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Brain Child by Tony Buzan
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Brain Child - how Smart Parents raise Smart Kids
Book Reviews
While earning a PhD in Psychology of Learning, a noted psychologist asked me to offer one practical suggestion based on this knowledge. I sat mute. Today I could name
a hundred of practical uses, but only because of the brilliant work of Tony Buzan, who has made a complex subject accessible to all. Don't just read this book; read everything he has written
Dr Stephen Lundin Author: Fish!
I commented approvingly on a child in my granddaughter’s reception class recently, He’s a bright spark,” I said. My granddaughter overheard. “I’m brighterer than him”, she piped up, in an aggrieved tone. That kind of self confidence is valuable, and It’s one of the qualities addressed in Tony Buzan’s handbook, which takes current understanding of the human brain and packages it to be used with real, developing children.
All of the old favourites are there: Mind Maps; multiple intelligences; nutrition; left or right handedness plus lots more.
Lists of “things for you to do” are scattered throughout the text. “Make sure that your child’s friends and circle of wider acquaintances include people of all ages, multiple nationalities, different personality types and both sexes.”
This lovely, heartening book radiates enthusiasm and will give parents -and teachers- the confidence to believe that, yes, they really can make a difference.
... Times Education Supplement - 21st November 2003
Of course you want your child to excel in school, be confident and happy and succeed in life. But how do you help your child unlock his or her natural genius - while having fun at the same time?
Tony Buzan comes to the rescue with this inspiring, fun and practical book, which helps parents help their children become intelligent in every sense of the word.
Research shows that the time and energy you dedicate to your child in the first five years pays off dividends for the next ten. With competition for the best schools increasing all the time, it is even more important to become involved in their child’s education, and Brain Child is the perfect tool to help.
Learn new ways to stimulate, read and play with your child using memory games, mind maps and number skills.
... Evening Echo (Cork) - 29th October 2003
Book Extract
The following extract from the book on one of the major Brain Principles - “Success” - (pp 109-114)
SUCCESS
Your baby is a Success Mechanism. Your baby is born to succeed. Your baby is born to be a success story.
Until nearly the end of the last century, it was thought by many educationalists and psychologists that the brain operated on a trial and error basis. This was a subtle mistake, for it surreptitiously obliged us, for centuries, to consider life in terms of 'mistakes', 'errors' and 'failures', the opposite of what we now know to be the more appropriate approach.
If the brain were a 'trial and error mechanism', you and I would have been born, would have tried and tried and tried, leading us to error, error, error, error, error, error, error, error, error, and within a few minutes it would have all been over! But this was not the case. We tried and tried and tried and tried, and the result was success, success, success, success, success, success, success, success, success, success, success, success, success, and then Error! Check! Adjust! Try again! (see TEFCAS page 105).
Your baby's brain is thus a Trial and Success Mechanism. This switch of emphasis from error to success has profound implications, which are most vividly illustrated in an education experiment that reveals what is know as the Pygmalion Effect... The Pygmalion Effect gets its name from George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion adapted into the stage and film musical My Fair Lady...
Higgins believes that he has the knowledge; believes that he can teach Eliza 'proper' English; wants to do so; and believes Eliza is capable of learning. Eliza wants to learn; believes that she can learn; accepts that Higgins has the appropriate knowledge' and believes he has the skill to teach her.
... what was expected of them by each other was achieved because they believed in each other. The sceptics' expectations were not realised because they were not accepted...
Your baby's brain is a Success Mechanism. It feeds on success and your assumptions, expectations and celebrations of that success. Be successful in making this so!
THINGS YOU CAN DO
Make sure that you and your child are 'locked in' to the Buzan/Pygmalion Formula:
- you must have appropriate knowledge and wisdom to impart;
- you must wish (love!) to impart it;
- you must want your child to receive it; and
- you must believe that your child is eminently capable of learning whatever you teach.
Similarly your child :
- must have faith in your knowledge;
- must believe that you can teach it;
- must want you to teach it (you must nurture the soil very carefully here);
- and must believe in her own massive aptitude for learning.
- Go shopping or to any public place where parents and young children are regularly together, and observe the
number of negative versus positive responses those children get for every aspect of their behaviour. Sadly you will find that there is a 15-to-1 negative-positive dominance, for example:
- 'You're a naughty girl!'
- 'Be quite!'
- 'Don't touch!'
- 'Don't run!'
- 'Don't play with your food!'
- 'You're bad!'
- 'You're an idiot!'
- 'That's stupid'
- 'Stop making that horrible noise!'
- 'You are a nuisance!'
- How many times do I have to tell you before you get it through your thick skull ...?'
- 'Stop fidgeting!'
- 'For goodness sake, sit still!'
- 'You're a pain in the neck!'
- 'Nobody's interested in what you have to say!'
- With the sixteenth positive,
- 'Ah, we love you!'
- Try to use positive language with your child at all times. This can be particularly challenging if she misbehaves in
public. If you find any of the above phrases on the tip of your tongue, try holding back for a moment and
redirecting her behaviour in a more positive and less restrictive way. It is of course important to find a balance, as
there will be times when it is in the child's best interests to act quickly. Afterwards, try to help the child understand
that there are certain boundaries of behaviour.
- Monitor your own vocabulary for positive and negative effects on the child. Similarly monitor your own 'self-talk'
and adjust it where appropriate towards the positive.
-end of extract- |
