sparkmygenius.com

I came across a new term last week — helicopter parents. It describes baby boomers that started families as thirty-somethings. They evolved a more involved parenting style, which has persisted into elementary school, high school, and even college. Bostonia, the alumni magazine of Boston University, describes this new breed of parent this way:

“…helicopter parents, moms and dads, who hover over their college-age children, chiming in on everything from housing assignments to homework.”

No, they’re not actually doing the homework for the “child,” but they’re still involved in the process.

Lately homework has become a big issue. In the past twenty years, the tendency has definitely been to pile more and more homework on younger and younger children. Alfie Kohn identifies five themes about homework complaints:
1) A burden on parents
2) Stress for children
3) Family conflict
4) Less time for other activities
5) Less interest in learning

Let’s take just one finding from the latest research:

“there is no evidence of any academic benefit from homework in elementary school.”

For more information, go to http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/hm.htm. or check out The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing.

The key is to rethink homework, says Kohn. Instead of schools and teachers automatically assigning homework on a regular basis because “it is the policy to do so,” he suggests that the regular condition should be no homework. Homework should be given only if it is beneficial to the student.

Another person re-thinking homework is Richard Lovoie, who agrees with Kohn on this point and also believes that as students move towards high school that “well planned, appropriate homework can have motivational and academic benefits.” Go to http://www.ricklavoie.com/motivationbreakthrough.html

In either case, we can now move on to a few homework tips.
1) Use trial and error to determine the best time and place for your child to do homework.
2) Prepare a homework toolbox or kit with all basic, essential tools and supplies.
3) Ask the teacher for an acceptable example of your child’s homework that has been corrected and is neat and legible. Use this as an example to show your child what to aim for. Consistency is important.
4) If your child is very disorganized, go to http://www.organizedstudent.com/ and read and implement suggestions from “The Disorganized Student.”
5) If your child is overwhelmed by too much homework, clear everything away except one assignment. When it is completed, give him another one.
6) Many parents and professionals believe that homework should be done where it is quiet, but the fact is that many students are more productive listening to music in the background – especially instrumental music.
7) If your child has attention, distractibility and impulsivity issues, read and implement strategies from “A Homework System That Works” at http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/1034.html
If your child is very intense, sensitive and needy, go to http://difficultchild.com/ and learn how to apply the Nurtured Heart Approach to help your child.

We see a lot of students at Sparks of Genius (www.sparksofgenius.com), especially elementary school students, and I have to agree that homework is a major issue for all of them and their parents. And parents, by the way, means mothers. Right?

I know homework is an issue when the mother says “We have a lot of homework tonight.” So here’s another homework tip. When you check your child’s completed homework, look for neatness and completeness. Look over a few answers, but do not get caught up in going over every item.

Too many parents get overly involved in their elementary school student’s homework. Remember, you do not want to become a helicopter parent.

Recently I asked a mother of two, a dental hygienist, how she successfully got her son do complete his homework independently. She said “Look, I spent a lot of years teaching him how to have a positive attitude about homework, how to manage his time, how to complete his homework at the same time and place, how to use his homework toolbox, how to be organized and how to take responsibility for doing homework that is neat and complete and for handing it in.”

“When he entered seventh grade I told him he was on his own,” she continued. “What happened?” I asked. “Nothing,” she said. “He just started doing it.”

Remember, you do not want to become a helicopter parent. Or do you?

–Dr. Rohn Kessler

On October 20, 2007 I was invited by the Florida Special Arts Center www.flsac.org. to address an audience of several hundred persons invited to view a new documentary called Bridging to Gap: A True Lesson in Humanity.

Let me tell you the story of this documentary.

The parents of three special needs young adults designed a “color guard” program for “developmentally disabled” young adults. Now if you are wondering what a color guard is, modern color guard is defined as “a combination of military drill, also called marching, and the use of flags, sabers, mock rifles, shields and other equipment, as well as dance and other interpretive movement.” It is typically seen in parades or halftime events. Until now it has never been part of the special needs world. Now, thanks to the vision of Jerry and Ellen Kleinert-Cohn, it is.

Anyway, the color guard, now called the Special Needs Color Guard of America, got invited to perform in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the documentary tells the story of that trip.

Ellen Kleinert-Cohn put together a program to train these adults to perform at many local events. She even got them a chance to perform at the Winter Guard International (WGI) Color Guard World Championships.

I was invited to speak at the screening of Bridging the Gap. Here are some excerpts from my speech.

“Martin Luther King had a dream of freedom. Ellen Kleinert-Cohn and Jerry Cohn have dream of inclusion, a dream that children and adults with special needs such as developmental disabilities will be fully included as belonging. They understood that we all have special needs.
Lawrence of Arabia said “All men dream, but not all equally. Those who dream by night, in the dusty recesses of their mind, wake to find it was all vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous, for they may act their dreams with open eyes and make things happen”.

Dr. King dreamed with open eyes. So do Ellen and Jerry.

I too dream with open eyes. I dream of taking the best of neuroscience research and combining it with great computer technology to ignite people’s sparks of genius. I dream of brain fitness centers where people of all ages “work out” to improve cognitive and executive function skills.

Today people between the ages of six and eighty-three come to Boca Sparks of Genius. They exercise their minds playing computer “games” specifically designed to improve their mental strength, stamina, speed, flexibility and balance and, of course, to spark their genius. We use the term “brainworksbetter” exercises, and each member receives a customized set of exercises. They are assisted by friendly, highly-skilled personal trainers who are passionately dedicated to the success of each member of our fitness community. Many members of the fitness center also “work out” on home computer to maximize brain functioning and peak performance.

I dream of hearing the sounds of success, joy, confidence and discovery as more people around Florida, the country and the world discover, ignite and express their unique sparks of genius in a fun-filled, challenging, supportive, gym-like environment.

I see them all overcoming limitations, defying labels and breaking boundaries with their awesome accomplishments.”

–Dr. Rohn Kessler, Ed. D.

There was an interesting study by Michael Marsiske, Ph.D, a professor of clinical health and psychology at the University of Florida, which tested whether mental stimulation could improve cognitive functioning in adults age 65 – 94. (Link here.)

This study included training in 4 techniques to improve memory: meaningfulness, organization, visualization and association. You can use these techniques to boost your memory now.

Meaningfulness

We tend to remember things that have some importance to us. It doesn’t have to be very important, like remembering the code to a secret document which will save our lives, but if there is some significance, we tend to remember. I ordinarily forget phone numbers, but 2 days after my mother moved to an assisted living, I memorized her new phone number. Interestingly, after two years I still don’t remember the number of the nursing station, but I do remember where I wrote it down.

Another example is if I asked you where you were during 9-11 or when Kennedy was shot or even when they bombed Pearl Harbor, you probably can remember.
Interestingly a certain amount of emotional involvement helps remembering. That’s why we remember 9-11. But too much can have the opposite effect. Ask someone in an office building nearby, and they may have memory lapses associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

So the trick is to create meaning. For example, if you are going to the grocery store and you want to remember to buy spaghetti sauce, you might think about a trip to Italy or to your favorite Italian restaurant or even about a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western that you enjoyed watching. If it’s not just a forgettable can of sauce, it’s more likely to make its way into your shopping cart.

Organization

You are more likely to remember things when you put them in a category. For example, you are off to get your hair cut and you need to get gas and stop off at the store to pick up some fish for dinner. Before you leave the house, think about getting food for yourself and food for your car. That way you are more likely to have remembered these things when you get home.

Often memory training includes remembering lists of objects, and the more that you do it, the more neuronal connections you can build up in your brain. Let’s say your list is: fish, chair, potatoes, hammer, sofa, screw driver, pliers, bed and apples. As an experiment I invite you to close your eyes and to try to remember this list. I think it’s a pretty overwhelming task.
Now think about furniture, food, and tools. Think about the fish, apples, and potatoes as food, the bed, sofa and chair as furniture and the screw driver, hammer and pliers as tools. Now close your eyes and see if you can remember more of the list. If you did better, it may be because of organization.

Organization is actually a way of chunking information. Instead of remembering nine distinct objects, you are remembering 3 categories with 3 pieces of information in each one.
This can work with numbers too. Instead of 358902, think of three hundred and fifty eight and nine hundred and two. I often use this when I am giving out my phone number. It makes it much easier for the listener to write down the correct digits.

Visualization

Visualization is really a way of making information more meaningful to you. For example, if you wanted that spaghetti sauce, you could do more than just remembering your favorite Italian restaurant. Visualize yourself inside the restaurant, see Luigi the star waiter bringing you a steaming plate of spaghetti covered with your favorite marinara sauce, smell the garlic and tomatoes, imagine the taste of the pasta. The more different senses you can use, the more effective the visualization will be, and the more likely you are to remember to pick up spaghetti sauce.

Let’s say you have a doctor’s appointment on Thursday morning at 10 am. Imagine yourself getting up and having breakfast. See yourself looking at the calendar and seeing that it is Thursday. Imagine getting into your car and traveling on the route that you normally take. Hear yourself listening to your favorite song on the radio. Feel yourself sitting in your car seat. See yourself pulling into the parking lot and going into your doctor’s office. As you enter the door, see the clock saying 10 am.

Association

When something is associated with something else, we are more likely to remember it. This is why random facts like proper names or telephone numbers are so hard to remember, because they are not connected to anything else. If you can make the connection, you are more likely to remember.

For example, if you want to remember Henry’s name, think of Henry the VIII, O’Henry candy bars, Henry Fonda or any other Henry that you know. I just met a Lori the other day, and she was so excited because she had another friend named Ninah. Lori happens to be my middle name, so it was very easy to remember her name.

The hardest names are the kind that you have never heard of before, the ones where you don’t have direct associations or even name recognition. In these instances you have to be more imaginative. For example, let’s say that you meet Sharika. You may remember the Shari by thinking about Shari Lewis or by associating it with sharing. Think of the “ka” as being the ending of Topeka or Eureka.

If you have that list of words with hammer, potato and couch, make a story about these objects. For example, think about putting the potato on the sofa and smashing it with the hammer. I guess I though of this aggressive image because I’m tired of senior moments and wish they would go away without me having to work on them. But I wish I had the same metabolism that I had at 20, and neither of these things are going to happen.

How Computer Programs Can Help

We have reviewed some easy things that you can do at home involving meaningfulness, categorization, visualization and association which will boost your memory IQ. But there are also specific computer “games” which will improve these abilities, particularly categorization and association, and they also help with things like processing speed, auditory processing and visual processing as well. For example, you may have to click on the object which is not an animal or click on the computer mouse when the object is not the same color at the outline. These games can get more challenging when there are distracters on the screen, time limits or even games where you have to figure out the rules. There are also computer games that that help with attention and with stress reduction. These are just some of the games that we use at the Sparks of Genius Brain Fitness Center, and in addition to games that are personalized for you, you have a coach for support and encouragement.

So whether you want to use these tips to help improve your memory at home or whether you want to check things out the Sparks of Genius Brain Fitness Center, the important thing to know is that there is a lot that you can do to strengthen your memory and your memories and to enhance your mental fitness.

I’ll leave you with a final quote from Dr. Marsiske:

If you have any concerns that you cannot learn new things later in life, put those away. If people put effort into learning new and challenging things after age 65, they can grow in performance. And they can maintain those gains.

By Ninah Kessler
Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Life Coach

In many traditions questions can best be answered by stories, and this is no exception. I’d like to tell you a story about Dr Rohn, another gifted underachiever, who is much too modest to write this about himself.

When I first met Dr Rohn in 1980, he had already had 7 years of experience as a psychologist in the office of the brilliant pediatrician Dr. William Crook. He was working primarily with kids who would now be diagnosed as ADHD, but some were just unmotivated and underachieving. They were not doing what they needed to do to succeed in school and in life.

Dr Rohn learned about Dr Crook’s pioneering work with food allergies (he later wrote the groundbreaking book The Yeast Connection). But after the allergies were taken care of, the kids and the families still needed help. So he devoted himself to finding out what they needed, including using what he called “psychological vitamins” which was basically noticing the positive in the child and in the family and bringing the positive to the forefront. Dr Rohn worked with whoever came through the door, intuitively finding the child’s strengths and finding some part of himself that could identify with and work with the child.

Dr Rohn’s work took him in many different directions including working with boys at the Eckerd Youth Development Center in Okeechobee. This was basically a prison for kids, the end of the line in the juvenile system. I was afraid to go into the place, and I don’t think that I ever did. These were kids who failed at school and in society. It didn’t stop Dr Rohn from connecting with the boys, identifying their strengths and developing programs that helped them

When he was in Okeechobee he started going for his Doctorate in Educational Leadership from FAU. After he got it and we moved to Boca Raton, Dr Rohn started working as a Family Counselor at 7 schools in Coral Springs. There he saw how many kids were not getting what they needed in schools, and were becoming frustrated, rebellious and depressed. Many could be diagnosed as ADHD, but many were bright underachievers. Dr Rohn started looking for strategies that could help these kids.

They say that we are never given a problem without being given the solution. When Dr Rohn was in Coral Springs, he learned about Play Attention, a computer program that worked to help kids learn to pay attention by given them real time feedback. He left his day job and started Thinking Pays, Inc., using Play Attention and other computer programs to help kids learn to pay attention. He focused on ADHD kids, because that’s what the software was designed for.

But we didn’t just get these kinds of kids. We got adults with age-related cognitive decline, mild dementia and brain injuries. And we got lots of bright underachievers. That’s what stimulated Dr Rohn to start Sparks of Genius, where he could really focus on the strengths. We use Spark of Genius with all of our students, but it was really inspired by those bright underachievers who needed something to motivate them.

At a time of self-reflection, Dr Rohn said, “When I was a kid I was so bored with school. I couldn’t wait for it to be over. I used to beg my teachers to give me special projects, something that would interest me. I love what I do now, because so many of the kids that I work with remind me of myself. I had trouble fitting into the school system, and so do they. They need someone to remind them of their gifts, their sparks of genius.”

By Ninah Kessler, LCSW
Life Coach

By Amy Price PhD

Professor Kawashima followed his dream. When he was a boy he saw himself putting his brain on a computer system. He believed that if he could represent mental functioning on a computer, he would be able to understand how people’s brains worked. On his journey he created the Nintendo DS brain training games. These games are inter-generational tools that are entertaining to people of all ages. Dr. Kawashima studied brain response with pet scans. He found when people simply watch television, brain zones that handle sound and sight respond. When playing a video game, zones that deal with motion and color respond. The part of the brain that really helps us think is called the prefrontal cortex. It is not stimulated with either of these activities.

Difficult math does not light up this part of the brain either, but simple math done under speed conditions makes a big difference. Reading silently does not use this part of the brain as much as when we read out loud. Dr. Kawashimi developed games that stimulate the prefrontal cortex. So the principle is to work out with your brain and have fun!

He came under fire because a British newspaper quoted him as saying videogames harm the brain. This is not actually true. He said videogames de-activate the prefrontal cortex. Professor Kawashima has four children. He let them all play video games but only for one hour every day. His reasoning was that sometimes the brain just needs to rest and video games were not harmful. He has done tests on elderly Japanese people. What he found was that solving mental puzzles can often arrest cognitive decline. Dr. Kawashimi says ‘I cannot comment on whether the illness of dementia is cured or not, but with these methods symptoms of dementia certainly improve”.

Other virtual activities that were once exclusively the domain of the young are being used with increasing success to rehabilitate older adults and bring them quality of life. In some senior centers card games and crossword puzzles are being replaced with virtual reality bowling or tennis. Crossword puzzles and sudoku are played in groups with computers and a mouse. These are much easier to navigate than small pieces of wood and studies have shown that simulated activities are almost as useful for practice as the real thing.

Some other scientists are jealous and treat his work with disparaging remarks such as there has not been enough time to test this or there is little empirical evidence. Other scientists like Dr. Posner are finding exciting results after only a few sessions with brain fitness tools. Scientists are testing brain games and finding increased brain fitness from the very old to the very young. Some say Professor Kawashimi is in it for the money. This is sad as all the royalties from the games and the books he wrote about the mind go entirely to the University. Dr. Kawashimi feels as a scientist it is his obligation and the obligation of others to return the results of our research to society.

This story is adapted from an article by Richard Lloyd Parry of the Times newspaper, London UK

Here are Other articles By Dr. Amy Price, she also reaches out to those in chronic pain

In The Art of Power, Thich Nhat Hahn writes about five spiritual powers that are the foundation of happiness—faith, diligence, mindfulness, concentration and insight. Let’s focus on diligence, the notion that can train ourselves to come back to our best and highest self.

Imagine that we have seeds in our consciousness such as joy, forgiveness, peace, anger despair and hate. These seeds can be awake or asleep. If you live in a positive environment seeds like anger, fear, despair, violence and craving are sleeping and not touched. If you live in a negative environment these seeds are touched, watered and begin to grow.

“So it is wise for you to choose a good environment that will prevent these negative seeds from being touched often. You should not allow other people around you to touch these seeds, and you should not allow yourself to water them.” This is diligence.

“When you read an article full of violence or watch a violent television program you turn on the seed of violence. The first step of diligence is not to turn on these negative seeds and not to allow the environment to turn them on…Try not to expose yourself to sights and sounds that stimulate the seed of craving or the seeds of anger in you…You need diligence to practice this, and you may need a community or group of friends with similar values to help you create a good environment.”

I was thinking of this while reading The Paranoia Switch, a book about how terror rewires our brains by Harvard psychologist Martha Stout. She asks one question: What were you doing on the morning of September 11, 2001?

Dr. Stout claims we all have immediate and vivid memories of 9/11 that we will carry to our graves. “We will be able to recall small details—the weather where we were, what we had been up to but stopped doing, exactly which telephone we picked up—as if we had had tiny videotapes in our heads.”

She also claims that, based on neuropsychological research, the 9/11 attack turned on our “fear switch” by traumatizing our brains and causing overreactions to the reality of life.

The following is some of the information presented:
1) Immediately after the attack eight out of ten women and six out of ten men were depressed.
2) Three to five days after the attack, 44% of Americans reported at least one symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
3) Two months later 31% of respondents to a L.A. Times poll felt their personal sense of security was still “a great deal” shaken.”
4) One year later, 30% of Americans said they still thought about 9/11 every single day.
5) A study published in 2005 that followed the infants of 38 mothers who had been at or near the World Trade Center attack reported that at one year old the babies of mothers who had PTSD showed low cortisol levels —linked to being vulnerable to post-traumatic stress. In other words, “…maternal post-traumatic stress disorder may have transgenerational effects beginning when the child is in utero…”

What’s the point? The point is that “When you read an article full of violence or watch a violent television program you turn on the seed of violence.”

Diligence is the practice of training ourselves to come back to our best and highest self.

–Dr. Rohn Kessler

Gene D. Cohen has created a new way to work with mid-stage Alzheimer’s patients – the one who get confused about who is who in the family. The person with Alzheimer’s can get very frustrated when he can’t figure out who’s on first. And it’s not a warm fuzzy experience for family members when mom can’t remember her daughter’s name.

Family photos are put on video tape with a family member narrating. Then family members watch the video with the patient. It is an interactive experience, with the family member often stopping to ask the patient questions or to note,” my you look beautiful there.” The patient can also watch the video when family members are not visiting.

While this treatment does not restore memory, it does wonders for to combat the feelings of helplessness and depression that so often accompany Alzheimer’s. This approach was written up in The Washington Post.

I have often used photo-therapy with my mom. (Yup, I’m the one whose name she forgot.) I use a low tech approach, taking the family photos from shoe boxes and putting them into albums together. When we look at the albums together it gives us something to talk about when it’s too hard for her to make conversation without some kind of stimulus. It improves her mood, makes the visit more enjoyable for both of us, and I learn snippets of family history. (I never knew my grandmother lived on the lower east side.)

An allied approach is used by my friend Cantor Jerry Cohn. He goes into nursing homes and assisted living facilities and plays Yiddish songs. People go from nearly dead to fully delighted.

Just because there is no cure for Alzheimer’s doesn’t mean that there is no treatment. How we interact with people with this disease can make a tremendous difference in their quality of life. These are just a few high and low tech examples of how anyone can make a positive difference.

By Ninah Kessler, LCSW
Life Coach