discoveries. One was Super Learning.
Super Learning is the concept of feeding the mind great bits of information through a variety of constantly changing formats very much like Sesame Street uses. The mind needs change to stay focused.
Another concept is that during those quiet times like reading or studying, Baroque music is played to keep the mind focused. This is music such as Handel’s compositions, etc.
Our research has led us to things like self-hypnosis and NLP. These are not the off-the-wall types of things that come to one’s mind when they think of self-hypnosis. The idea is really to relax one’s mind when one tries to study or concentrate rather than put one’s mind in a strain.
When our oldest son started first grade, he had trouble paying attention in class. He also had trouble staying in his seat. His teacher spoke with us constantly about the problem.
We took Jared to several doctors and finally to a psychologist who had conducted his dissertation on Attention Deficient Hyper-Activity Disorder. This doctor conducted more research because Jared did not fit the mold of what was believed to be true of all children with ADHD.
A team of doctors, psychiatrists, teachers, counselors, and others determined that Jared was indeed a textbook case of ADHD. He was given Ritalin, you know, the classic cure-all drug back then.
The problem was the dose had to be increased several times. Jared was still a handful.
For the first half of the third grade, Jared got 0s on all of his spelling tests. We would drill all week long and would get it to where he could spell all the words on his list perfectly every time. Yet, on Friday, he would get all the words wrong.
On a whim, I took a recording in either self-hypnosis or memory improvement, I don’t remember which, and copied it onto another tape. Then, after that recording ended, I read all of his spelling words several times and spelled them out onto the tape. I finished the tape with another recording from Potentials Unlimited. I put the tape on repeat so that all night long this tape would play.
That was on a Thursday night. When Friday’s test came around, Jared scored a perfect 100. In fact, he got perfect scores on everything the next week.
I repeated the process every week and every week he got all 100s on all of his schoolwork. We were gradually able to reduce his Ritalin. Finally, he was free of the drug and still making 100s.
Don’t get me wrong. The sleep teaching did not cure all of his problems. He did stay in his seat and he had calmed down. He still tried to tell us he never had homework. We had the teacher send us written reports of what he was assigned to do.
We have just learned about three new books that we hope to check into soon. They are The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life by Alison Gopnik, The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind by Daniel J. Siegel, and What's Going on in There? : How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life. I will be ordering these books very soon and will report back to you what I learn.
Have you had similar learning experiences? If so, share them with us in the comment box below.
Note: There are affiliate links to various products in the text. Some of the products we used may have changed in the 30+ years since we used them or read them. We have done a great deal of study in the area of Self-Hypnosis, Hypnosis, and NLP. However, we are not experts in any of these fields. Many of the publications we studied are no longer available.
We cannot endorse any of the publications mentioned because they may not suit your purpose. As always, consult a qualified professional whenever endeavoring in a field in which you are not professionally trained.
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That is so interesting. You and Suzanne are such good parents, if all were so attentive to their children, there wouldn't be so many problems in the world. I am going to get my niece one of these books for Christmas because she has a one yr. old.
ReplyDeleteA good baroque music CD would be a great gift for a parent who is trying to teach a child. It really is a key ingredient.
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