Understanding Brainwaves In Children
Most of our adult life is driven by subconscious programs that are hard-wired in our brains during our early years. As grownups, it is certainly not easy for us to change our years of conditioning because it takes a tonne of awareness, willingness, and dedication to acknowledge and change our subconscious behaviors, limiting beliefs, and ego patterns.
But what if we could raise our children differently with the right programming from an early age. The first 12 years of a child’s life are the most crucial years in shaping and enhancing their entire life. The key to this lies in understanding our brain waves.
Every child is born with genius potential. They start learning and absorbing information from right inside the womb. From birth to about two years of age, babies are in Delta states, brain waves most commonly associated with deep healing sleep in adults. Babies exist in between worlds, which is why it is difficult for them to stay awake for long. Even in their wakeful state, they are sleeping with their eyes open.
Between ages 2–7, the brain functions primarily in the Theta, the highly intuitive brain state that typically adults are under hypnosis or deep meditation. This brain state is often said to be a doorway between conscious and subconscious worlds. Children are very receptive to any information that is fed into them in this suggestible and hypnotic state. They accept what they’re told without questioning, as their analytical minds haven’t fully developed. This age is the foundation of who they will become later in life.
Between ages 7–12, the brain waves typically increase in cycles and reach the Alpha state. Alpha is a highly creative state where children are in the flow (aka “in the zone”) states of their imagination, and their creativity is at its peak. They love to pretend play, dream and explore their creative avenues. They are able to quickly learn any new information, langague etc. at this age. This phase is also the most crucial development stage where critical thinking and conclusions begin to form.
Children transcend to Beta brain waves after 12 years of age. Beta is the normal waking state for most adults where analytical or intellectual activity happens. In this age, kids are fully aware of their outer environment and become conscious of how they are perceived, and become fully grounded in the physical reality as the doorway between conscious and subconscious fully closes.
Most Crucial Years For Your Child’s Brain Development
Ages 2–12 are the most important years for your child’s development as Theta is highly programmable and Alpha is highly creative brain state. These are the years when belief systems are formed and an understanding of who they are and how reality works is established. By observing their environments, children develop an understanding of relationships, money, etc. They pick up patterns on how to love, communicate and express emotions. Children also adopt lack or abundance mindsets from family or society during these early years. In this phase, their subconscious minds get programmed with beliefs, ethics, and morals about what is right and wrong.
Due to family and societal conditioning, most children slowly start to lose their imaginative faculties and freedom to explore after 12 years of age. Peer comparison, fear of failure, or making a mistake becomes a great struggle for our young ones as they enter in adult waking consciousness in Beta brain state. Pressure to succeed in competitive environments also often robs away their innocence and joy of being a creative genius.
Help Your Children To Thrive
Here are a few ways that can help your child to build a strong foundation and will allow them to function at the top of their cognitive potential.
Imagination & Creativity
We are now moving from the information age to the imagination age. Sadly the education systems have failed to keep up with the exponential growth in our world. Top companies are desperately looking for innovative people. Believe it or not, imagination and creativity are the most powerful competitive advantage your child can have, along with STEM skills to succeed. Cultivating interest in activities that engage imagination and creativity can be super beneficial for anyone to access highly creative and flow brain states.
Unity-Based Understanding
Empower your children with a unity-based understanding of themselves and their environment. Inspire children to think outside their limiting belief systems and approach life with love, optimism, and gratitude through reinforcing healthy and constructive competition. It’s a sacred responsibility of parents and educators to teach them how to work together and communicate with empathy. These skills will create a solid foundation for children to work in a collaborative way in dynamic environments.
Self Awareness
Our mental capabilities and emotional maturity is developed through an awareness of our thought process. In our present world of instant gratification (thanks to social media, gaming, television, internet, etc.), lack of self-awareness makes us vulnerable to any whim, temptation, or thought that crosses our minds, leading us to stress and anxiety. Having a mindfulness practice like meditation or yoga can be a huge game-changer in how they will deal with emotions and tackle challenges that life will throw at them.
Conscious Parenting
They say that parenting is a fast track to enlightenment. As parents, we also need to be conscious of our behavior patterns, beliefs, and fears that we are instilling upon children knowingly or unknowingly. They learn much of their behavior by observing us — how we handle stress, how we express emotions, how we manage anger, how we treat others. We must strive to model the life skills and behavior we want to see from our kids. Just telling children not to lie and being kind to others is not enough; allow them to see you being compassionate and empathetic to others. Children observe what you do vs. what you say.
“I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride to make it easier. Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be”
-Whitney Houston
