Caretakers, Tutus, Aunties, Uncles, & those Who Care
Children are “feeling creatures that think, not thinking creatures that feel.”
Jill Bolte Taylor
Harvard, Neurologist
Teach children about the world inside that looks at the world around, and together they both will work better.
To understand the “who” inside them, build a bridge between their Sensory Bodies and their brains. The more they discover inside the body, the better the mind and body work together.
Help your child’s school build this bridge into their social-emotional program. Then apply it also at home. We can show you how. (See Introductory Lessons)
Q & A
I Need Help With My Children’s …
Stress?
(√) How can I help them help themselves, and also help our family? click ->
Open your eyes, and the world around you come alive. Close your eyes, and the world inside of you changes. The problem is that the world inside of your children, their inner world, is disappearing. It is the foundation of who they are. This inner world directs their lives, and they don’t know it. They feel to learn, and so did you. It’s our responsibility to preserve and nurture this inner world.
The body knows long before the brain when stress begins to build.
When we taught children to feel their bodies, they became aware of their feelings. They also recognized what was triggering confusion, upset, and anger. The awareness inside their bodies helped them find the cork that needed to be unplugged. As a result, tension dissolves, and the honest truth of their process becomes apparent.
When we taught the children about feeling inside the body, bullying stopped, compassion increased, and even learning advanced. To understand how feeling inside the body could affect the brain, experience this introductory lesson for adults.
Just take me to the children’s lessons • Introductory Program
Not Listening?
( √ ) My Children Don’t Listen click ->
Give me something quick and easy
If your child is five or older, something quick and easy to do is use deep exhalations to turn attention inside the body. Parents often use exhalations to help children calm down. The key is to use attention with the bodily sensations of the long exhalations. We aren’t just interested in calming the child. We are helping the child learn what is happening inside the body and how to express it.
Here is something quick and easy to try from the Get Sensational Attention Program:
Click Here for the Short Track of the Get Sensational Program, although we highly recommend the Long Track for sustainable results.
If you take this process one step further, you will shift behavior. Ask the child to put their hand on the area of the body where the exhalation ends. The feeling of the hand is used to help the child’s attention stay inside the body. The child is then asked to share from that area of the body.
When using “attention with the breath,” the child’s mind and body become a sensation of one. This connection between sensation and attention builds the bridge of the body-mind. The awareness clarifies why the child can’t listen. Listening is more than just hearing sound waves through the ears. If something is troubling inside, it is hard to listen.
Once experienced
- The child becomes aware of what is going on emotionally
- The emotion calms down with attention inside the body
- And the physical feeling inside is used to guide the child’s attention.
- Within seconds, the child is able to shift emotions and share.
- When they learn how to share, they will be able to listen better.
This practice needs to be first learned during a fun and playful time. When a child is stressed or upset, it’s harder to shift the emotion. For sustainable results, add a sound to the exhalation, and the physical sensation of the exhalation becomes more tangible. Instead of relying on the parent to calm the child, the child relies on what is felt inside the body.
If a child can feel the physicalness of the emotion, he or she understands what needs to be communicated without getting so upset. If for some reason the child still cannot understand what is going on for him, he may need a lesson on internal spatial awareness. Here’s a lesson to help. (Personal Bubbles Home Breath lesson). The child may be too young to sense his body. This is often the case for those four years of age or younger.
There are two tracks to this process, a fast or long track (GSA ) This is a free program to help enhance your children’s wellbeing and personal growth. It teaches children honesty through an awareness in the tangible sense of the physical body. The physical sensations clarify for them what they are doing or trying to say). The fast track helps for temporary relief. The long track will improve character and disposition. It will also integrate a body-mind awareness into daily living. Thus, improvements continue as the child ages.
My children can’t hear my words…
There could be many reasons a child isn’t listening. Often, if the child is not listening, it is not intentional. Younger children feel through their bodies to listen. For children, listening is a whole-body experience. The body carries the dialogue of sensations, both physical and psychological. For example, some children love to get buried in the sand, roll in the waves, play through movement but are not aware this movement is helping development. READ MORE
The WTM Bridge is a new orientation of enhancing the biological nature of listening and thinking. The practice is not a tool. It becomes a natural way for the body to work with the brain. When the body-mind experiences this awareness, the brain, body, and mind all work better. Become aware of this interconnection, and we can enhance it. The Wellness Through Movement (WTM) methods give the experience of how.
You should ask something essential if you are a parent or teacher. Could my child be feeling something in the body? Is it getting in the way of listening? Here is a checklist if your child is hyperactive.
Also see below: “(√) My children are climbing the walls“
I need to know what to do when my child isn’t listening…
The program, Get Sensational Attention (GSA) has been proven effective in increasing the ability to listen. It aids in lengthening attention. It also contributes to healthy wellbeing. The GSA program is not actually “a program” but a culture. Once learned, it weaves into any school, classroom, or family culture. This program offers steps on opening a child’s inner world of the body to an emotional reaction. Questions in the User Guide develop a child’s ability to communicate more clearly.
Emotional?
( √ ) My Children Get So Emotional click ->
I am in a market, and my kid starts screaming. Help!
As a parent, it’s our worst nightmare when our child screams and cries. This is especially true if we are in a public place. There is one thing you can do right away in the market. You can stop and notice what you are feeling inside. Your children feel your energy, and it can fuel the problem. A way to immediately change the situation is to help the child take long exhalations, however, don’t stop there. Help them feel inside the body to explain her needs.
Learning this awareness in the body and doing exhalations must include FEELING INSIDE THE BODY- WHERE THE EXHALATIONS ENDs. Many schools miss the main point of the exhalation. It is not to calm them, but to help them sense what is going on that needs to be addressed.
Also, learning to listen from the body needs to be practiced long the emotional uproar. The earlier you start with the child, the better. Teaching children how to explain themselves needs to be learned long before being in a public place.
The first step is to ask yourself, “Is the child’s type of tantrum a familiar way of how they communicate?” If it is, there is something you need to look at. Patterns of relationships between parent and child begin at birth. For example, if the infant was used to getting what they want right when they want it, they won’t know patience. They will not understand patience. They may struggle to grasp patience. They may also not understand others too have needs as well as their own.
This very easy and simple method anyone can do and was tested with hundreds of children who were upset. At our pilot school, Kohala Elementary, Principal Garcia applied the method. He claimed, “I’ll preach this (technique) until the day I die.” It takes seconds to do. Just use long exhalations and the sound of a word. The WTM program uses the word “Home.” Here’s a link to the details of what we did. The use of sound and exhalations helps children turn their attention inside and feel their bodies. Feeling where the exhalation ends, children put their hands on that part of the body. They were then asked to share how they felt from there. The children shifted their emotional reactions and shared what was going on in a centered (yet still upset) way.
Principal Garcia used this technique whenever an upset child was sent to his office. He believes that this technique is what helped stop bullying and improved social-emotional wellbeing and the school environment. After our pilot program was completed, the school continued on its own. Principal Garcia reported there was no bullying.
Please Note: If the technique doesn’t work, there is more that needs to be done with about the body. Functional organization of movement affects thinking, behavior, and communication. Refer to the book or the webpage, “Biomechanics of Psychology” to learn more and what may help. (Rosasco-Mitchell, 2013, pp.13, 34, and 60)
Help me with Communication, Please…
Learning to verbalize starts as early as one day old. Check out the astounding research done in 1945 with hundreds of children at an orphanage in Hungary with Magda Gerber. (RIE approach).)The orphanage’s children showed signs of understanding their caretakers as early as infancy. What were the results of learning how to communicate? Babies seemed to wait calmly for their needs to be met. The training starts with the parent or caregiver.
As parents, we have to remember that children learn to communicate by feeling energy. Think of them as balls of sensation. Their senses, keen to the outer world, pick up every sound, light, texture, and action around them. The words have meaning according to the energy behind the word. The intonations, gestures, volume, or speed of the word all find ways into the meaning.
In Gerber’s orphanage, caretakers talked to infants as if the infants understood. If the baby needed a bottle, the caretaker would say something like this: “I know you are hungry. Please, you have to be patient. I am getting your bottle.” Meanwhile, the caretaker’s intonation is tender, patient, and calm as she animates what she is saying. For example, as she is talking, she shows the baby the bottle being prepared. This is not easy to do as a parent, but as a guiding force you will calm the child.
The process works for babies even one day old. I observed this when I took care of newborns from drug-addicted mommas. Typically, if a baby is screaming, a feeling of panic in the adult can amplify the situation. From the response of the adult, the baby affirms what they feel is correct. Without thinking, the baby’s body senses if the adult is panicking and may feel, “Surely not getting my bottle must be a life and death situation!” As a result, the baby learns that screaming and crying is how to get her needs met.
Age Groups
Babies
The parent’s words are secondary to the parent’s energy. Watch children’s movements and physical reactions and you will see their energy. Are their actions displaying a need and can you as the parent put words to that need? Long before the brain understands words, the baby’s body will show movements in every emotion and physical discomfort (hunger, tiredness, or uncomfortable positions). Remember, we are trying to help children learn to communicate their needs. The brain learns words from the feeling in the emotions and physical sensations. With every emotion and physical sensation, there is an experience of movement. From the experience in the body and the parent putting words to the feeling, a child finds ways to identify the meaning of the words used.
Children three to eight years old
It is crucial to first help children become aware of how to feel their bodies. It’s hard to understand what is meant by “feel their bodies.” Ask any child to lie down and tell you what parts of their bodies are touching or not touching the floor. The three-year-olds won’t know what you are talking about. The five year olds will often say, “Nothing is touching the floor.” Surprisingly, research also found most adults could not feel the details of their bodies.( For more information click: Body Ownership Rubber Hand Illusion)
Children, like all people, need to be trained to feel their bodies to become aware of what they are doing. In a playful way, we teach children to turn attention inside the body.
For example, trace their bodies on a piece of paper. Ask them what they feel is touching the floor. If they can’t feel anything, just tell them to notice that. Then do a movement activity and have them lie on the floor again and notice the differences. In this way you are teaching from-the-body-to the brain. There are examples of more movement games like Personal Bubbles Freeze Dance in the book. (Get Sensational Attention program) Once the children learn to feel the tangible sensations of their bodies, understanding their emotions or thoughts is easier. For children, words are the language of the head, and the body is the language of the heart. WTM lessons teach the head and the heart to develop simultaneously. Then children learn from both their heads and their hearts.
Hyperactivity?
(√) My Children are Climbing the Walls 2 click ->
Why are our children hyper or fidgety and needing to move? Imagine being a bundle of energy and being told to sit still. We need to be able to control our children. However, asking them to sit still can feel like a time bomb ready to explode to them. Getting exercise or movement releases energy, but there is a more sustainable solution. Most parents understand that children’s movement is important. If you build on the experience of movement patterns having an internal dialogue, brain development and well-being will also improve. The methods we teach have been tested and proven successful. (Methods)
I want to know what movement has to do with emotional and mental behavior…
This topic is the key to the uniqueness of the Wellness Through Movement. Imagine movement as something more than just physical. Movement in the human body is trying to teach us how to grow. Children have a lot going on inside the body. The body has a dialogue of sensations like sound waves. The feeling of a body is like blaring and distracting sound waves of sensations on a loudspeaker. The results? Children’s bodies are taking over the mind, but they are not aware of it. When the children feel their bodies, they can sense how the movement is trying to teach them. As a parent, you try to wonder about their movements. The movement is trying to orchestrate learning. In the movement there is a connection between children’s emotions and how they learn. In Wellness Through Movement, we learn how to watch movements to understand how to teach the whole child.
Astonishing changes happen in children’s behaviors. Some of the results range from having longer attention spans to being simply kinder and supportive with their peers. With the movement program, even physical conditions improved. Over time, the children learned to use the methods from the program independently. They applied them when needing to handle stress, violence, or depression without adult intervention.
The most significant and sustainable results happen with children between the ages of five and eight. Adults also reported benefiting from the process. Here’s the Get Sensational Attention program, an intro program that can help.
In full disclosure, please understand organizational movement lessons will be necessary for severely challenging behavior. Here are some lessons in this book A New Sensory Self Awareness, but best seek professional help for these children. To find a Feldenkrais Practitioner near you check here.
For professionals in research and movement, here is a link to lessons that we used. You can find them in Part I and Part II of the Wellness Through Movement program. To learn more about the Biomechanics of Psychology and how we bridge the work into research and schools click links.
Tip: Reframe the idea of movement as the witness between intention and action.
When reading the lesson, reframe the idea of movement as just an exercise of muscles and bones. Think of the senses (sound, touch, smell, taste, & feeling) and the physical sensation to emotions and the body’s structure. All of these effects create “movements.” With these types of movements, a baby doesn’t have to “think.” They are bundles of sensations— sensations that educate their development.
Give me things I can do as a parent of a hyperactive child…
First, ask yourself, “Can I slow down and just observe my child?”
• Wonder. Are there patterns of movement being repeated?
• Is there an awkwardness in my child’s balance or coordination?
• Could the way my child moves show me an alternative perspective to help his or her behavior?
• Could there be a biological need in the action that is trying to calm the hyperactivity?
Here’s an article that will new open doors: Biomechanics Psychology
I am looking for alternatives to medication to support my children’s health.
There is an alternative to using sedative medications to manage your child’s behavior. Hyperactive children have little awareness of their behavior and how it disturbs others. It takes patience at first, but think of your child’s behavior not as misbehavior. View it as behavior that uncovers the answers to the type of help he or she needs. Movement reveals the internal dialogue between the body and brain. When you help children’s attention feel what is happening in their bodies, it also clarifies how their actions affect others. The WTM methods help children learn the bridge between their actions and their brains by first teaching spatial awareness inside.
I know my hyperactive child has something special about them.
Children who have a lot of energy have a gift. The question is, “Can my children learn to use these gifts?” Let’s watch what the body is trying to do to learn about these gifts. The overly sensitive children that need to move are given sensory stimulus activities or medications to calm their systems. These tactics, though valuable for a time, are not sustainable.
Hyperactivity is like being a live wire without the ground wire. The results? Children feel over sensitized with no place to go. Being sensitive is not a problem if the children’s nature is grounded. There are roadblocks between movement, senses, and intention when children aren’t grounded. Imagine children having all kinds of energy. Their bodies won’t behave. They just want to jump, tumble, climb, and run. Think of their movement as a morse code trying to describe how they need to feel whole. The sensitivity is trying to use movement to synchronize the senses with feeling and thinking.
Over eight years, every child within the spectrum (hyperactive, ADD, and ADHD) needed a sense of groundedness. They also needed stability. Feeling stable on the ground helps children sense where they are in space. It also helps them understand their relationship to the circumstances they face. Children’s development starts from the feet up. Researchers, Esther Thelen and Linda Smith demonstrated an interesting concept. If you suspend a toddler in a swing and offer the ball, they will reach for it with their feet. They use the feet as if they are hands. (Thelen and Smith, 1994) Movements from the toes and feet have primal reflexes of motion. These reflexes engage the feet into the legs and lower body. The lower body alignment helps with posture. The intelligence in foot movement attempts to organize leg alignment. This alignment connects into the pelvis and spine. This is how a child finds stability and why groundedness is so important.
When a child feels grounded, the senses can plug into the whole child, mind, body, and spirit. Getting grounded orchestrates and synergizes the senses so they work together. Children that once could not function well in their environment or with themselves came into balance. They became aware of the effects they have on others and learned their differences have gifts. There are lots of examples in the book A New Sensory Self Awareness but let me give you some tips.
We begin to teach children the sense of groundedness by first finding their bodies. We do this process by combining attention with sensation. We ask the child to lie down and tell us what is touching and not touching the floor. If the child can’t sense much or lie still enough to sense anything, we have the child notice this. (For example refer to this lesson: Pancake body, finding an internal spatial awareness, A New SENSORY Self Awareness book ).
The second step is to use the tendencies of body movements. Certain movements help the body find ways to connect the muscles and bones to the senses. For example, if a child likes to climb, the movement may be trying to find body parts. These parts can help with balance, coordination, and stability. WTM movement would then start with a GI Joe crawl. The child is on her belly and tries to crawl like a lizard. The crawl will reveal if the feet or legs are engaged with the floor. Are the right and left legs both being used to propel the body forward? The lizard crawl helps the child sense how the lower body parts work or don’t work together.
If there is an awkwardness in this movement, the key is found for what kind of motion is needed. Movement organization is not easy to accomplish if the symptoms of the child are severe. Extremely dysfunctional children need expert hands to help the child’s body sense the organization of motion between body parts. (FIND Feldenkrais Practitioner) A functional integration lesson (FI®) uses tactile stimulus from a hands-on session sending movement through the body. The sessions give these gifted children functional ways to use their energy throughout their bodies. In other words, thinking and doing cooperate, and behavior becomes calm and productive. (More A New SENSORY Self Awareness book – Part I, and Part II {TBA)
ReCap
Needs for hyperactive children
1. Groundedness
2. Coordination and balance from their waist down
Remember, infants learn from the feet up. If children are not grounded or coordinated it can affect their cognitive function.
More Info:
Science – on development and neuroscience,
Feldenkrais® Practitioner – to get help if your child is severely challenged
(√) I want to know if my child may develop a learning or behavioral disorder…
YES! This is a KEY question! Here is a Checklist.
When going through the Checklist, pay attention to the “5 points” statements. Keep track of the number of points you’ve accrued, and an explanation is provided below. For some of the statements, you may need to ask professionals.
Note: The Checklist describes the general areas to look for in a child’s behavior. It also explains how to find the right professionals for help. The Checklist is not meant to replace seeking professional help.
What should I do if my child meets many of the points on the checklist?
Each question has a value next to it. If the answer is yes to any of the “5” point statements, seek professional advice. Look for a therapist who knows how to re-educate motor patterns from a neurological and psychological level. Both the brain and the body movements must be integrated. If the child exhibits many of the symptoms, I highly recommend having a Feldenkrais® practitioner on the team.
Feldenkrais® practitioners should be able to integrate the work of the other professionals. You can also contact me for a consultation (info@wellnessthroughmovement.com). If the child’s symptoms are severe, you will need a team of professionals. This team should include a development specialist, a medical professional, a Feldenkrais® practitioner, and a counselor. With scores of 12 or higher, enroll the children in a developmental movement program. We, here in Hawaii, we have a federally funded program called “Tutu’s and Me”, or find a program near you.* These other programs with types of movement classes may help: free dance, yoga games, or tumbling. It is crucial to address the issue as soon as possible.
Case Study ADHD attention deficit disorder
Contact your local state Health Department for more information.
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Imagine, within seconds, children find the ability to get calm, focused, and share.
What is “Home”?
The Get Sensational Attention program
For ages five to ten years old
With the “Get Sensational Attention (GSA)” adults to teach children.
Pick a Track
• Temporary relief Fast Track
• Sustainable results Long Track
The Get Sensational Attention (GSA) This is an animation video program for schools. Start teaching your children about the Sensory Body to help them find Home. Once learned, the children can use it, and it takes less than 5 minutes. We tested it!
“Home” is the place that feels what the body is saying, the mind wants to know.
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A New Sensory Self Awareness
Help children find their best friend inside to help. Games for groups of children ages 5-10 years old
Here is a gift for you and all your hard work.
Thank you
You can do this before you go to bed, if you don’t have time in the day.
Lie down & “Take A Break”
YOU’LL LOVE IT!
It will help you help them. It is the adult version of the Pancake Body lesson.