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A FUN, EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM TO IMPROVE LEARNING, FOCUS, AND BEHAVIOR

Local Program

We offer a comprehensive, unique program that teaches parents how to facilitate their child’s brain organization. We differ from other programs in the following ways.

We make brain organization fun and entertaining.

We don’t believe brain organization has to be all work and no fun. At our local centers, we show it’s possible to create new highways while we’re laughing, engaged in fun games and activities, and interacting with other families involved in brain organization. In fact, the latter support is so valued that online participants who live in far away places such as Hong Kong and India have flown to our local centers for a week’s visit—just to spend time with other Brain Highways families.

To add to the mix of fun, we also offer different contests (with cash prizes!), amusing demonstrations to underscore key program concepts, and 31 optional Drop-in Sessions, where families can do their daily floor work with other kids (and our staff leads the games).

We provide a myriad of multimedia materials (audio clips, videos, and handouts) to teach concepts.

Since we often process information through one sensory system better than another, we make sure our participants have a chance to learn key ideas via different sensory channels. With this approach, participants may learn any given concept by: a) watching an entertaining demonstration in a video; b) listening to a lively audio clip with personal stories to underscore that topic, and c) reading a handout to recap those main ideas.

Parents in the pons course receive a link to these multimedia materials at the beginning of each week of the program.

We have an inclusive Parent Component.

Not only do we include parents in our classes, but we also teach them everything we know about brain organization. That way, parents can apply such information to their personal situations.

We do this throughout the weekly materials and with a separate Parent Supplement.

With the latter, parents have opportunities to rewire their own parenting circuits in a way that helps them respond most effectively to their kids. Unfortunately, when people have repeatedly criticized us and our kids, we may have inadvertently shifted to a more negatively wired brain. This is often the case when people don’t understand the link between how we’re wired and how we act.

Yet, research supports there are way more benefits when we’re functioning with a positive, optimistic brain as compared to a more negative, pessimistic brain. That’s why, as part of the Parent Supplement, we provide an insightful, systematic way to ensure we’re parenting with the most positive brain.

We teach both parents and kids how the brain functions and why such knowledge is empowering.

We want parents and their kids to understand the direct relationship between incomplete lower brain development and its effect on behavior, attention, academic performance, coordination, speech, and social interaction.

That’s why we provide fun, comprehensible ways for even 3-year-olds to understand this connection. For example, we’ve had parents share how their kids’ doctors were amazed upon hearing such young kids chat away about their vestibular system or how teachers were floored when students suggested doing proprioceptive movements to wake up their brain.

Ironically, we use our brain for everything; however, we rarely have opportunities to learn how it works.

Yet, as we gain knowledge about the brain, we become confident which behaviors to leave alone (those that are not disruptive or hurting anyone and are the result of underdevelopment) until such highways are in placed. We’re also sure which behaviors to hold kids accountable for right now—regardless of how their brain is wired or if they have a diagnosis—since such behavior never serves the child well.

But most of all, we learn how to build into the structure. This is an approach where we anticipate what a child might do in a particular situation and then preempt that (by subtly doing something) so that that child can now comply without any problem. In our program, we call that: Anticipate, pre-empt . . . and enjoy.

When learning about the brain, we also no longer believe that brain wiring is fixed (i.e. what you see is what you get forever). Instead, we adopt a mindset that is open to new possibilities that come with a newly organized brain.

We address prior “brain maps” that can be obstacles to moving forward.

In our experience, we’ve discovered that integrating primitive reflexes and developing lower centers of the brain just isn't enough for most kids. Namely, kids (especially the older ones) have also created other "brain maps" as a result of living so many years with underdeveloped lower centers of the brain. So, if we don’t also address that reality, we may not achieve maximum results—even when the brain organization is complete.

That’s why part of our curriculum teaches parents and kids how to eliminate those prior unproductive brain maps. In other words, we believe that a child's behavior is a combination of how he is "wired,” what he’s processed and internalized based on those experiences, and how he has learned to respond based on how others have interacted with him. In order for a child to achieve maximum results, we need to address all three variables.

We present innovative approaches for eliminating out-of-bounds behavior and distorted fears and getting kids to want to comply.

We assume that most parents have already tried traditional approaches and discovered what most of our parents have experienced. Namely, those weren’t effective with kids who have retained primitive reflexes and underdeveloped lower centers of the brain.

So that’s why we offer very different ways to address out-of-bounds behavior, distorted fears, and getting kids, in general, to comply. Since our approaches reflect what we know about the brain, parents and kids experience very different, positive results as compared to whatever was tried in the past.

We offer hope by showing change is possible.

Probably the best part of learning about the brain is . . . it ignites hope. Once we understand that the brain can change, we become encouraged. But once we’ve implemented concrete ways to help our child make such changes—and we actually see such transformations happening—it’s easy to be hopeful and optimistic about the future.