I took a Neuro Linguistic Programming course last fall. My understanding of the field at that point was that it was the science of body language. I signed up for the course hoping to help my youngest son.
The course was from a company called NLP Live With Power and the instructor was amazing. She is a lady with a very strong commitment to assisting children who have been labelled in the school system, reach their full potential.
It is interesting to me how many parents are resistant to having their children labelled. I have seen many parents actually go out of their way to avoid letting the school in on any testing to avoid this. Not that I don't understand this, as it often disadvantages these children, as once they are labelled, no one ever expects much from them and they tend to live up to that expectation. However, I guess in my situation, both of my children had such significant challenges that I welcomed the labels. In fact we personally had to pay for all of the testing as the school missed the diagnosis on both children. The labels for me, were the key to accessing resources. In my own mind I had dismissed the negative connotation of that labelling.
One afternoon in the course, the instructor was explaining that we all have unlimited potential for visual, kinesthetic and auditory recall. What does this mean? It means that our brain potential can be unlocked in a very funny way by our eyes! Our eyes? Now the funny part of this is that I am sure we can all recall hearing about someone being able to tell whether someone else is lying by watching which direction their eyes go. I remember hearing people talk about the fact that was why some experts felt that OJ Simpson was guilty. Our eyes can't lie! It would take an incredible amount of awareness to be able to get your body language to lie consistently. Now it isn't as easy as everyone doing the same thing. An individual must be asked calibrating questions that there would be no need to lie to, for us to establish a baseline. However, unlocking our brains hidden potential is not all about lying or not lying.... Where is this going you might ask?
Well my oldest son is a pretty cool cat, very calm and centered. He has attention deficit but definitely without the hyperactivity. He is also an atrocious speller. We have spent hours copying out spelling lists over the years. I used to make him copy the words he missed out five times before I retested him. On the next go, he would get entirely new words wrong, words he had gotten right the first time! It was exasperating.
During this course we were taught that anyone, and I do mean anyone ,can be trained to have a photographic memory. One of the practical applications of this was called " The Spelling Strategy".
"The Spelling Strategy", broken down very simply works like this. For most, (and I do say most to warn you that if this doesn't work, ask a few questions that the person you are teaching would not lie to, recall questions, and watch whether their eyes go up to the right or up to the left) right handed people, the visual recall whiteboard is accessed when your eyes go up and left. Left handers are generally the opposite.
What this means is simple. If you look at a picture and really study it, when I take it away and ask you what you saw, your eyes will go up and left without thinking trying to recall the details of that picture.
To practice " The Spelling Stragegy" you need the following. A pack of coloured markers and an easel or white board, and of course some age appropriate spelling words (to start at least!) You can do this with anyone of any age ( as long as they are old enough to communicate! ) Start by printing the word, one letter at a time, about 2 inches tall on the easel, each letter a different colour. The board must be standing up at eye level for the person you are working with. This is very important. What you say to them as they are looking at the board is also critical, the wording is as follows:
" I want you to take as much time as you need to look at this easel and see everything that is on it. When you think you can remember everything that you see, I will turn the easel away from you. I will then ask you to spell the word for me forwards and then backwards. Your brain takes pictures every second and stores what it sees. You have no control of this, it happens for everyone. I am going to teach you how to look for and find any one of those pictures you may want to see again."
They will look skeptical, but assure them that they cannot fail at this task even if they wanted to. Their brain is like a computer. The answers are encoded every second. We simply don't always know how to retrieve them!
So I came home from my course absolutely so excited about this spelling strategy I couldn't wait to try it. My hours of grueling spelling testing on him were over. I was going to prove to him that he was brilliant!
He met me in the kitchen when I got home and I explained my plan and he was less than enthusiatic.
" Mom" he said, " I have attention deficit."
Now NLP teaches that when attempting to change someone's belief system you need to point out inconsistencies so I countered with
"Really, where was it when you were playing the computer for three hours? I didn't see any deficit of attention then!" Smirk.
" Come, let's get started. "
" I can't. I don't learn like that. I am an auditory learner. " Labels from school. Wow. I had no idea he had internalized those labels this much. I stepped it up.
" What am I wearing ? "
" Blue jeans and a black shirt."
" What ? How did you know? Did you hear that or see it? " Smirk.
" You have eyes, you should gouge them out if you don't intend to use them. You have a choice. You can do five spelling words with your mother and prove my theory or you can get grounded. Your choice. "
I don't have to tell you what he picked, but as I picked up my coloured markers I was praying to God this was going to work. I didn't realize how much he had limited his world based on the labels I helped to give him. I wanted to break down those walls and quickly. I was stunned.
I picked up my coloured pens and wrote the word " CREATIVE". He grudgingly studied the page and then told me to turn it. Spelling it forwards he looked right at me going off short term memory. When I asked him to spell it backwards, he hesitated. I gently said to him, "look up and to the left with your eyes, you will see a white board and you will see the letters and the colours. Just read them backwards for me. He did as I asked and I watched the astonishment dawn on his face as he realized he could see just what I had told him.
We had tears. We practiced five words a day, every day for a week and ended with "ACCQUAINTANCE". He spelled it perfectly forward and backward. I explained to him that from now on you need to just know, that every word you read is stored in the same place. You just have to look for it to spell it!
I saw his whole demeanor change. I had given him a key. He got 97% on irregular spelling words one report card! But for me this was less than watching him discover that the labels that he believed limited him, no longer applied. The world opened up for him on that day and what a beautiful moment for me as a mother.
The application of this technique is so wide I know I have not even scratched the surface. I repeated it with my youngest son with the same results. I would love to train them to have photographic memories, as I have one and it helped me immeasurably in school. But there is only so much I can convince them to do, so for now I am settling for this small victory. We broke down the limiting beliefs but I know there are more to go after. As I continue to learn, I pray that they will continue to trust me and allow me to push their limitations to the breaking point. I love them more than words can say. There is nothing I would not do to ease their way.
I look forward to hearing about your successed with this method. May you break down a few limiting beliefs of your own!
In love and light,
Kathryn
The course was from a company called NLP Live With Power and the instructor was amazing. She is a lady with a very strong commitment to assisting children who have been labelled in the school system, reach their full potential.
It is interesting to me how many parents are resistant to having their children labelled. I have seen many parents actually go out of their way to avoid letting the school in on any testing to avoid this. Not that I don't understand this, as it often disadvantages these children, as once they are labelled, no one ever expects much from them and they tend to live up to that expectation. However, I guess in my situation, both of my children had such significant challenges that I welcomed the labels. In fact we personally had to pay for all of the testing as the school missed the diagnosis on both children. The labels for me, were the key to accessing resources. In my own mind I had dismissed the negative connotation of that labelling.
One afternoon in the course, the instructor was explaining that we all have unlimited potential for visual, kinesthetic and auditory recall. What does this mean? It means that our brain potential can be unlocked in a very funny way by our eyes! Our eyes? Now the funny part of this is that I am sure we can all recall hearing about someone being able to tell whether someone else is lying by watching which direction their eyes go. I remember hearing people talk about the fact that was why some experts felt that OJ Simpson was guilty. Our eyes can't lie! It would take an incredible amount of awareness to be able to get your body language to lie consistently. Now it isn't as easy as everyone doing the same thing. An individual must be asked calibrating questions that there would be no need to lie to, for us to establish a baseline. However, unlocking our brains hidden potential is not all about lying or not lying.... Where is this going you might ask?
Well my oldest son is a pretty cool cat, very calm and centered. He has attention deficit but definitely without the hyperactivity. He is also an atrocious speller. We have spent hours copying out spelling lists over the years. I used to make him copy the words he missed out five times before I retested him. On the next go, he would get entirely new words wrong, words he had gotten right the first time! It was exasperating.
During this course we were taught that anyone, and I do mean anyone ,can be trained to have a photographic memory. One of the practical applications of this was called " The Spelling Strategy".
"The Spelling Strategy", broken down very simply works like this. For most, (and I do say most to warn you that if this doesn't work, ask a few questions that the person you are teaching would not lie to, recall questions, and watch whether their eyes go up to the right or up to the left) right handed people, the visual recall whiteboard is accessed when your eyes go up and left. Left handers are generally the opposite.
What this means is simple. If you look at a picture and really study it, when I take it away and ask you what you saw, your eyes will go up and left without thinking trying to recall the details of that picture.
To practice " The Spelling Stragegy" you need the following. A pack of coloured markers and an easel or white board, and of course some age appropriate spelling words (to start at least!) You can do this with anyone of any age ( as long as they are old enough to communicate! ) Start by printing the word, one letter at a time, about 2 inches tall on the easel, each letter a different colour. The board must be standing up at eye level for the person you are working with. This is very important. What you say to them as they are looking at the board is also critical, the wording is as follows:
" I want you to take as much time as you need to look at this easel and see everything that is on it. When you think you can remember everything that you see, I will turn the easel away from you. I will then ask you to spell the word for me forwards and then backwards. Your brain takes pictures every second and stores what it sees. You have no control of this, it happens for everyone. I am going to teach you how to look for and find any one of those pictures you may want to see again."
They will look skeptical, but assure them that they cannot fail at this task even if they wanted to. Their brain is like a computer. The answers are encoded every second. We simply don't always know how to retrieve them!
So I came home from my course absolutely so excited about this spelling strategy I couldn't wait to try it. My hours of grueling spelling testing on him were over. I was going to prove to him that he was brilliant!
He met me in the kitchen when I got home and I explained my plan and he was less than enthusiatic.
" Mom" he said, " I have attention deficit."
Now NLP teaches that when attempting to change someone's belief system you need to point out inconsistencies so I countered with
"Really, where was it when you were playing the computer for three hours? I didn't see any deficit of attention then!" Smirk.
" Come, let's get started. "
" I can't. I don't learn like that. I am an auditory learner. " Labels from school. Wow. I had no idea he had internalized those labels this much. I stepped it up.
" What am I wearing ? "
" Blue jeans and a black shirt."
" What ? How did you know? Did you hear that or see it? " Smirk.
" You have eyes, you should gouge them out if you don't intend to use them. You have a choice. You can do five spelling words with your mother and prove my theory or you can get grounded. Your choice. "
I don't have to tell you what he picked, but as I picked up my coloured markers I was praying to God this was going to work. I didn't realize how much he had limited his world based on the labels I helped to give him. I wanted to break down those walls and quickly. I was stunned.
I picked up my coloured pens and wrote the word " CREATIVE". He grudgingly studied the page and then told me to turn it. Spelling it forwards he looked right at me going off short term memory. When I asked him to spell it backwards, he hesitated. I gently said to him, "look up and to the left with your eyes, you will see a white board and you will see the letters and the colours. Just read them backwards for me. He did as I asked and I watched the astonishment dawn on his face as he realized he could see just what I had told him.
We had tears. We practiced five words a day, every day for a week and ended with "ACCQUAINTANCE". He spelled it perfectly forward and backward. I explained to him that from now on you need to just know, that every word you read is stored in the same place. You just have to look for it to spell it!
I saw his whole demeanor change. I had given him a key. He got 97% on irregular spelling words one report card! But for me this was less than watching him discover that the labels that he believed limited him, no longer applied. The world opened up for him on that day and what a beautiful moment for me as a mother.
The application of this technique is so wide I know I have not even scratched the surface. I repeated it with my youngest son with the same results. I would love to train them to have photographic memories, as I have one and it helped me immeasurably in school. But there is only so much I can convince them to do, so for now I am settling for this small victory. We broke down the limiting beliefs but I know there are more to go after. As I continue to learn, I pray that they will continue to trust me and allow me to push their limitations to the breaking point. I love them more than words can say. There is nothing I would not do to ease their way.
I look forward to hearing about your successed with this method. May you break down a few limiting beliefs of your own!
In love and light,
Kathryn
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