by Lee Gerdes, author of Limitless You

We are all fascinating creatures who are both exceedingly resilient and exceedingly vulnerable. For children, a bad bump on the head can result in a simple black-and-blue mark for a few days – or if delivered at precisely the right angle and force – can result in a trauma print in the functional brain pattern which can cause less-than-optimum brain function for their entire life. Some might counsel you to be patient and advise you that your child will grow out of it. In our experience if the root cause of counter-productive behavior is a trauma that has affected brain functioning, the pattern is likely to only be etched deeper over time.

The imprint left by trauma – be it before birth, during birth, or after – can create a sub-optimized brainwave pattern that causes learning or behavior challenges – and can even slow the physical and/or intellectual maturation process. Many children develop “work-arounds”. They find ways to achieve, but since they are essentially, working against their brain – they do so only at the expense of their physical and emotional health. When your child’s brain is working at its best level, your child doesn’t have to work so hard – and for you, managing your child’s life can be filled with more joy.

During the Brainwave Assessment process at Brain State Technologies®, we measure brainwave function and are able to show you the inner workings of your child’s brain – or yours.

If your child is “hyperactive,” we are likely to see excessive low frequencies in several areas of the brain. The child’s behavior is only a result of their brain doing what it needs the most – pushing through those low frequencies with high-energy behavior.

If your child is misbehaving – unhappy, angry, anxious, irritable or antagonistic, we are likely to see brainwaves that are out-of-balance in the prefrontal cortex. They are unable to “contextualize” their experience. When one small thing goes wrong, their brain interprets that everything in the world is wrong – and the resulting behavior appears extreme.

With about 100 billion neurons in a human brain, most of us find it difficult to imagine the number of possible neural connections and hence, variations in brainwave patterns that exist.  Our ability to measure the patterns assures that we will not be conducting a guessing game with your child. When a child is given medication to change behavior, there is often no objective test or measure that shows what is really going on in the brain. And in fact, the medication may actually be the reverse of what their brain really needs. With Brainwave Optimization™, we measure each session to confirm that the brain is moving in its best direction.

With nearly 34,000 clients – fully 4,000 of them under age 18 – we’ve had the benefit of seeing and understanding the patterns that cause your child to behave the way he or she does. When brainwaves are balanced and harmonize, children achieve more, laugh more, enjoy life more completely and engage in a healthier social life.  Over and over, we’ve seen kids labeled as “disabled” who are now top performers in their school. Our surveys demonstrate that more than 85 percent of all children who experience Brainwave Optimization meet or exceed their goals – and are set on a much happier path.

With apologies to Pablo Picasso, I borrow some of his words that resonate with my own philosophy of the “limitless you.”

We should say to each of our children: “Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. You have the capacity for anything. You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.”

10 ways you can help your child grow their best brain 

1. Help your child learn to sing or play music – or learn another language.
2. Make sure he or she has plenty of physical activity; whenever possible, outdoors is best.
3. Cut down on sugar, especially soda and diet soda.
4. Make sure they get plenty of protein.
5. Be consistent about hours for eating, sleeping and waking.
6. Help your child set goals and respect limits.
7. Feed various ways of learning. Take them to a science fair one weekend and an art fair the next. Take them to a sports competition another week and a play the next.
8. Provide opportunities for social interaction with people of all ages.
9. Remember that 1/3 of the brain is set up to execute and 2/3 receive information. Make room for quiet time.

    10.  If your child studies or reads all the time, plays computer games all the time, or plays sports all the time, know that too much of anything is too much. The brain           needs balance and harmony.

Lee Gerdes is the founder and CEO of Brain State Technologies.