The Jesus Brain

Jesus was a neuroscientist. When you take his teachings, and apply them to how our brains grow and organize optimally,  you get a super-charged brain.  I know some of my readers are from varying religions, but please read how the teachings of Jesus can improve your bond with your daughter, and even improve your relationship with yourself.

I’ll highlight an aspect of parenting, and show you how his teachings will grow your brain so you parent better. I’ll be teaching these ideas at www.udemy.com soon. Please stop by and take a look.

Let’s look at anxiety for this posting. Every mother worries about  her daughter. In today’s world, there is much to worry about!

But, here is what Jesus had to say: Therefore do not be anxious …
(Matthew 6.31-34 ESV)

When you calm down your anxiety, you do your brain an enormous favor. Anxiety and worry light up a region in the brain called the limbic system. It is responsible for the fight or flight response to danger, among other basic, in the moment survival needs. When your limbic system takes front and center, you don’t have adequate access to your prefrontal cortex, where rational, logical, life and love affirming decisions are made. Anxiety and worry keep you from being able to make good, sound decisions! And we all know how our  relationships suffer when we aren’t thinking clearly. We lash out, we make others wrong, and generally do a very poor job of letting others know we love and care for them.

Jesus asks us not to worry. I know it is easier said than done, but when you take a few steps towards fearless living, you live more in your prefrontal cortex. What are some of the ways you can create a less worry filled life?

Here is a recipe you can follow.

1. Practice mindfulness. Prayer and meditation work very well to pull the plug on worrying.

2. Have faith.  God doesn’t often reveal himself from the mountain top and show you the exact path you should follow, but rather he walks with you in the valley, in the thick fog, and holds your hand when you can not see your way. Trust the next step. And the next.

3. Learn who you really are. You worry less when you know three missions: to come to understand God, to let  God lead you, and to know your personal, unique talent God buried within you. It is your job to discover that talent and use it to better the world.

4. Practice True Listening Skills: when you listen to your own truth, and the truth of others and hold it sacred, your brain (and heart) grows. You can begin to practice True Listening Skills by asking yourself two simple questions: “What’s true for me?”  ”What do I really want?” Spend time each day listening for and living your way into the answers. Great things will happen.

When you stop worrying, a lush new world opens before you. Your relationships change for the better. You allow more love into your life. And you give more love to the world. That is what happens when your prefrontal cortex grows!

Yes, Jesus as a neuroscientist! More lessons to come about how to apply his teachings so your brain functions at its highest and best.

It is only when we begin to have a relationship with God, that all of our heart, body and mind, begin to grow and function as they were intended.

Jesus promised that we could all do the things he did… and MORE… but first, we must learn to grow our brains to be as his, and open our hearts to be as big as his.

I wish you the very best on your journey to create a relationship with yourself and your daughter through God’s love.

Dr. Jenn

Self-Control. Can Teens Learn It?

Teens are famous for being impulsive and difficult to live with. Blame it on their raging hormones, right?

 Not totally. Their brains play a role in the behavior we label as “typical teen.”

Teens  often use the limbic system of their brain, the area responsible for in the moment survival, rather than the prefrontal cortex, the “CEO” of the brain to make decisions. The prefrontal cortex doesn’t mature until the late twenties, so it’s not a conscious choice to use a less than stellar steering wheel for their lives.

One of the new buzz words from the neuroscience world is: executive functioning. It refers to the ability to order your thoughts, put things in your short term memory for future use, and to stay on task mentally, not something teens are able to do very well these days. (Many teachers are noticing that preschoolers are starting out their educational years with less executive functioning than previous students years past.) A recent New York Times article delved into a new solution for helping preschooler have more executive function and more self-control. Read the article here. That solution can help teens learn self-control as well.

The solution? Play! But not just any type of play, but rather dramatic, pretend play. Play has been stripped from our children’s lives at school and home and replaced with a heavy load of academics, organized sports and over scheduled lives. Play has gotten a bad rap as something silly, frivolous and without merit. Yet play is the womb for brain growth, happiness, innovation, stress regulation, and learning, among other wonderful things.

Teens aren’t keen to go back to playing dress-up-lets-pretend, (which is what helps little ones learn better) but they are, believe it or not, quite happy to use their imaginations and get their hands messy.  When given the chance to use their imagination to create, teens have a better chance to learn self-control.

The challenge for parents is to learn HOW to bring play back into their teens lives and how to play along with them at times. Even preschoolers need to be directed at how to play as it has been slowly removed from our culture so you can well imagine how challenging it is to bring play into the lives of our teens.

One place parents can learn more about the importance of play and how to add it to their daughters lives is at www.honorthegirl.me.  Part of the monthly subscription covers the topic of play.

As more scientists publish the positive benefits of play, and experts bemoan the loss of play in our lives, parents have the chance to learn more.

I’ll keep you posted about the latest reseach on play and how you can ues it to be a better parent, and how it can benefit your teen daughter.

All best,

Dr. Jenn

Raising Eve: How to Mother Teen Girls.

Biblical Eve didn’t have a mother. But her father was pretty adamant about his parenting. He told her to avoid the tree of knowledge or else…  We all know how that story ended. Today we raise our daughters in a world brimming with knowledge. Some of that knowledge is harmful to them, but it’s virtually impossible to keep them from taking a big bite. They aren’t banned from Eden when they do, but they are pushed out of childhood pretty fast! What can you do to help raise your teen daughter in today’s world?

Three things are vital.

1. Answer YES! Everyday your daughter asks the Big Brain Question, ”Are you there for me?”  She needs to know you love her, support her and respect her. All of our brains are wired to ask others, “Are you there for me?” It’s vital that you show up for your daughter and let her know in every way possible that you ARE there for her. Even when she’s a snarky little snip, you are there for her.

2. Listen. Most people do a terrible job listening. We hear the words but we don’t dig deep enough to discover what the speaker’s need is in sharing their words. Underneath most communication is a need of some kind. When your daughter stops texting her 562 friends on Facebook and actually speaks to you, what does she want you to know, to understand about her or her feelings? Listen for the need. It’s there. Then, take care of it. That’s answering her Big Brain Question with a yes!

3. Become Curious. Put aside your ego and stop trying to turn your daughter into who you want her to be and allow her to unfold as her own person. Become curious about who she really is as a person.When I ask moms to tell me about their daughters they usually list her accomplishments: good grades, captain of the water polo team, etc. Rarely do they tell me who their daughters are as people. Discover who your daughter is. If you answer her Big Brain Question with a yes, and you listen to her needs, she will learn to trust you enough to tell you who she really is.

Start with those three things. When you find your relationship with your daughter growing stronger and more loving, you will be able to help her find her way through our information overload world. Conversations about the big things that can harm her will be more natural and she’ll listen to you more. All of us respond better to people we feel love and respect us. At the end of the day, that’s the most important thing you can do: love and respect your daughter. But the trick is to do it in a way so she feels it.

Raising our girls in today’s Google, YouTube, Internet Porn, MySpace world isn’t easy. But, here we are. We moms have to give it our best. Our daughters deserve it.

New Site JUST for MOMS!

I hear all you moms asking for your OWN site, so you feel more open about writing in with your questions, concerns, and stories about parenting a teen daughter. My Web guru is thrilled

Read more

The New Skills for Parenting Teen Girls

Unless you have been (unfortunately) in a coma the last decade, you are aware that there have been huge changes in technology and cultural standards. These changes affect teen girls in ways that many parents do not understand.  The changes make parenting with the “old skills” obsolete.

Parents need to know the new skills for raising healthy, happy, and successful teen girls. They also need to hone the old skills:  listening, and expressing true love and concern.  Our daughters need them more than ever.

1. UNDERSTAND THE TEENAGE BRAIN.

Neuroscience research has revealed the differences between teenage brains and adults brains.

Knowing even a little bit about your daughter’s brain, i.e., what you can do to help her brain grow (and heal)  can have a tremendous difference in how her life turns out.*

2. BE INVOLVED

Your daughter needs your attention and time just as much, or maybe even more, than when she was a little girl. You need to know who she is becoming, what she is doing, who her friends are. Etc. Don’t hover but don’t ignore her either.

3. LEARN THE FOUR L’s

Effective parenting starts with knowing the four L’s. Look, listen, learn and Love.   First, you have to take a look at your daughters behavior. Next, listen to what she really wants you to know underneath her actions and words. You then have to learn what she needs or wants.  Show her you love her by helping take care of her needs and wants.

4. ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE.

John Lennon was onto a profound truth when he wrote the song, All You Need Is Love.  Let your daughter know you love her.  Don’t hold back on hugs, except maybe in front of her friends. Research shows that expressing love can help your daughter grow up into a happier, healthier woman.

5. TEACH BY EXAMPLE

Be a role model . Teens have a hair trigger hypocrite/BS meter. Walk your talk.

6. DO YOUR OWN HEALING WORK

Every parent carries around old wounds. Those wound cloud the way they interact with others, including their children. One of the best gifts you can give your children is to deal with your emotional baggage so it stops spilling out everywhere. There are no perfect parents and we all carry some degree of wounds with us, no matter how much we work on them. But the point is: work on them!

7. SET  FAIR LIMITS AND RULES

Don’t  arbitrarily set rules. Ask your daughter for her input. Most importantly, understand what drives you to make a rule in the first place. If you want an early curfew for your daughter, talk about what your fears are about her staying up late rather than simply focusing on the time factor. Be truthful about what you feel in the process of setting rules and limits. Ask your daughter for her truth.

8. ENCOURAGE AUTONOMY

The teen years are the time for children to begin finding out who they really are. They will try on lots of things! That’s normal. And in today’s world, with Virtual Social Networks such as MySpace and Facebook, teens have an audience to “perform” to in order to get feedback about who they are becoming. Encourage your child to explore who they are and want to be. Don’t force your expectations of who you think your daughter should be. Its’ her life! Step back. Let her explore. If your life isn’t satisfying, it can be easy to turn to your daughter for emotional needs that she can’t fill. Lear to let go, let her have her life, and you shore up your own.

9. KEEP UP!

Today’s world is changing faster than ever. As a mom, you need to know some of the new things. For example, if your daughter came to you in tears because her friend keeps untagging the pictures she posted, would you know what she meant, why she is upset and what to tell her? Teens are forming relationships in ways our generation never dreamed of, and the social interactions are amazingly different. Learn the new technology. Check out the Virtual Social Networks. Keep an ear out for the newest on Youtube,  etc. Learn how to text. Stay as up to date as you possibly can.

10. TRUST

Your daughter is going to make mistakes. Help her learn from them instead of shaming, blaming or punishing. Don’t break into her Facebook, emails, text messages or private journals. Buff up your listening skills. Become someone she trusts enough to tell you who she really is.

11. CREATE A FAMILY MISSION/VISION STATEMENT

What does your family value? What does your family stand for? Write a mission/vision statement and refer to it often. Ask your daughter for input. See what she values and wants your family to be about!

12. PLAY!

“Play is the new Global Warming” announced a recently published article. Play has been taken out of our culture, and that’s not a good thing. Find ways to be silly, spontaneous and playful with your daughter. Make sure she has fun things to play with such as a myriad of art supplies. Find ways to bring back play into your lives and homes.

13. LEARN TO LISTEN TO HARD TRUTHS

Your daughter may do things you disapprove of. Some parents take the ostrich approach and put their heads in the sands. That isn’t helpful. Learning to be someone your daughter can turn to, trust and know that you will always be there for her, will help her as she grows up. This means you must control your anger, disappointment, judgment etc. Learning to ask Strategic Questions, can help you become someone who can hear hard truths.

Today more than ever, your daughter needs to know you are there for her. She is growing up in a world vastly different than the one you grew up in. Learn to listen. Learn to open your heart to your daughter. Let her unfold and find her way, as you gently help her when she makes a miss step. Time doesn’t go backwards. Like it or not, the new world order of things is here and parents need to understand it, and deal with it in ways that does not alienate their daughters.

If you want more information on how to accomplish any of these parenting rules, email me at jennifer@drjennforgirls.com