To be an effective advocate for their children’s talents or disabilities, parents need to understand how their children’s minds work. The human mind is very complex and is a wonder of nature. Scientists who study the brain are making new discoveries every day that help us understand how the mind influences behavior. As a parent, you see your children’s behavior and naturally draw conclusions and label it. If a child is good in science, you say she is smart or gifted. If a child forgets to do his chores, you say he is a procrastinator. You are not alone in labeling your children; other adults such as teachers, coaches, and friends label them every day.
Labeling a child can seem appropriate at the time because you are trying to put into words what you see. However, you really do not know what is actually happening in your children’s minds that contribute to the behavior. So you do your best to generalize and label them based on your limited knowledge.
To be an effective advocate for your children, it is often helpful to learn more about how their minds work within what brain scientists call the mind’s four-act play.
Imagine that you arrive late to a Broadway play and only see the final, fourth act. In order to understand the conclusion of the play, you have to guess what happened in the previous three acts. While most people attend all four acts and can explain how each one built on the next, most parents do the opposite when understanding their children’s talents or challenges. They only see and try to interpret the final act: behavior. However, the previous three acts that occur in the mind impact behavior you see. So, when you want to understand your children, you need to understand how the previous three acts resulted in the behavior. Let’s take a look at each of the four acts.
In Act One, your children use their senses to bring information into their minds from the world around them and determine what information they need to remember. Each child is different in how well they can store information into memory that comes through different senses. Some children store visual information well, while others better remember what they hear. The quantity and quality of information stored in memory influences how well they can perform the second act.
Act Two begins when a decision or action needs to occur. Children use more advanced thinking abilities in act two to process information to solve problems. They need to generate ideas, classify, plan, organize shapes and movement. They use their mind’s large mental engines to make sense of the world and determine what to do. Children have different proficiencies in using these advanced thinking abilities.
After processing information in Act Two, their minds move to Act Three to filter that information through their personalities. It’s filtered through their values, emotions and personal experiences. So, two children can come up with the same logical solution to a problem in Act Two but will behave differently in Act Four because they have different values and beliefs about the situation or subject.
Each act builds on and influences the next until behavior occurs in Act Four. To be supportive of children’s talent development or disability, parents need to know how their children’s minds work in each act. By doing so, you will move from generalizing about your children’s talents and problems to understanding how their mental processes help and hinder performance. This knowledge will be essential for you to become a strong advocate for your children’s talents or disabilities. You can also help teachers, coaches, and instructors better understand your children so they can appropriately provide the instruction and support needed.
Tags: advocate, children, disabilities, disability, parent, parents