Boost Your Kids’ Performance with Scents

Today, I want to write one trick I have used for many years to enhance kids’ performance. In fact, I use this trick to enhance my audience’s benefits from my workshops when the group of participants is small enough.

Our memory depends on the involvement of our various senses. The more senses are involved in a new learning, the more our brain records of it the better we remember it. Unfortunately, most of our learning is directed at only 2 senses – vision and hearing – through reading/writing and listening/talking. Sometimes, learning also involves kinesthetic stimulation like movement (hands-on activities), which allows the brain to store more pieces of information and strengthen the learning.

However, two important senses are very much neglected – smell and taste. Just try to recall smelling your math book or tasting your English exam and you will see what I mean.

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TV Diet (14): Cutting Junk TV

I am sure many of you ask, “Well, now that we know why it is important to cut junk TV out of our kids’ life, the big question is how?”

I agree! This is the big question.

In this post of TV Diet, I will explore ways to do just that. Not all techniques have worked for me as well as others, but I think it is important to mention all of them, mainly because we are different people and have different personalities and therefore, what did not work for me may work well for you and vice versa.

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Popularity Counts

Though many parents tell their teens that popularity is not the only thing that matters, not wanting them to compromise more important things in life to fit in and be subject to peer pressure, I think in a way they are deceiving themselves.

If popularity is not that important to us as parents,
where did our teens get this idea?

Grownups compromise a lot to gain popularity at home, at work and among their friends and family. Most extended family struggles runs around popularity. Siblings fight to be the most popular kids and the most popular grandchildren. When a couple divorces, there is an immediate struggle for being the most popular parent and most couples, unfortunately, compromise many of their values and much of the wellbeing of their precious kids just to gain imaginary popularity over their partners. Whether you like to admit it or not, you compromise a lot and are subject to social pressure yourself.

I think popularity counts, not because I think it should, but because it just does.

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TV Diet (13): Raising Aware Kids

Being the home TV police officer is not a fun at all and nobody can survive being one for long. At some stage, you will need to make sure your kids have enough understanding and awareness to regulate their own TV consumption.

I remember realizing this when my daughter Eden was 4. She was sensitive to dairy food and I was a very good dairy police officer (I had no guilt feelings, because eating dairy food meant she would get pneumonia). Eden went to kindergarten and I knew that although I wrote on the admission forms “No dairy food”, she would take food from other kids. This is when I knew I needed to teach her to be aware and understand why she needed to restrict herself.

The TV diet works the same way. Your kids will be exposed to TV more than you think and certainly more than you can control. All my kids have come home at times with details about TV shows I have never allowed them to watch. This is the reason raising aware kids is better than fighting this on your own.

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TV Diet (12): Junk TV

Last week, I wrote about the comparison between a food diet and a TV diet. One thing I find particularly important is Junk TV and this is also what I emphasize most to my own kids. Basically, if most of your food is healthy, eating junk from time to time will not kill you. Similarly, if most of your kids’ TV time is educational and positive, you can allow them to watch some junk TV occasionally.

If you want to make sure your kids do not consume junk TV, you need to define what junk is. Unfortunately, just like you can find some research saying coffee is unhealthy and other studies claiming it can cure Alzheimer’s, you will also find people saying that watching TV is learning about real life and others saying it is anything but real life.

As with any matter of choice, you have to find your own definition. To discover if a show on TV is junk or not, you need to go through two steps:

If you think a show is junk – easy! No need to debate this, but very important to remember why you categorize it as junk, so you can use the explanation to help your kids understand your approach.

If you do not think a show is junk, watch your kids’ reaction to it. Some shows are neither good nor bad, but the kids’ reaction to them may be the reason you should consider them unhealthy. For example, say your kids watch Superman and think they can fly from the window, this show is a bad influence on them, regardless of how many good messages there are in it. Observe your kids’ mood and behavior after watching various shows and listen to how they replay and recite parts of those shows later on.

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Make a list: Be More Productive

Time is a monster that cannot be reasoned with. It responds like a snail to our impatience, then it races like a gazelle when you can’t catch your breath
– Adult Joe Wentworth from Simon Birch

I am sure everyone wants to be very productive, especially when they look at successful people and see how well they use their time, their resources, their talents and the people around them. Looking at these people, you might think they know something you do not.

They do! They know themselves better!

If you have been a regular reader of my Make a List series, you know why making these lists of 100 things means you get to know yourself better, so with today’s list you hit 3 birds with 1 stone: you get to know yourself better, you get to be more productive, because you know yourself better and you get to be more productive, because you find 100 ways to be more productive

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Lessons in Patience

Have you ever looked at the watch again and again, only to find that 30 seconds had passed? I think humans have a real challenge with the notion of time. Time is not very consistent with the feeling of waiting for something to happen. When we are happy, time seems to fly quickly and all our attempts to freeze the moment for a bit longer result in total failure. When we are down or waiting for something to happen, it is almost as if the clock ticks in . s l o w . m o t i o n.

Feels familiar?

I think I have found the cure for this inconsistency. It is called “patience”. It is kind of a strange cure, almost like vitamins. The less we have of it in our body, the more we need it. You will be very surprised to know that just last month, I had to take large doses of my own medicine, unwillingly of course, but it helped me heal a bit. Today, I would like to share with you some insights I have learned about this medicine, which I call The P Inhaler.

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TV Diet (11): The Right TV diet

A TV diet is just like any diet – hard! Many times, when I talk to people about diets, they are very frustrated from trying and trying and not succeeding. People want fast results with no effort. If you feel like you want that for your kids TV diet – you are normal! Normal, but not very effective.

I think it is better to understand a diet before starting it is mainly, because a lack of understanding will almost guarantee your failure. I would not want that for you, because I would like to empower you to take control over your life, rather than feel disempowered and hand control over to your kids, especially regarding TV. As you are about to see, it is good to understand any diet as a lifestyle change, whether you want to lose weight, have more energy or ensure that your kids grow up to be smart, social and positive human beings.

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Make a list: Ways to be kind

In 1991, Allan Luks (former executive director of The Institute for the Advancement of Health and executive director of the Big Brothers and Big Sisters program in New York City) documented a study about kindness in a book called “The healing power of doing good: The health and spiritual benefits of helping others”.

In a survey he conducted among 3,000 people of all ages from 20 organizations around the USA, he found clearly that “Helping contributes to the maintenance of good health and it can diminish the effect of diseases and disorders both serious and minor, psychological and physical”. So there you have it – if you want to be happy and healthy, help others!

In his research, Luks found that helping others and being kind resulted in a sharp reduction of stress and increased the release of endorphins (the body’s natural feel-good drugs). Over 90% of participants in his research reported that regular volunteering lowered their stress level and contributed to their health and wellbeing.

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TV Diet (10): Parents’ Influence

Parents do not like to admit, but their attitude and personality contributes a lot to their kids’ desire to watch TV. In this chapter of TV Diet, I will cover some of parents’ behaviors and personalities that drive kids to watch more and more TV.

As you read, I hope you do not find yourself there, but if you do, do not despair. You can turn things around. Of course, as is the “Family Matters” tradition, change will start with you and I will give you the solution (later in the series, so subscribe or come back to read).

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