Don’t worry. We found that it was best for the elementary school principal to lead the program. We call it the Get Sensational Attention program. We have a program for the schools, however, applying it at home is key. This program helps children learn from inside. It was proven effective for “character and academic achievement” according to our pilot school Principal Danny Garcia. Talk to the school counselor, they too can help. Teachers have to teach the method, but it is a school wide cooperation.

How to get the principal on board? Click The School can Help You

First, a gift for you! Click Take a Break

Lie down and close your eyes. If you can’t now, do it in bed if need be. To rejuvenate yourself long term, do the lesson daily for two weeks. This lessons is the adult version of the children’s lession, Pancake Body. ( p. 40 of the book A New Sensory Self Awareness)

Cutting-edge research understands it is crucial to understand that children learn from the foundation within their whole body-and-mind. It’s hard to teach math and reading when there is all this internal dialogue of emotional turmoil. Address first emotional turmoil in a new way before moving into academic learning. Teach the child how to use the body to help calm and center oneself. Often, we say, “Take a deep breath…”  Children have a hard time understanding what they are feeling. Take it further and help the child feel the body and the emotions are “heard.” Once the internal dialogue is in awareness, a child becomes present. 

What is essential to understand, even though the body sends more information to the mind than the brain, children need to be taught how to recognize the feelings in their body and use them. As the body ages, the child uses what they feel inside because the body will share when it is time to change. Learning how the body helps the brain, the children feel how to stay engaged, and be self-directed. Children organically begin to sense their uniqueness if taught this magical world inside. Usually, the value of this “sense of self” isn’t discovered until the twenties or sometimes never. Learn as a child one’s uniqueness, and it will improve with age.

Imagine, if in seconds, children could calm down their emotional reactions and identify their emotions. The frustration, sadness, and anger can find a way out of turmoil. As a result, the children can focus their attention on themselves and how they affect others. There becomes a sense of groundedness that increases their ability to reason. Learn more about the nature of the systems in the body to help children listen. (refer to GSA)

Frustration, confusion, or just feeling overwhelmed can shut down anyone. Learning to feel how their bodies affect their reactions can change a situation within seconds. This can happen whether it is at the dinner table, in the playground, or at a classroom desk. Emotions calm and a clear understanding from whole field inside to what is going on opens. The Get Sensational Attention (GSA) program is how we help children find this field. WTM lessons have been tested and proven effective with hundreds of children. They support personal growth. They enhance communication and facilitate learning with children for years to come.

Biological impulses set life’s trajectory, and we don’t know it. Teach children an awareness of feeling their bodies and a new orientation to learning unlocks their unique treasures to life. This “awareness,” from the body to the brain, is a skill that needs to be taught. In the science, the most important point is children feel their bodily sensations more than thinking. If they can identify these sensations, sensations will teach them how they need to learn.

As a Feldenkrais® practitioner for forty years, I have seen the Sensory Body help heal chronic conditions. It also improves learning, attention, and listening. Additionally, it aids in emotional reactions, and cognitive and behavioral challenges. Why? Because motion is the foundation of all development.

Reeducate an overactive sympathetic nervous system (flight or fight reactions), and the child finds a space to pause. Within the “pause” there is a chance to “reeducate.” This means we are using the nature of the human body to change the functions of the brain. Experience the nature of the whole system (mind and body), and changes improve with age. (Science and Biomechanics of Psychology)

Hyperactivity is like being a live wire without the ground wire. The results? Students feel over sensitized and need to move. Temporary tactics are great, but not sustainable. To flip the energy, we must help them find the “ground wire.”So much is happening inside them, but they don’t understand it. Being sensitive is not a problem if the child gets grounded.

When there is no ground wire, there are short circuits between movement, senses, and intention. The “ground wire” is inside the body. Imagine students having all kinds of energy. Their bodies won’t behave because they just have to jump, tumble, climb, and run. There is an intelligence in this movement.

First step to flipping their switch of hyperactivity is to flip our thinking. Think of their movement as a Morse code. Their actions are trying to describe what is missing to feel whole. There is actually nothing missing. There is just a part of them, a very strong nature in them, they feel but don’t understand. The sensitivity is trying to use movement to synchronize themselves. Synchronize all the senses with feeling and thinking. 

Students who have a lot of energy are also gifted. If you could bottle that energy and sell it, you would be a billionaire. You can’t bottle it, but you can teach them how to use it. The questions are:

Can my students learn to use their gifts?
Yes.  If the child is severe, it is important to get professional help. Find a Feldenkrais® practitioner. They can give critical insights that other professionals may not be able to perceive. Learning the intelligence in motion is a new field of neuroscience.

Why are our students fidgety? Imagine being a bundle of sensations and being told to sit still. We need to control our students. However, telling them to sit still can feel like a time bomb ready to explode in them. Getting exercise or movement does release energy (temporarily), but there is also a more sustainable solution. 

To begin, try to reframe how you look at “movement.” Movement is not just physical. Everything you think, feel, or sense involves movement. Movement over time becomes patterns not just of actions but of character. It is the patterns of the action that involve s an internal dialogue. The feeling of the movement pattern is foundational to forming perception. Become aware of an unhealthy pattern children have to feel subtle sensations inside the body. Children can do this more easily than adults.

The sense, the Sensory Body, improves with age. The awareness of what the body knows the mind doesn’t become clearer. This helps not only with behavior. It helps with understanding what is wrong physically that needs addressing. Become a team with your children, teachers, and doctors. 

The WTM methods have been tested and proven successful.

If the students have a severe hyperactive character there is more that is needed.
For example: Every child we worked with who had severe behavioral challenges, such as hyperactivity, needed neuromuscular reintegration. Specifically, awkward movements were happening from the waist down. 

The Feldenkrais® method, a sensorial reeducation movement technique, is used in conjunction with emotional behavior. The method, Functional Integration (FI)®, changes how motor patterns operate with the brain. The reeducation of motor patterns can influence perception. Overview of Part II. There are twelve physical education movement games that reeducate mind/body movement patterns. Learning body awareness through the SB also improved social-emotional behavior and self-care.

For a simpler program: Get Sensational Attention (GSA) program was created for schools. See Movement Teacher for key tips! Your physical education teacher may be able to integrate concepts into their classes. Six Body-to-Brain Strategies.

Want to teach about the Sensory Body today? Okay, here’s a simple step. Watch what movements and behavior your children are doing when you come into the classroom.

What are their movements and behavior showing you about their inner worlds? “Movements” are a tapestry of mind, body, and spirit together. Are the children wanting to be on the ground? Under a desk? Are they treating you unkindly?

Now, rethink. Their behavior is not personal. Ask yourself what are the movements saying? If they were an intelligence, what is the child’s inner world feeling?

Children don’t know what they are feeling, however, their movements are trying to show you. These spontaneous movements are key in how to guide the lessons. Now, think about what lesson you are wanting to teach. Can your lesson encompass what they are doing to what you want them to do?

For example, the first thing is getting them to listen. Try this. Give a directional that mirrors the movement. Neurologically, overly sensitive students need to move. One solution is to give them sensory stimulus activities. These include a ball to sit on and move, clay to manipulate, or chewing toys. In more serious cases, medications are used to calm their systems. However, these tactics, though valuable for a time, are often not sustainable. If the child is on medication, there may into complications later in life.

These children have gifts we need to help them find how to use them. How the body discovers its gifts is through movement. The movement leads to discoveries. Discoveries lead to success. Successes lead to repetition. And repetition leads to how to navigate through life.

Over eight years of working with hundreds of children, the students within the spectrum were hyperactive, had ADD, or ADHD. All of them needed a sense of groundedness. Look at their lower bodies from the waist down. Is there a dysfunctional way of moving? Ask them to walk up a staircase. It will be easier to detect insecurities in their balance. This “insecurity” is physical and emotional. 

If they feel unstable and don’t know it, how can they fix it? They needed to get organized in movement enough to feel solid on their feet. The nervous system of the human body learns from the ground up.

For a baby, development in movement starts from the feet up (Thelen and Smith, 1994). Thelen and Smith showed that if you suspend a toddler in a swing and offer a ball, the toddler reaches for the ball with the feet. The toddler uses the feet as if they were hands. Watch the movement of an infant.

Movements from the toes and feet begin with primal reflexes. Movement introduces the feet to the legs, the legs to the lower body, and the lower body to the ground. When lower body alignment sets up, it creates the foundation of a healthy posture. The intelligence of movement originates from the primal reflexes in the feet. It tries to align the legs with the pelvis. Then, it aligns the pelvis with the spine.

If students sit with their tails tucked under, they are on their lower backs while at their desks. They will have a hard time listening for a long time. Stability and alignment are not just physical.  Feeling stable in oneself is a mind-body phenomenon. The body’s posture and actions help us to listen. The child’s sense of groundedness is essential.

When a student feels grounded, they discover something new about the self. The most powerful and stable muscles and bones are in the pelvis and thighs. That “power” also gives them strength and confidence. Their gifts are now easier to access and negotiate themselves with the world. Their awareness is not a thought or idea; it is an experience. When they feel what they are doing, then they have more options on how to change it.

To teach groundedness, start with teaching personal space. Personal space is both inside and around the body. We teach this “space” with the lesson Personal Bubbles Freeze Dance.  There are many examples in the book A New Sensory Self Awareness.

Pancake Body lesson and the Book: A New Sensory Self Awareness.

Tips

The First Step: Ask the student to lie down and tell you what is touching or not touching the floor. 

The body has five lines: the spine, arms, and legs. How much of the line can they feel? If the children can’t sense anything touching, that is okay. Just ask them to notice. This lack of awareness is going to make your job harder. When we taught children from inside their bodies, they could sense in their bodies when something was wrong. They then would raise their hands and shared their anxiousness from lack of breathing, or a discomfort at their desks. And the teacher knew how to address the reason they weren’t learning.

The Second Step: Teach how to sense an internal and external spatial awareness. This helps children become aware of movement tendencies. 

Often, their bodies know long before their brains that something needs addressing. Some of their movements might try to help their bodies. These movements find new ways to connect how to use other muscles, bones, and senses. 

For example, if a student likes to climb, the movement may identify body parts. These parts of the pelvis, hips, knees, and legs can help improve balance, coordination, and stability. WTM movement would start with a GI Joe/lizard crawl, or the lesson “Gecko Race Relay.” The student is on her belly and tries to crawl like a lizard. The crawl on the belly helps the feet or legs get engaged with the floor.

Notice if the children’s right and left legs are both being used to propel the body forward? The lizard crawl helps the student understand the connection of the lower body parts to the spine. A trained professional observes the movement. This helps them see how the lower body affects the suspension of the spine into the carriage of the head.

The Third step: Become aware of the feeling in the physical awkwardness of their movement.

The awkward movement is actually a key component to understanding what kind of motion is needed. However, functional movement organization (see Research) is not easy to accomplish if the symptoms of the students are severe.

Extremely dysfunctional students need expert hands to help the student’s body sense movement organization between body parts. (Find a Feldenkrais® Practitioner) We got astounding results with the method, Functional Integration (FI). Behaviors from hyperactivity turned to listening, following directions, and sharing.

A Functional Integration (FI®) lesson is a Feldenkrais® method. It uses the tactile stimulus of a hands-on session. This sends movement information through the body. The sessions give these gifted students ways to use their energy in productive ways. They become clear about what they are thinking as opposed to what they are actually doing. They learn to cooperate, and their behavior becomes calm and ambitious. (Book A New Sensory Self Awareness, Part I and Part II –TBA}

RECap

NEEDS of hyperactive students

1.    Groundedness 
2.    Coordination and balance from their lower body

HOW? Teach Part II of WTM (You will need a movement teacher or Feldenkrais® Practitioner)

Find a Feldenkrais® Practitioner or show this page to your P.E. Movement Teacher.

Now, forget everything you just read and go lie down on the ground. How much of your body can you feel?

(√) Is there a way to find out if my student may develop a learning or behavioral disorder?

YES! This is a very good and KEY question! Start here with this Checklist. Pay attention to the “5 points” statements. Keep track of your number of points and there will be an explanation below on the list.

For some of the statements, you may need to ask the parents.

Check List

1.    My student is extremely sensitive to sounds, light, or touch. They don’t function effectively in the classroom. (5 points)

2.    The positions and alignment of my student’s feet are different. (2 points)

3.    My student does not talk or even make noises when trying to verbalize. (3 point)

4.    When my student crawls, climbs, or walks, he/she is not coordinated from one leg to the other. (5 points key)

5.    When my student was an infant, he/she had a difficult time rolling from the belly to the back. The rolling motion was like a solid log instead of a spiral movement. (2 points)

6.    When my student was an infant, he/she could not move to a sitting position without any help. He/She was unable to position from either side. (3 points)

7.    When my student was an infant, and even now, he/she does not use his/her feet against the floor in a GI Joe crawl (belly on the ground moving like a lizard). (5 points)

8.    When my student was an infant, he/she did not crawl much, if at all, before walking. (5 points)

9.    When my student crawled, he/she did not move his/her legs and arms in homolateral and cross lateral movements. A homolateral movement occurs when the leg and arm move together. They move forward and back on one side (right arm to right leg). A cross lateral movement is when the arm and leg move forward and back from opposite sides. It involves the right arm moving to the left leg. (5 points)

10. When I watch my student climb up or down stairs, there is an awkwardness in her balance. (3 points)

11. My student exhibits strange behaviors such as repetitive movements. (4 points)

12. My student changes behavior suddenly. For example, stops talking, or isolates and withdraws from a group. (3 points)

(√) What should I do if my student meets any of the criteria on the checklist?

Each question to the checklist has a value next to it. If the answer is yes to any of the “5” point statements, please seek professional advice. School counselor often has many resources to offer.

To address the body-to-brain portion of the problem, find a therapist. The therapist should know how to re-educate motor patterns. This re-education should occur from a neurological and psychological level. Both the brain and the body movements must be integrated from the body to the brain (it’s not an exercise). If the student has many of the symptoms, it is highly recommended to seek a Feldenkrais® practitioner for the team. Feldenkrais® practitioners should be able to integrate their work with the work of the other professionals. Neurofeedback sessions are very helpful in conjunction with the Feldenkrais® lessons.

You can also call the Feldenkrais® Guild to get more information, or email us for a consultation. If the symptoms in the student are severe, assemble a team. The team should consist of a development specialist, doctor, Feldenkrais® practitioner, and counselor. If the student’s scores are 12 or higher, enroll them in a developmental movement program. Consider options such as the Tutu’s and Me federal program. These types of movement classes may help: martial arts, dance, yoga games, gymnastics, or tumbling. It is important to address the issue as soon as possible.

(√) What does movement have to do with emotional and mental behavior?

This topic is the key to Wellness Through Movement. First think of the senses, or physical feelings of emotions (especially in a baby), as movements. With movements, a baby doesn’t think. A baby, like a young child, is a bundle of sensations. These sensations of how the body and mind move help develop behavior. The sensations of movement begin to form, and patterns set up.  The organization of the patterns are one, both mental and emotional behavior. Organizing the movement to affect the mind/body behavior takes a professional. When movement is organized not through exercise but mirroring sensation, the senses harmonize, the mind settles, and the heart opens. This type of movement is not an exercise. Like learning to walk, it takes practice. To help balance the body/mind’s wellbeing, teach how to feel the movement connected body parts, and body parts to emotions.  The kids learn this easily because they are so young. The experience of the movement is the education and leads the students from the inside. 

If you can wonder about the needs in your children’s movement, see if their movements are trying to help them. Wonder if there could be connections between their movements and their emotions? Movement speak volumes far beyond how to discipline and teach the child to learn.

To get the science behind the method please see the Scientist page or Contact Us.

Astonishing changes can happen in students’ 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 students started using the program’s methods independently. They did this whenever they needed to handle stress, violence, and depression. 

The most significant and sustainable results happen with students between the ages of five and eight. Adults also reported benefiting from the Intro program.

Please note movement lessons in Part II of WTM were necessary for the most challenging behavior. With all behaviors, we taught lessons in this book A New Sensory Self Awareness. (Rosasco, 2013)

(√) Is there an alternative to medication to help my students?

There is an alternative to using sedative medications to manage your student’s behavior. Hyperactive students have little awareness of their behavior and how it disturbs others. Consider your student’s behavior as a way to understand their needs. Their actions reveal what type of help he or she requires. The movement reveals the internal dialogue between the body and brain. (See the pages: Science, Biomechanics of Psychology, & Feldenkrais® Work for more information)