Are there specific brain fitness programs for kids? My kids have problems with math.

Here is ques­tion 22 from Brain Fit­ness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Ques­tions.

Question:

Are there spe­cif­ic brain fit­ness pro­grams for kids? My kids have prob­lems with math-why should they do these things that may dis­tract them?

Key Points:

• Learn­ing stress man­age­ment skills can reduce test anx­i­ety and improve learn­ing readiness.
• If stress lev­els are too high, con­cen­tra­tion and focus are neg­a­tive­ly impacted.

Answer:

Stress reduc­tion can help not only with math or test anx­i­ety, but also with over­all high lev­els of anx­i­ety that inhib­it learn­ing and high­er-order think­ing. Pro­grams teach­ing relax­ation through breath­ing tech­niques with biofeed­back train­ing are already used in a num­ber of schools with promis­ing research results. (See Take a Deep Breath: Biofeed­back soft­ware is help­ing stu­dents calm down for bet­ter test per­for­mance.)

High lev­els of anx­i­ety pro­voke cor­ti­cal inhi­bi­tion, which is when high emo­tion­al arousal over­whelms high­er-order think­ing or exec­u­tive func­tions in the frontal lobes. For­tu­nate­ly, pos­i­tive emo­tion-focused tools and tech­niques that fos­ter phys­i­o­log­i­cal coher­ence have been shown to sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve key aspects of health, emo­tion­al well­be­ing, and performance.

Edu­ca­tion­al inter­ven­tion stud­ies exam­ine the effects of these pro­grams in school set­tings. Pro­grams and cur­ric­u­la incor­po­rat­ing pos­i­tive emo­tion-focused tools and tech­niques intro­duced at the ele­men­tary, mid­dle school, high school, and col­lege lev­els have been demon­strat­ed to reduce gen­er­al psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­tress, test anx­i­ety, and risky behav­iors, as well as improve test scores, class­room behav­iors, stress resilien­cy, learn­ing, and aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance. Stud­ies are also under­way to inves­ti­gate the impact of pos­i­tive emo­tion inter­ven­tions for chil­dren with spe­cif­ic learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties as well as with atten­tion-deficit hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der (ADHD).

You can learn more at Brain fit­ness for Stu­dents

Further Reading

• Emo­tion­al self-reg­u­la­tion and test anxiety
• Grow­ing Super Ath­letes (each of our students)
• Enhanc­ing Cog­ni­tion and Emo­tions for Learn­ing — Learn­ing & The Brain Conference
• Math Anx­i­ety
• Dia­mond, Mar­i­an and Hop­son, Janet. Mag­ic Trees of the Mind: How to Nur­ture Your Child’s Intel­li­gence, Cre­ativ­i­ty, and Healthy Emo­tions from Birth Through Ado­les­cence. (Plume; 1999). ISBN 0452278309.
• Gold­berg, Elkhonon. The Exec­u­tive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civ­i­lized Mind. (Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, USA; 2002). ISBN 0195156307.
• Gold­berg, Elkhonon. The Wis­dom Para­dox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Old­er. (Gotham; 2006). ISBN 978–1592401871.
• Levine, Mel. A Mind at a Time. (Simon & Schus­ter; 2002). ISBN 0743202228.
• McCraty R, Bar­rios-Choplin B, Roz­man D, Atkin­son M, Watkins A. The impact of a new emo­tion­al self-man­age­ment pro­gram on stress, emo­tions, heart rate vari­abil­i­ty, DHEA and cor­ti­sol. Inte­gra­tive Phys­i­o­log­i­cal and Behav­ioral Sci­ence. 1998;33:1515–70.