In today's episode, we're talking about the power of the brain and why it's important for children to learn exactly how their brains work. If you'd like to learn a fun way to teach a child to navigate their emotions, this episode is for you...
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
Mindfield (TV-14)
Vsauce Older Children
SciShow (Young Children)
Operation Ouch (Science Series)
This Episode Discusses:
Why it’s important to teach your kids about the brain.
4 suggested brain topics to discuss with your kids.
The brain and the part it plays in navigating emotions.
Why kids don’t have as much emotional control as adults.
DON’T HAVE TIME TO LISTEN? HERE’S THE EPISODE ALL TYPED OUT:
Today’s episode is with Jenny Mouse. Jenny writes stories teaching children about the brain. She's currently running a Kickstarter that I'm supporting to help fund her upcoming books. I'll share the links to that as well as to some additional resources you can use to help support you in teaching this important topic to your kids in the show notes. This isn't a sponsored episode. I just really love supporting projects that I believe in.
Lets face it…Being a homeschooling mom who also works from home can be pure chaos! As you’ve probably already noticed, despite the occasional laugh track, life isn’t a sitcom and everyday struggles are rarely resolved in 30 minutes with commercial breaks to keep your sanity in check so the right strategies and mindset are vital for becoming more productive and less overwhelmed with all the things life throws at us. Enter the Simply Freeing Podcast…Episodes for the highly passionate, busy work at home, homeschooling mama ready to break away from cultural norms and raise life long learners. So let kick stress to the curb, throw chaos out the door and order in some peace and simplicity…with a cup of coffee, or 3.
Hi Jenny! Thanks for coming on the show today to talk about this very important topic.
I really appreciate it! Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
Today I’d like to talk about the brain. I mentioned in the introduction that you are a children's book author and you teach children through your books about the brain so I wanted to have you on the show to talk about the brain and why that is such an important part of the body to teach kids and why they should be studying the brain in depth.
Well it's kind of funny because we we tend to teach kids about their heart and their lungs and their limbs and all of these organs and parts of the body that are important but they're all driven by the brain. So it seems to me like we're missing a big part of it when we don't teach about the brain because the brain is what's driving their whole body and what's controlling everything. It's a little bit like sticking a 16 year old in a car and not telling them where the the gas and the the brakes are and just letting them figure it out for themselves. They'll figure it out pretty quick but it might be nice to point a few things out already.
How would you go about teaching children about the brain? What do you think is the most important thing to teach them about?
There are 4 main topics that I think are really important to teach your kids. The first one is just the basics of your brain, like where your brain is, what it does, that you need to feed it and exercise it and rest it…like the very basics. You can teach any of this at a young age but you can even start talking about that when they're really little especially, as they're learning to do more stuff and push limits and push boundaries.
The next thing I think is really important is teaching them which parts of the brain do what. What's there? What's controlling what? What is your brain for?
The third thing I'd say is to teach them that your brain is flexible and that it can learn and that can really help them develop a growth mindset which means that they are focused on learning and improving and understanding that their brain is something that can change and they can change it.
The last thing I think is really important is that they don't have to be taught this order at all. They can be taught in whatever order altogether. The other thing I think is really important is about strengthening your brain and that you need to work your brain out. You need to use your brain to make it work better so different things that are good for your brain, like healthy food and exercise, and also challenging it and doing things that are hard for it.
Can we talk about the brain with regards to helping a child navigate their emotions? I think your most recent book is going to talk about that.
Yeah so my most recent book teaches kids about the different parts of their brain and like books cover those kind of four topics that I mentioned that I think are really important to teach your kids. So it covers the parts of your brain and one of the parts I really wanted to highlight is the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex as well because the amygdala is your emotion center and it's the part that reacts when you're angry and your prefrontal cortex is the control center so it is the part that says I'm angry. What is my appropriate reaction to this? And for young kids, their prefrontal cortex is developing. It develops well into your adult years so that's why they don't have as much emotional control as us. Your prefrontal cortex doesn't work as well when you're hungry or tired which is why we get hangry right?
I have a lot of hangry kids because they don’t want to eat my healthy food!
So showing them where those parts are and how they work together can help them visualize what's going on when they lose control because kids really don't like losing control. And it can also can give us some understanding when they do this. It’s often not their fault.
Yeah and it helps gives us a different perspective on what's actually happening. It's hard to really snap them out of it once they've started spiraling into their emotional rage but there's always a reason for it and we have to consider why they're acting that way. I would much prefer teaching my child about the brain through a series of stories like this rather than giving them a textbook where we're going through things chapter by chapter because, for some kids especially, that alone…it feels defeating. It feels like a lot you know? They see that there are over 100 pages and it gets really tedious and boring after a while. A lot of times you end up tossing the curriculum aside because you're like oh we're just not gonna get through this. That's just because we need to to spice it up a little bit change and things around. You don't have to go through a textbook from beginning to end so I really like having options like this. High quality options that you know are going to to teach them something.
Would your books be geared more towards younger children or older children?
My books are geared towards younger children. I wrote them so that kids as young as three could understand them so I do author visits for you know grades four, five and six so you can definitely use them with older kids as well but the books themselves are geared towards ages 3 to 9. But as a teaching tool there's not really an age limit. I even have university students that when I do in person events, they come by and go “Oh! This looks like a great study!” Just because it simplifies things so much that it sticks with you.
Yeah and I think there are a lot of adults will find that there are things they don’t remenber. When I read your book there were parts that I didn’t remember. I feel like with the textbook model you it's hard to remember and retain a lot of the information just because it's just presented to you in a very boring, dry way.
Absolutely! Yeah and I think a big part of homeschooling is embracing the learning along with your kids so that can be a fun way to do that as well.
Yeah! Well, thank you! So you have a Kickstarter going on right now, right?
I do. Yes. I'm running a Kickstarter for my second book. With the the first book, I published it on my own without running a Kickstarter and there are a lot of expenses that go into it that I didn't realize went into writing a good children's book and and publishing a children's book until after it was out so in order to fast track the second book, because with the pandemic going on I really felt like I needed to get these books out sooner rather than later, so in order to fast track the second book, I have a Kickstarter running and it's a way of pre-ordering the book so you get to order the book ahead of the release date and then and there's also some really awesome bonus rewards you can get. There are some Kickstarter exclusive items that will unlock as we reach different tiers so there are stretch goals (this is what they're called on Kickstarter). I've met my initial funding goal now so that's really great but I'm really hoping to meet my first stretch school, which will let me do local printing. I really value supporting local so that's something that I'm really hoping to reach. There's a preview of the book in there and you can some of the pictures and so it's really fun to check out and you can get excited and see what's coming
Thank you again! I really appreciate this. This is such a good topic. I'm so happy to have you on and sharing about it and I really hope that your Kickstarter goes well. It seems like it's going well so far?
Yeah. Thank you so much. It's been amazing. I've had just fantastic support. Lots of people believing the project and feeling like it's important to have and stepping up and helping out. And that means some of them are supporting the Kickstarter by pre-ordering the book and some of them are sharing my story and trying to spread the word that it's out there and that it's an important topic.
Thank you thank you thank you to those of you that took the time out of your day to write a review for this podcast. It helps me get this podcast in front of more moms! I’m running a giveaway for the month of march 2022. If you take the time out of your day to write a review here on apple podcasts, please email me a screenshot of it at Jackie@whole9family.com and you’ll be entered to win a Target gift card. I truly appreciate you and hope you are enjoying this podcast as much as I enjoy recording them for you.