“Free Up Kids’ Brains” written by Dr Ash Nayate published in Great Health Guide (March 2017). Minimalism is a way of reducing the overload on kids’ brains, thus improving their overall function of life. Read more on how reducing clutter & stress can help your kids feel smarter.
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PARENTING: Free Up Kids’ Brains
written by Ash Nayate
Minimalism is the new black. Minimalism is a concept that combined with specific actions, allows you to find freedom of the mind. It’s not just about owning less, of course – but about what owning less actually brings to our lives. More peace, more fulfillment, bigger bank accounts and more free time.
Turns out, that it’s not just adults who benefit. Our kids benefit from minimalism too. In fact, they benefit even more than adults. Their younger brains mean that most cognitive tasks are more challenging for them, than for adults. Kids often have a hard time with complex activities like organising their belongings, keeping track of homework, or thinking through the consequences of their actions.
Kids get overwhelmed far more quickly than adults and just like us, being overwhelm leads to stress. And when kids are stressed, they are more prone to irritability, grumpiness, meltdowns and tantrums. Minimalism is a way of reducing the overload on kids’ brains, thus improving their functioning in almost all facets of life. Here are three ways in which minimalism can help your kids feel smarter:
1. BETTER CONCENTRATION.
Believe it or not, concentration is a skill. It’s one that serves us well and allows us to follow conversations, understand movies, read books, think deeply about complex ideas and complete tasks quickly.
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And in today’s fast-paced technological world, we don’t get much practice in concentrating. From text messaging to app notifications, our kids are getting used to focusing in very short bursts of time. It’s all too easy to get distracted from, say, reading a textbook by the variety of interesting things happening in the world around them (real and virtual).
Of course, distractions aren’t new. We all grew up with them, whether it was TV or comic books. But the sheer volume of distractions in today’s world is unprecedented. Our comic books didn’t ping at us constantly, reminding us of the world going on inside our phones.
OUR KIDS ARE GETTING USED TO FOCUSING IN VERY SHORT BURSTS OF TIME.
Navigating distractions is like running an obstacle course. The fewer distractions in our kids’ lives, the fewer obstacles they need to overcome in order to concentrate. And distractions come in many forms, whether it’s visual distraction from a messy desk, or virtual clutter from the myriad of files stored haphazardly in the virtual cloud, or even internal clutter from the mental juggling of extracurricular activities, homework and social events.
Reducing clutter means fewer distractions, which means more focus for longer periods of time. And this means – faster and more efficient learning, better memory and quicker homework times.
CLUTTER & REDUCING STRESS, KIDS CAN THINK THROUGH THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR ACTIONS.
