Category: neuroscience

There has been quite a lot of buzz around the idea of joining neuroscience and education. Many would claim that neuroscientific contributions have the potential to revolutionise how teachers teach and the impact they have on their learners’ outcomes. I myself have said that on many occasions. However, I currently believe that many of the things effective teachers do are already grounded in evidence (whether they know it or not) and other things might not be in their hands. There is, of course, room for adding a few classroom practices that might yield better results. Let’s take a look at how neuroscience made its way into education, how the science of Mind, Brain, and Education emerged, and what that means for ELT.

Neuroscience applied to education

It was only quite recently, however, that neuroscience became popular in educational debates and started to be referred to as a source of valuable knowledge that could have important implications for learning and, consequently, classroom practice (OECD, 2002; Ansari & Coch, 2006; Howard-Jones, 2010; Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2014). With the quick advancements in neuroimaging studies and the increased number of publications in the field of cognitive neuroscience in the 1990s, many “brain-based” educational forums, workshops, and programmes started to emerge (Ansari & Coch, 2006, Howard-Jones, 2010, Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2014).

On one hand, concerns of how dangerous it could be to try to connect neuroscience knowledge and education were being voiced, particularly after the publication of Education and the brain: a bridge too far (Bruer, 1997). Bruer illustrates the concerns by pointing out that neuroscience and education had so little in common that joining them would be an infeasible task. On the other hand, the pursuit of narrowing this bridge continued and an important landmark happened in 1999, when the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) inaugurated the Learning Sciences and Brain Research project with two main objectives: to understand “a) how the brain processes information, and b) learning processes over the individual’s lifecycle” (OECD, 2007).

In 2000, the United Kingdom launched the Teaching and Learning Research Project (TLRP), one of the biggest and most expensive initiatives with the objective of promoting educational research on how to improve students’ outcomes and what impacts teaching. The endeavour involved hundreds of researchers over the course of a decade who collaborated in 90 projects, including how neuroscience could be applied in education (Blakemore & Frith, 2005; James & Pollard, 2011). TLRP’s outcomes have been widely disseminated in educational settings. They include several publications based on evidence from the projects, including two book series on how to improve learning and teaching, as well as a summarised list of ten principles as shown in the table below (James & Pollard, 2011; TLRP, 2015).

Ten principles of effective teaching and learning proposed by the Teaching and Learning Research Project (TLRP)

1. Effective pedagogy equips learners for life in its broadest sense.

2. Effective pedagogy engages with valued forms of knowledge

3. Effective pedagogy recognises the importance of prior experience and learning

4. Effective pedagogy requires learning to be scaffolded

5. Effective pedagogy needs assessment to be congruent with learning

6. Effective pedagogy promotes the active engagement of the learner

7. Effective pedagogy fosters both individual and social processes and outcomes

8. Effective pedagogy recognises the significance of informal learning

9. Effective pedagogy depends on the learning of all those who support the learning of others

10. Effective pedagogy demands consistent policy frameworks with support for learning as their primary focus

The OECD Report and Neuromyths

It is important to mention that in 2002, a report entitled Understanding The Brain: Towards a New Learning Science was published by OECD. This report brought together the discussions that had taken place in three different international forums about child, adolescent, and adult learning, some essential knowledge on neuroanatomy and brain function, including neuromyths, as well as how it all related to education and educational contexts (OECD, 2002).

It’s important to stress here that a neuromyth is a false claim or a wrong and widely held belief about how the brain works. The term was coined in OECD’s Understanding the Brain report (OECD, 2002). Some examples discussed in the report are the idea of a left-brain versus right-brain dominance, the notion that humans only use 10% of their brains, the concept that learning two languages at a time is harmful for kids (OECD, 2002)

The main contributions of this report, besides the call for dispelling neuromyths, were: a) the idea of neuroplasticity, that is, the brain’s capacity to learn and change as a consequence of learning; b) the crucial role of emotions and the environment in learning; c) a better understanding of underlying language acquisition and processing mechanisms; and d) a better understanding of underlying numeracy processes.

The end of this relevant report brought pertinent ethical considerations, such as the caution to avoid using neuroscience as a determinant of good teachers based on their impact on students’ brain, and the concern with the utilisation of brain imaging technology for commercial purposes (identifying students with certain brain patterns and labelling them, for instance) as well as the use of products that affect the brain (drugs) and how brain and technology can or should be integrated.

The report’s main conclusions and recommended future agenda included the recognition of neuroscience and its potential to inform practice and policy; the evidence for the importance of lifelong learning; the need for neuroscience-informed curricula and a better understanding of adolescents’ brains, dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dementia; the need for a more holistic and personalised teaching approach (regarding emotional regulation and differentiation as importantly as memorisation);  and the birth of a learning science based on transdisciplinarity. OECD’s project Learning Sciences and Brain Research moved to its second phase focusing on literacy, numeracy, and lifelong learning (OECD, 2007).

The beginning of Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE)

It is worth mentioning that the idea of joining the perspectives from neuroscience, psychology, and education (transdisciplinary approach), can have different labels, such as Educational Neuroscience, Neuroeducation,  Educational Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Brain-based Education, Neuroconstructivism, and Science of Learning (SoL) (Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2014, Weinstein et al. 2018). A possible implication of this great variability is that these areas do not communicate well as they have slightly different focuses and standardisation of their findings may be difficult.

Other important developments in the pursuit of joining neuroscience and education were the creation of Harvard Graduate School of Education’s  Mind, Brain, and Education masters course in 2002, the MBE course at the University of Arlington Texas in 2005, the inauguration of the Cambridge Centre for Neuroscience and Education in 2005, and the launch of the Journal Mind, Brain, and Education by the International Mind, Brain, and Education Society (IMBES) in 2007, whose main objectives are to facilitate cross-cultural and transdisciplinary collaboration between cognitive sciences and education in addition to creating useful and applicable resources for teachers by identifying sound scientific information and promoting effective educational practices (IMBES, 2018).

From 2002 onwards, MBE became increasingly more propagated. MBE books, articles and more programmes surfaced, as illustrated by two best-selling books Applying Mind, Brain, and Education Science in the Classroom (Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2010) and Mind, Brain, and Education Science: a Comprehensive Guide to the new Brain-based Teaching (Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2011). The role of MBE started being discussed in journals (Ansari & Coch 2006;  Fischer 2009; Ferrari & McBride 2011). Moreover, universities such as Johns Hopkins, University of Bristol, Dartmouth, UPenn started offering master’s courses and/or units in this new subject (Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2014; Ferrari & McBride, 2011). 

MBE’s goal is to bring together contributions from education and cognitives sciences (psychology and neuroscience) to inform teachers, school managers, and policymakers according to the latest evidence on how people learn and how that relates to classroom practice. This goal involves debunking neuromyths as they may have negatives consequences for students’ learning outcomes (Fischer, 2009; Dekker et al., 2012; Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2014). MBE does not make the assumption that any area is better in its own right than all of them together.

The big goals of MBE revolve around research, practice, and policy. Research aims at providing information on mind and brain mechanisms, as well as biological aspects of the body and human behaviour, including those that come from social context (as socioeconomic factors and culture) in order to provide sound information on how humans learn in a holistic way. Practice aims at connecting the information provided by research and apply the new knowledge in real learning situations, particularly the classroom. Its objective is to inform and be informed by teaching practices. Policy is concerned with how neuroscientifically substantiated beliefs can translate into frameworks, governmental programmes, and private initiatives to influence the macrolevel of education (Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2014).

What does that have to do with ELT?

MBE has important knowledge and reflections for educators teaching any subject area or language. The rationale is to simplify, without oversimplifying, the evidence that can be useful in teaching practice and help students learn more effectively. The main principles of MBE are  (Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2010):

1) Each brain is unique and uniquely organized. Human brains are as unique as faces; 

2) All brains are not equal because context and ability influence learning; 

3) The brain is changed by experience; 

4) The brain is highly plastic; 

5) The brain connects new information to old

Eric Kandel, neuroscientist who won a Nobel Prize, lends another principle:

Learning requires attention and memory

Eric Kandel

These 6 priciples, although quite general, tell us that things like personalisation and differentiation, prior knowledge, and active learning, as well as emotions, beliefs and attitudes about learning are key. Nothing particularly revolutionary so far. 

MBE uses an inquiry-based approach that goes something like this: it looks at a particular classroom practice and asks: is there a theory in psychology that might explain why this is positive for learning? If there is, then the question becomes: is there neuroscientific evidence to support this? If the answer is yes, then we might want to keep doing it. If the answer from both psychology, neuroscience (and educational practice) is no, we might want to revisit the concept and try a different approach. 

MBE’s greatest objective is to fight neuromyths. Here’s an illustration: the learning styles theory. According to Paul Howard-Jones (2014, p. 1, 2):

The implicit assumption seems to be that, because different regions of the cortex have crucial roles in visual, auditory and sensory processing, learners should receive information in visual, auditory or kinaesthetic forms according to which part of their brain works better. The brain’s interconnectivity makes such an assumption unsound, and reviews of educational literature and controlled laboratory studies fail to support this approach to teaching.

Paul Howard-Jones

That means that, as ELT teachers, we should rethink the idea of labelling students according to their learning preferences since we have robust evidence that a multifaceted approach to teaching, in which we offer multiple representations of new knowledge, is beneficial to every learner. 

MBE also gives us quite a lot of insights about how languages are learned (and acquired). We have been witnessing the rise of bilingual schools and the shift from EFL to ELF (English as a Lingua Franca). All these changes have important consequences for how language centers operate around the world. 

Based on the body of work from MBE, I can honestly say that I do not consider it as revolutionary as I used to think. People sometimes fall for buzzwords and “revolutionary” claims (especially when they have the terms brain-based, brain-friendly or neuro attached to them). A word of advice: be careful. Using neurojargon and promising “you’ll be able to learn anything with five easy-to-follow steps” is probably a hoax. It generally disregards years of research conducted by several peers from around the world by claiming that someone made an incredible discovery and found a secret formula to maximize learning like never before!

I do think, though, that MBE is worth learning about because it’s sober. It doesn’t have to be revolutionary to actually change many paradigms and positively impact learners. After all, teachers and policymakers have been doing the same old stuff based on tradition and are still prioritising types of assessment that do not seem to capture the wholeness of learning and often label students as not good enough. As I mentioned before, I myself have called it revolutionary a couple of times (and it might still slip now and again), but I believe MBE to be quite responsible and cautious. Remember, it doesn’t take much in this post-truth era for the media to start propagating fake news and that means we must be as evidence-based as possible to make sure people have the latest research available in terms they can understand to make important decisions about their lives and those of others.

As any good teacher, I’ll leave you with some research to do. We would certainly benefit from learning how to explore strategies such as brain breaks and interleaving, retrieval practice and spaced repetition, pretesting and prior knowledge activation, self-regulation and mindfulness, metacognition and mindsets. The list also goes on. I’ll let you figure out what else to study and a good place to start would be one of the resources below:

MBE Resources

BRAZ-TESOL MBE SIG – sign up for our event in Portuguese about memory here.

https://www.facebook.com/btmbesig

https://www.instagram.com/braztesolmbesig/

INTERNATIONAL MIND, BRAIN, AND EDUCATION SOCIETY

https://imbes.org/

SCIENCE OF LEARNING EBC

http://www.scienceoflearning-ebc.org/

CONEXIONES PLATAFORMA DE CIENCIAS DEL APRENDIZAJE

https://thelearningsciences.com/?lang=en

MIND BRAIN ED THINK TANKS +

https://www.mindbrained.org/

LEARNING SCIENTISTS

https://www.learningscientists.org/

References

Ansari, D., & Coch, D. (2006). Bridges over troubled waters: Education and cognitive neuroscience. Trends in cognitive sciences, 10(4), 146-151.

Blakemore, S. J., & Frith, U. (2005). The learning brain: Lessons for education. Blackwell publishing.

Bruer, J. T. (1997). Education and the brain: A bridge too far. Educational researcher, 26(8), 4-16.

Dekker, S., Lee, N., Howard-Jones, P., & Jolles, J. (2012). Neuromyths in education: Prevalence and predictors of misconceptions among teachers. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 429-429

Ferrari, M., & McBride, H. (2011). Mind, Brain, and Education: The birth of a new science. Learning landscapes, 5(1), 85-100.

Fischer, K. W. (2009). Mind, brain, and education: building a scientific groundwork for learning and teaching1. Mind, Brain, and Education, 3(1), 3-16.

Howard-Jones, P. A. (2010). Introducing neuroeducational research: Neuroscience, education and the brain from contexts to practice. Taylor & Francis.

Howard-Jones, P. A. (2014). Neuroscience and education: myths and messages. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 15(12), 817-824.

IMBES (2018). Home. Retrieved from https://imbes.org/

James, M., & Pollard, A. (2011). TLRP’s ten principles for effective pedagogy: rationale, development, evidence, argument and impact. Research Papers in Education, 26(3), 275-328.

OECD. (2002). Understanding the brain: Towards a new learning science. Paris: OECD Publishing

OECD. (2007). Understanding the brain: The birth of a learning science. Paris: OECD Publishing

OECD (2017). PISA 2015 Results (Volume III). Students’ Well-Being. Paris: OECD Publishing.

TLRP, 2015. Publications. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20150918022927/http://www.tlrp.org/index.html

Tokuhama-Espinosa, T. (2010). Mind, brain, and education science: A comprehensive guide to the new brain-based teaching. WW Norton & Company.

Tokuhama-Espinosa, T. (2014). Making classrooms better: 50 practical applications of mind, brain, and education science. First Edition. New York: W.W Norton & Company.

Paper photo created by freepik – www.freepik.com

Article originally written for InnovateELT also published on the University of Bristol blog

Ever heard anyone say that? The last time I did was from one of the most powerful voices in movie history: Morgan Freeman’s. If he had been born in the UK, I’m sure he would’ve been knighted by now and joined the select group that includes Sir Anthony Hopkins, Sir Ian McKellen, Dame Judi Dench, and Dame Helen Mirren. Mr. Freeman played the role of Professor Samuel Norman, brain expert who has studied, among other things, the evolution of this incredible organ in Lucy, a movie co-starring Scarlet Johansson.

In one of the scenes, Professor Norman is lecturing to a group of interested students and says:

“Imagine for a moment what our life would be like if we could access, let’s say, 20% of our brain capacity?”

He goes on and claims that each human being has 100 billion neurons, from which only 15% are activated and that means that “we possess a gigantic network of information to which we have almost no access”. In his words, if we could access all the potential of our brains, we’d be able to control other people and even matter.

Well, Morgan Freeman, even though I love your voice and your acting, your character couldn’t be further from the truth. In this Luc Besson movie, released in 2014, most of what Professor Samuel Norman says is a false claim about the brain. It’s a neuromyth.

Funnily enough, I met the real Professor Samuel Norman. His name is Paul Howard-Jones and he is one of the biggest brain references in the world and a professor at the School of Education at the University of Bristol. I’m quite privileged to have been one of his students. In his amazing book, Evolution of the Learning Brain: Or How You Got To Be So Smart, Howard-Jones (2018) goes back in time to the early forms of life and takes us on a journey throughout the aeons of our home planet until the most sophisticated form of intelligence known to date: our brains and us. He has published many articles and books on the potential of using brain research, and neuroscience-informed strategies to positively impact educational achievement and learning outcomes.

Well, Prof. Samuel Norman, let’s stick to the facts.

No, we do not use just 10 or 15% of our brain capacities. In fact, we use most of our brain most of the time, even when we are sleeping. A simple task such as drinking coffee will require many areas of your brain to activate synchronously. The frontal lobe when you decide to look at the cup of coffee and pick it up, the occipital lobe because you’re visually processing the stimulus, your temporal lobe as you imagine the word “coffee”, subcortical areas, an integral part of your reward system, because the thought of fresh coffee and that expectation make you feel good, your parietal lobe’s somatosensory cortex as you grab the cup and feel the heat on your fingertips, as well as areas related to taste and smell, memory retrieval, etc.  Grab any modern neuroanatomy book and you’ll see how dynamic and interconnected our brain is. You can learn more about brain structure and function on https://www.brainfacts.org/

No, Samuel Norman, we don’t have 100 billion neurons in our brains. Actually, according to the amazing Brazilian neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel, we have around 86 billion. You can watch her brilliant TED Talk about how she discovered that (it involved detergent and brain soup). Suzana Herculano-Houzel (2002) was also responsible for a questionnaire that has been replicated all over the world on how much the general public, and most recently, teachers, know about the brain.

The results in Brazil suggested that most people don’t really know much about how the brain works. So did the results in the UK, as demonstrated in Howard-Jones’ article (Dekker et al. 2012), in Portugal (Rato et al. 2013), in Greece (Papadatou-Pastou et al., 2017) in Latin America (Gleichgerrcht et al., 2015), in China (Pei et al., 2015), in Spain (Ferrero et al., 2016), and virtually everywhere.

But there is hope! In Lucy, Scarlet Johansson unlocks her brain potential because of a synthetic drug and basically gains superpowers that would make her fellow Avengers in a different franchise incredibly jealous. Let’s just say that if Natasha Romanoff were Lucy in the latest Avengers movies, Thanos wouldn’t have gone so far at all. The hope I’m referring to, however, is the hope that lies in unlocking our potential as teachers so that we can unlock our students’ learning potential. There are things based on the MBE science that can guide us in understanding how attention, memory, motivation, self-efficacy, and many other relevant pre-requisites or aspects of learning work. We just need to learn about them and start applying that knowledge.

While we are at it, I should probably tell Prof. Samuel Norman that there are other popular neuromyths being spread in educational settings all over the world that could potentially lead teachers to misinformed decisions when they are planning and delivering their lessons. To name a few, I will just point out that the learning styles theory and the left/right-brained paradigm need to be revisited by many teachers out there as the scientific evidence suggests that students do not learn better when taught in their preferred learning style (Dekker et al. 2012)

I actually wrote a 4-blog post series on some neuromyths that might be useful. You can read about the potential classroom implications here. Click here to read about learning styles and fixed intelligence. Here you can access the one about drilling, multitasking, and emotions. And you can find the last one about language acquisition and the right and left-brain dominance here.

On the very first blog post of the series, I remind everyone that:

“It is essential to remember that what I’m proposing is not a recipe for successful teaching, though. There are so many variables to consider that we can’t say “Do this and everyone will learn”. The authors who have written about this say that we need to be careful with such bold claims. Rather, if we look at it as just a framework that may help us think about how we teach and how our students learn, I think the potential is huge.”

The journey is long for those who are interested in following the path. A good place to start this journey into the depths of our brain, besides Paul’s book, is the website Science of Learning You can find more information on the Engage-Build-Consolidate (EBC) framework (developed by Paul and many collaborators) with principles that will help you reflect on teaching/learning strategies that might have a positive impact on learning outcomes as they are based on how the brain works.

You can also watch Paul’s webinar for our BRAZ-TESOL Mind, Brain, and Education Special Interest Group, organized by Mirela Ramacciotti, Rodolfo Mattiello, and me.

Here are some questions for you to reflect on. What impact do characters like Prof. Samuel Norman (both in fiction and real life) have on people’s understanding about the brain? What could happen if more educators around the world actually understood some fundamental principles of brain structure and function and used that knowledge to tailor their teaching practice? And finally, what could the potential of knowing about their own brains be for students who might be struggling in the classroom?

I don’t believe in magical solutions as those in sci-fi movies. I do believe in real and effective solutions based on scientific evidence and I think you should too.

References

Dekker, S., Lee, N., Howard-Jones, P., & Jolles, J. (2012). Neuromyths in education: Prevalence and predictors of misconceptions among teachers. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 429-429. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00429

Ferrero, M., Garaizar, P., & Vadillo, M. A. (2016). Neuromyths in Education: Prevalence among Spanish Teachers and an Exploration of Cross-Cultural Variation. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 10, 496. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2016.00496

Gleichgerrcht, E., Lira Luttges, B., Salvarezza, F., & Campos, A. (2015). Educational neuromyths among teachers in Latin America. Mind, Brain, and Education, 9(3), 170-178.

Herculano-Houzel, S. (2002). Do you know your brain/ A survey on public neuroscience literacy at the closing of the decade of the brain. The Neuroscientist, 8(2):98-110

Howard-Jones, P. (2018). Evolution of the Learning Brain: Or how you got to be so smart. Taylor & Francis Group

Papadatou-Pastou, M., Haliou, E., & Vlachos, F. (2017). Brain Knowledge and the Prevalence of Neuromyths among Prospective Teachers in Greece. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 804. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00804

Pei X., Howard-Jones P. A., Zhang S., Liu X., Jin Y. (2015). Teachers’ Understanding about the Brain in East China. Proc. Soc. Behav. Sci. 174, 3681–3688. 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.01.1091

Rato, J., Abreu, A., & Castro-Caldas, A. (2013). Neuromyths in education: What is fact and what is fiction for Portuguese teachers? Educational Research, 55(4), 441-453.

Tokuhama-Espinosa, T. (2014). Making classrooms better: 50 practical applications of mind, brain, and education science. First Edition. New York: W.W Norton & Company.

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. It might come as a shock to you, but despite a relatively significant improvement in terms of quality of life worldwide, suicide rates have been increasing in many countries. The Atlantic reports that there’s a Millenial mental-health crisis and that experts are concerned it will get worse because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a matter of fact, QJM: An International Journal of Medicine states that:

Social isolation, anxiety, fear of contagion, uncertainty, chronic stress and economic difficulties may lead to the development or exacerbation of depressive, anxiety, substance use and other psychiatric disorders in vulnerable populations including individuals with pre-existing psychiatric disorders and people who reside in high COVID-19 prevalence areas. Stress-related psychiatric conditions including mood and substance use disorders are associated with suicidal behavior. COVID-19 survivors may also be at elevated suicide risk

(Sher, 2020)

Why is this happening now more than ever? The objective of this piece is not to go over the causes of anxiety, depression, and other related conditions. We will focus on what we can do as educators and parents to help children cope with these especially difficult times. In short, what we want kids to be able to develop can be summarized in two terms that have been widely referred to in the specialized literature: emotional intelligence and self-regulation.

Exactly 25 years ago, the author who would become a world best seller, Daniel Goleman, published the book entitled Emotional Intelligence. This work has sold millions of copies and has been translated into dozens of languages ​​precisely because it addresses such a relevant subject that is related to practically all areas of human life: the ability to recognize and manage one’s emotions as well as those of others. However, in times of remote teaching and social isolation, how can we help children become more emotionally intelligent?

We are all going through a very unusual moment. The sudden transition of many to remote work, the demand to create new work and study routines, in addition to the physical distance from our loved ones as well as the constant presence of children at home are more than good reasons to cause some unbalance in our emotional state (read my text about it here). However, it is safe to assume that children and adolescents can experience all of this more intensely. How many times have you heard (or even said yourself) that young people are impulsive, negligent, reckless and emotional? Is this just adult talk or is there actually a reason behind that?

Well, reasons do exist. The apparent emotional lack of control and impulsiveness of children have a lot to do with a region of the brain called the prefrontal cortex, which begins its development around pre-adolescence and only completes the process around the end of our third decade of life (Arain et al. 2013). The good news is that we are teenagers until our late 30s, but the bad news is that during this period of brain maturation we are not very good at managing our emotions. In other words, the younger, the less emotional intelligence we have.

The reason for underdeveloped emotional intelligence in childhood is quite simple. It is related to the lack of development of one of the central executive functions of our brain: inhibitory control, responsible for preventing impulsive behaviors (Arain et al. 2013). I remember watching a Brazilian TV show, which featured one of the most well-known Brazilian neuroscientists, Suzana Herculano-Houzel, explaining how we should act when we want a child to stop doing something potentially dangerous. Picture the following scene: a child standing on a wall about to jump. Suzana said that if we shout, “Don’t jump!”, It is very likely that the child will jump, almost as if their brain could not process the DON’T.

Can you relate with the scene described above? How many times have we tried to prevent or control dangerous or inappropriate behavior of a student or our own children which yielded the exact opposite results? What should we do then? Before I give you any tip, it’s important to understand the concept self-regulation as well:

Self-regulation has been conceptualized as an overarching construct that includes control over a variety of processes, including emotional experiences and expressions (i.e., emotion regulation), approach/withdrawal behavior (i.e., effortful/behavioral control), and cognitive or mental processes (i.e., executive function).

(Jahromi, 2017)

After several decades of research, scholars have come to the agreement that self-regulation is a “cornerstone of children’s development”

(Phillips & Shonkoff, 2000)

A self-regulated person can cope with different social situations with the appropriate emotional-behavioral balance/response. Self-regulation starts developing in childhood and it goes on until we become adults. The problem is that if we neglect it, when a child becomes an adult, it might be too late to change their behaviors and attitudes. Even worse, throughout childhood and adolescence, individuals who are not self-regulated will be more susceptible to developing anxiety and depression.

How can we help children and teenagers become more self-regulated and be more emotionally intelligent? Here are some important thoughts and tips:

1. Working on emotional intelligence and self-regulation is like working on any other skill: It requires awareness and practice. Help the child reflect on their emotions and understand why they happen. You can read my text on the neuropsychology of misbehavior here

2. Do not promote what psychotherapist Leo Fraiman (2019) calls Emperor’s Syndrome in his book. A child with this syndrome throws tantrums for anything. They are highly spoiled and can’t deal with any frustration in life. They are incredibly difficult to deal with. We must remember that life is made up of successes and frustrations and that we all need to learn to deal with both. If you satisfy the child’s every whim and / or distract them from negative emotions with gifts, games, travel, etc., you are damaging the child’s ability to lead a functional adult life in society.

3. Be firm but fair. Children develop emotional self-regulation supported by co-regulation, that is, setting up rules together (with parents, primary caregivers). Don’t forget that little ones follow your steps, so if you don’t have emotional control in front of your children, it can negatively impact their lives. Keep your promises. Don’t give in all the time to their desires. It sends a negative message and they can pick up on that quite quickly.

4. Emotional responses can be separated from behavioral responses. Just because you feel frustrated, bored, or disengaged that doesn’t mean you can act in a disrespectful way. The same goes for kids. We need to teach them that there are obligations in life and they need to stay on task or at least be respectful to their peers and teachers.

5. Help children name their feelings and understand that it’s ok to feel negative feelings sometimes. It’s part of being human. These feelings come and go and we need to allow that to happen.

6. Use affirmative commands. Going back to the example of neuroscientist Suzana, we can take from that episode a simple solution : instead of using “Don’t jump!”, Use “Stop!” or “Come back”.

7. Lead a healthy life. Physical exercise is associated with high levels of dopamine, the neurotransmitter of motivation. You can also make kids stay more connected with nature. Help them start and/or keep a vegetable garden. Gardening is about love, patience, and care. It’s great for emotional intelligence

8. Mindfulness and play need to be part of kids’ daily lives. You can set up some moments to help them calm down and meditate – there are apps and music for that – and you can also make sure they get enough movement throughout the day. Time off their digital devices is vital as well. Make sure you keep them away from screens as much as you can.

9. Routines are essential. Make sure you have a plan and try to stick to it as much as possible. Children may feel overwhelmed and apprehensive when they don’t know what’s coming.

10. Human contact has to be kept somehow. How about setting up a virtual play date for the kids to interact with their friends? They can talk about their day, play games, show their vegetable garden or simply laugh at each other’s jokes.

Finally, I would just like to quote, as a good geek that I am, a film that brings a pertinent analogy. Have you seen Captain Marvel? If you haven’t seen it yet, watch out for spoilers.

Aviator Carol Danvers has an interesting journey. The film shows the many times she fell and got up in life and how she always liked speed. Her struggle was to try to fit into a male stereotype, considered more rational, cooler and less emotional, to occupy certain spaces, such as flying war jets. When she gains her powers and moves to the Kree planet, her military instructor constantly tells her that she needs to suppress her emotions in order to reach her full combat potential. However, it is only when she lets herself feel her emotions, in a controlled way, of course, that she attains phenomenal power (you can read my blog post about it here).

I think we have a lot to learn from Captain Marvel. After all, neuropsychologist José Ramón Gamo and the authors of “We feel, therefore we learn”, António Damásio and Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, already said that the brain needs the body-mind-emotion connection to learn. Emotions, positive and negative, are welcome, we just need to learn how to have emotional intelligence to recognize and manage our emotions, identify what others are feeling and have more empathy with those who live around us. This way we will be able to guide children in developing their own emotional intelligence.

I recommend that we all stop to reflect on the type of people we are raising for the world. We must start cultivating the emotional intelligence of children and help develop healthy and functional adults, who are self-regulated and think not only about themselves, but also about others. People who are able to manage their emotions to reach their goals. This way we can save many kids’ from developing chronic stress, anxiety, depression and other conditions that contribute to the sad suicide rates we see nowadays. We can actually save kids by teaching them to self-regulate and to become more emotionally intelligent.

What are your tips? I’d love to read them.

References

Arain, M., Haque, M., Johal, L., Mathur, P., Nel, W., Rais, A., Sandhu, R., & Sharma, S. (2013). Maturation of the adolescent brain. Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment, 9, 449–461. https://doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S39776

FRAIMAN, Leo. A síndrome do imperador: Pai empoderados educam melhor. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica Editora, 2019

Goleman, D. (1996). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Immordino‐Yang, M. H., & Damasio, A. (2007). We feel, therefore we learn: The relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education. Mind, brain, and education, 1(1), 3-10.

Jahromi, B. Chapter Two – Self-Regulation in Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Emotion Regulation, Executive Function, and Effortful Control,
Editor(s): Robert M. Hodapp, Deborah J. Fidler, International Review of Research in Developmental Disabilities, Academic Press, Volume 53, 2017, Pages 45-89,

Sher, L. (2020) The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on suicide rates, QJM: An International Journal of Medicine, , hcaa202, https://doi.org/10.1093/qjmed/hcaa202

Shonkoff, J. P., & Phillips, D. A. (Eds.). (2000). From neurons to neighborhoods: The science of early childhood development. National Academy Press