The Neuroscience of Social, Emotional, and Academic Learning

Brain research has proven that if you “transform your mind” you will  “change your brain”. This is an exciting finding because kids today deal with more stress than ever before. Bullying in school, surviving trauma or an accident, even dealing with a parent’s divorce can create fear, anxiety and depression.

Doctors of neuroscience are discovering that teens and children can be taught to make emotional decisions and cope with life’s problems by focusing on their positive responses to the negative event. The child can learn to regulate a more effective response (for example, reacting to a negative stimulus calmly rather than nervously or impatiently) by learning to re- appraise the negative stimulus in order to facilitate a more healthy and positive response. By doing so, a child or teen can actually lower the level of cortisol ( a stress hormone) in his brain. In simple terms; children and teens can implement skills taught in social- emotional learning to change their brain. The end result: a happier, healthier, well-adjusted child.

Bullying and tragedy

How many times have you heard in the news the sad story of teenage bullying that ended in suicide? How many parents are struggling to raise troubled children suffering from anxiety, depression, low self-esteem or poor body images. The numbers are staggering.

Traditional therapy, where the adolescent or elementary age child focuses on the problem and how to fix it, is not working. New brain research, along with social- emotional teaching, is transforming lives. The difference between these models is that the focus is on the positive response to the negative event, not the negative event.

A Cutting Edge Model

A cutting edge model has been developed and proven successful by Maire-Nathalie Beaudoin, Ph.D. She’s the practicing psychologist  and author of The Skill-ionaire in Every Child: Boosting children’s socio-emotional skills using the latest brain research. Using ideas from narrative therapy, information gathered from brain research and interpersonal neurobiology, she created a conversational model called SBC or “Skill Boosting Conversations.”

Bullying can effect a child's self esteem.

Beaudoin is aware that emotional pressures may develop into clinical depression or other health related problems.

In Skill-ionaire, Beaudoin teaches adults how to engage young people in conversations that will promote problem-solving strategies. Instead of dwelling on the problem, she believes it’s best to cultivate socio-emotional skills through positive experiences which create positive emotions.The focus is on their successful problem solving and the goal is to associate an awareness of helpful thoughts and actions which leads to a happier and more meaningful life.

Skill Boosting Conversations

In her new book, she shares what she has learned from recent brain research and how to use her cutting-edge method, SBC, to help kids heighten their socio-emotional intelligence.

These conversations helped her own son who had suffered from anxiety and she has seen these conversations lead to profound transformations for other children (coping with bullying and maintaining a healthy outlook, improving sleep by decreasing nightmares, improving a child’s self image and even decreasing a child’s separation anxiety or school phobia. ). She teaches the adult how to  “boost” the child’s social skills. She answers  questions and provides strategies  for working with kids suffering from fear, insecurities, peer pressure, bullying, trauma, body image problems , anxiety or depression.

The information she shares will help parents, teachers and therapists assist their kids or teenagers to develop tools that will improve their emotional well being. In her book, she gives problem scenarios and offers different methods to engage in SBC. She includes transcripts of conversations to clearly explain the “how to” of her program so the adult will find success in using SBC.

With today’s bullying culture, it’s essential reading for parents and educators.

To learn more about Marie-Nathalie Beaudoin, you can click this link: The author of  “The Skill-ionaire in Every Child”

To view her book on Amazon you can click this link: Marie-Beaudoin’s new book-The Skill-ionaire

To read my book review on Skill-ionaire, click this link: blogcritics.org book review

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