NeuroDevelopmental Movement® addresses the behaviors and gaps in functioning that challenge children in our schools, adults with head injuries, and anyone struggling with neurological challenges.
As a culture, we have traditionally offered two options for our children with ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, learning disabilities, tics, and other presentations of neurological immaturity. The two options we offer are pharmaceutical interventions or behavioral changes. Behavioral changes including not only ABA therapy, but also any approach that tries to bring ‘awareness’ to challenges, giving the cortical brain, our “Will”, and our “Awareness”, charge of our lives.
However, so many of these immaturities arise from pre-cortical levels of the brain that are inaccessible to our will or our awareness. These levels of the brain that mediate so many of our triggers, our emotional responses, our basic attention, coordination, memory and ability to process information, come from the levels of the brain that grow our toenails. When ‘focusing” on the problem, or rewarding ‘appropriate’ behavior does not do the trick, does not stop raging, tics, or the inability to remember two-step directions’ the cortex CAN intervene temporarily.
But just as we do not and should not mindfully watch our breathing all day long (our cortex has bigger things to do, like THINKING), we should not require our children to control their attention, their anger, their impulsivity all day long. These are the jobs of lower brain levels. What can result, for the children, their parents or for ourselves as impaired adults, is shame.
Shame, Shame, Shame! Shame that you cannot control your impulses; shame that you cannot read despite tutoring; shame that you can’t remember from one moment to the next; shame that your poor coordination leaves you dropping things and bumping into the furniture.
SHAME! It helps no one. It does not move our children or us forward, does not heal neurological challenges. Addressing these issues as neurological issues through programs that stimulate brain growth must become the new norm. Parents are tired of two options that do not address the problem at the source, that do not offer full relief, that only bandage the symptoms. Let’s create a revolution in understanding. Let’s take another look at shame, the most destructive emotion for all of us.