‘My child used to run away from numbers, now he loves them’: UAE dad
Practical tips on helping cure your child of maths anxiety.
Of all the legacies you deign to give your child perhaps the most common – and least wanted – is a fear of mathematics.
As per an article published in ‘Harvard Business Review’, 93 % of Americans report experiencing some level of maths anxiety. As per a Programme for International Student Assessment in 2012, across the 34 participating Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, 59 % of the 15- to 16-year-old students said they worry about the perceived difficulty of maths classes while 33 % said number-crunching homework stressed them out and 31 % admitted to feeling nervous when confronted by a maths problem.
Hiba Mehanna, Wellness Consultant and General Manager of Miracles Dubai, explains that the insecurities children face around maths can stem anywhere from societal and family pressures to perform well, to not being able to meet the set standards that peers can reach which can result in being teased by other kids in the school environment. “Children that have received poor maths grades in the past can develop an insecurity towards the subject due to a fear of repeated results, and this insecurity can create an inaccurate belief that they are simply ‘not good at maths’.”
Benjamin Atkins, Head of Secondary at The Aquila School, also says maths makes for an easy target. “People find it acceptable to publicly acknowledge that ‘I was not good at maths at school’ and ‘I don’t like maths’, but would never openly say the same about reading or other subjects. This gives many pupils a false view of what mathematics in secondary school could be like before they even attend their first class,” he explains.
How does anxiety work in kids?
Anxiety around a subject is a learned behaviour. Mehanna explains that in a child’s brain at a neuroscientific level, one can see that neural pathways are at their peak in forming strong connections. “These connections, if continuously used form a neural pattern that results in a future set behaviour. A perfect example is a child who goes to school and has a negative experience in the classroom, if this is a one-time event, the child will feel the negative emotion (shame, embarrassment, etc.). However, it will not form a strong neural pathway and over time it will begin to dissipate. However, if the same child is consistently facing a negative emotion when they are in the classroom, this will create a strong neural pathway that will result in anxiety whenever they’re put in a classroom setting as a child and even into adulthood.
If a child is consistently facing a negative emotion when they are in the classroom, this will create a strong neural pathway that will result in anxiety whenever they’re put in a classroom setting.
The physical impact
“Although anxiety shows up in children due to repeated neural connections, it can also manifest physically as a sore tummy, headache, fatigue and lack of motivation. These manifestations of anxiety can also be a result of what is known as the gut-brain axis, simply put; your food creates your mood. Children displaying anxiety may bite their nails, fidget, have fluctuating emotions and have a hard time trying to concentrate. Further to this, they may not want to participate in social events, have a change of eating habits and suffer from disrupted sleep.”
Now for the good news. This isn’t a permanent state of affairs. You can subtract the worry from the situation by simply adding in a few elements such as a more conducive learning environment. “The good news is, in terms of maths insecurity and belief of self, it is possible to be reversed depending on the teaching method. This is evident by some children performing better in maths when they feel more connected to the teacher and the learning style of the school. It is important that a child who displays an insecurity in math be nurtured and understood in their way of learning, because when this is lacking it can result in an insecurity in how they process learning.”
A different intelligence
This is exactly what Paramjith Singh found out. The Indian expat’s ten-year-old son was so afraid of numbers that he would run off every time he’d see one. Fortunately, his school counselor spoke to him and realised the problem wasn’t maths, it was an aversion to two-dimensional numbers – he could not understand what they meant. A visualisation technique, where cups and bowls, oranges and apples were used to help the child physically see the difference in digits allowed him to learn them; today, he likes the subject, says Singh.
Cooking can help kids with maths.
When it comes to teaching visualisation techniques, every activity can become a learning experience. “Other techniques at home could be to add mathematics into everyday activities – but especially cooking. Involving the child in a practical activity that focuses on weights and measure, but that can also look at ratio, is a great way to build family relationships and improve mathematics skills. Ask: ‘if we need 100g of flour for three people, how much do we need for six?’,” suggests Atkins.
Hareem Navaid, who teaches math and business at Dwight School Dubai, says it’s imperative to acknowledge the problem and then employ a few tried-and-tested strategies to overcome it.
“I teach my students stress management techniques. We do mindfulness exercises such as deep breathing, and meditation during mathematics lesson. These techniques help students to relax during any stressful situation,” he adds.
“The teacher should also make efforts in providing students the autonomy, competency and purpose for each learning objective to keep them motivated and engaged in learning,” he says.
In classrooms, one must also teach test-taking strategies, says Navaid. “Encourage them to solve the easiest questions first. To tackle the hard math word problem, students can draw the word problem to visualise the scenario.
“Encourage them to proactively break down large tasks into smaller more achievable and less stressful small tasks,” he adds.
And you can teach them tricks that will not only make the subject fun but easier to understand. Navaid offers the following hacks:
Multiplying with 99:Subtract 1 from the first double digit number. Then subtract that answer from 99. Then write both answers together. It will be the product of multiplying any doubt digit number with 99.
START THEM YOUNG
Here are some simple (and fun!) ways to start thinking and talking about maths skills with your little one.
Point to shapes
Talk with your child about the shapes you see around you. Maybe on your walk together you notice a round stone or a square sign. “Look, the door on that house is a red rectangle!” Introducing these basic spatial sense skills – the concepts of shape, size, space and direction – will help your child later on in school when they start geometry.
Count it out
Find some small objects – such as shells or beads – to count together out loud. “Look! We have one, two, three, four, five orange beads.” You can also separate them into groups. “Let’s make three piles of three buttons.” This is a great way to introduce the concepts of numbers and operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). You don’t only need objects to learn how to count – you could also work on counting with your little one by counting out loud how many steps they take or how many times they clap their hands.
Play a sorting game
Recognising patterns and relationships lays the foundation for learning equations later in life. To introduce these concepts to your toddler in a playful way, try playing a sorting game with objects around your house. “Let’s put the red lentils in one basket and the green lentils in the other basket.” You can also lay the objects out in a pattern. “Let’s make a row of lentils: red, green, red, green.”
Have fun in the kitchen
Cooking together is a great opportunity for your child to explore measurement and counting. Make sure to give them age-appropriate tasks and to supervise them closely while you create your culinary masterpiece! Talk about how much rice you need for your meal and show them how you measure it out. If you’re making a snack, count out the food items on your plate: “There are one, two, three, four berries in our snack.”
Build a tower
Stacking objects helps young children to learn about estimating size and understanding the relationship between different sized objects. To make a tower together, you could use blocks, empty boxes, empty cartons or other child-safe objects you have around the house that will stack well. Talk about how the pieces fit on top of one another and if the tower falls, why that happened. See how high you can go!
Compare and contrast
Take notice of the sizes of objects you see in comparison to one another. A market or food store are great places to do this together. “This mango is much bigger than that one.” You can also ask your child to point out which item they think is smaller or larger. This helps your toddler to work on building those important spatial sense and measurement skills.
Source: Unicef Parenting
The homework
Parents play a vital role in curing – or infecting – kids with math anxiety. Here are some ways you can help says Navaid.
• Check your attitude: Parents’ own attitude towards the mathematics also impact the children’s approach towards mathematics. Parents should not communicate any negative feelings about mathematics to their children.
• Do your prep work: Encourage time management and organisational skills. Help them to plan and prepare for test in advance.
• One report card grade doesn’t define a child. Your children are more than a grade on a report card. Praise and appreciate the effort, not only the final grade on the report card. Communicate it to your children also. One test won’t make or break the rest of her/his academic life or career.
• Remind your children about their strengths. Build their confidence by affirmations that “you can prepare for it”, “you can do this” or saying, “let’s do it together”. It brings the parents much closer to children and help improve parent child relationship which will help with anxiety as well.
• Tell them, it is easy to improve mathematical skills. Give your children confidence that he/she can improve her math ability by practicing.
• Encourage children to write down emotions. Studies have shown that writing down negative emotions reduces the severity of those emotions.
• Encourage a healthy lifestyle. “Structured bed times allow for enough time for the brain to rest, nurtured learning environments to avoid negative feelings that can result in fixed neural connections, and a healthy diet to feed the gut the vitamins and minerals essential to nourish the brain and its electrical output which we understand as emotions. In doing so not only can you reduce the level of anxiety displayed in a child but, you can also help them to build healthier fixed neural connections that will benefit them all the way into adulthood,” adds Mehanna.
Building Your Muscle of Intuition
Has this ever happened to you that you’ve felt this huge hunch that something is about to happen, and then it actually does? Or sometimes you think of calling someone, and then that person calls you? So when you feel strongly about something without any solid logical to it, that’s called intuition.
It comes in three impressions
- Clairvoyance or “the third eye” , sensing clearly and feeling through listening. Clairvoyance is when your eye goes beyond what it can see. This is when you know what is happening somewhere. Sensing clearly is basically what we refer to as “hunch” or “gut feel” This is the time when you are overwhelmed with a feeling and you can’t explain it and all you can say is “I just know”.
- Clairaudience is feeling through listening, and being able to “listen” between the lines. Intuition also happens at times when a certain sound, whatever it is – be it a car’s honk or a bird’s twitting – ushers in an intense feeling.
- Clairsentient is commonly defined as a “clear feeling”, the ability to feel the past, the present, and the future emotional state of other people, even without using any of the five senses- sight, smell, hearing, tasting, or touching. It is also referred to as the sense of intuition because people who also have clairsentient abilities can gather information from non-living materials such as buildings or outside areas also without the use of the five senses.
It has been said that only a few people are truly gifted with intuition. In the past, people with intuitive abilities were labelled as witches and sorcerers and weren’t trusted. But in today’s times, more and more people are aware of the gift of intuitiveness and studies have proclaim that anyone can develop intuition. And especially in these troubled times, where people are dealing with so much stress and anxiety, being able to tap into your intuition is a gift.
Intuition promotes good communication. It makes you more sensitive to the people around you; it often keeps you from hurting those you love because you are intuitive enough to understand them. Intuition also makes you far more creative than ever. Intuition means releasing more creative juices for any means of expression. Lastly, intuition has a healing power. This healing power is not in the physical sense, but in delving deep into your soul to eradicate some negative energy buried in it.
With that being said, are you ready to develop your intuition? Here are some ways to unlock this gift:
1. Hypnosis
For those who don’t know, a session of hypnotherapy is not like what you’d see in films. It is in fact a deeply meditative process. We work with that level of mind which you have when you are about to fall asleep or waking up. You can hear people in the background, but are still too rested to move your body or talk back.
2. Meditation
Meditating means finding peace in yourself. If your mind and heart are cluttered with too many baggage and hurt, you wouldn’t be able to quiet down that part of you that could eventually initiate intuition. There are so many ways to meditate: take a yoga class, or just simply practice some breathing that could bring you straight to Zen.
3. Use your thoughts to create a better outcome.
A worry-free, fear-free state could do so much to improve your intuitive ability. By using your imagination to stay positive, you attract a high vibration which is the best frequency to manifest your desired outcomes.
4. Silence.
Simply put – if you are on the brink of making a huge decision, let go of all the mental chitter chatter and head to a quiet place. Sometimes you just have to quieten down and listen to the voice within you.
5. Never expect.
After quietening down, just release all expectations for an immediate solution. Anxiety puts you
back in a low vibration, so give it time, and trust that you will be given a sign.
6. Trust your first impressions.
Sometimes you enter a room and feel heavy, or you meet a person and do not get a very positive vibe, trust that feeling. Chances are that impression actually holds true. Most of the time, first impressions are brought by intuition. Play around with this, test it out with smaller situations in life and build your intuitive muscle.
7. Stay happy!
It always boils down to this – all you need to be intuitive is to stay happy! Happiness attracts immense power and such power includes intuition. Of course, don’t mask your feeling of grief or fear. You must feel to heal. Acknowledge your feelings, and continuously move to a higher vibration.
Intuition is helpful, because sometimes it leads you to something that cannot be achieved otherwise. Decisions that you can’t make using logic or people you should avoid, situations you can skip – all this becomes second nature when you develop your intuitive abilities.
Start working on it and enjoy the journey!
Join Delna for a meditation or hypnotherapy class.
What is Hypnotherapy & How does it work?
Hypnosis refers to the process where a trained professional assists a willing person to achieve a deeper level of focus to address and transform a certain issue of concern. This process is scientifically proven and highly effective to help create desired and agreed upon changes in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to achieve long-lasting mental, emotional and physical well-being. Change happens at all levels: conscious and more importantly subconscious and cellular levels.
Mental, emotional, and physical change is possible without prescription drugs or life-long visits to your therapist. I have assisted many people to heal the cause of their stress and distress…IBS, migraines, emotional eating, addictions, anxiety and panic attacks, self-sabotage, smoking to name a few.
When a person begins his process of transformation, no matter how much of a challenge the task seems to be, the unhealthy or limiting state can be released in a much smoother and easier way with hypnotherapy. The possibilities are limitless.
Click here for more information about the facilitator Mirna Iwaza.
Pain
How often have we all experienced pain in life? Pain is oftentimes inevitable in this realm of 3D reality. Once we begin to experience it in our physical body, the only thing we want is for it to go away. Have you ever wondered why it comes? What is the purpose of pain? What is it trying to convey to us?
When I was young, I used to feel a surge of uncomfortable emotions that were painful to deal with. I would like to admit here that up until I reached 30+ years of age I was not even aware of how to label these emotions. I just didn’t know how to make myself feel better. Of course, that’s the irony of social conditioning and the way most of us have been brought up with parents who too didn’t know how to deal with their own inner chaotic world. It does look scary and painful to deal with and imagine if we do not have the awareness of how much scarier it’s going to be.
Children look up to parents for survival and growth. They are extremely important for their physical, mental, and emotional development. If for any reason the parents especially a mother is emotionally distant, unresponsive, or going through her own unresolved issues, the child will feel neglected unimportant, and, in most cases, rejected by her. This could be the feeling even while the child is an infant and is unable to understand one set of emotions from another. This could bring a deep sense of disappointment resentment or anger toward the mother. Despite the painful emotions, a child goes through the job of the subconscious mind is to ensure the child survives regardless of what’s happening in the environment. The child can shut down if this pattern of parenting continues where the child is made to ‘cry it out’ on his own or where the mother (as a primary caretaker) is emotionally unavailable due to her own childhood issues. This situation could prove traumatic for the child. Trauma does not necessarily have to be a big event, it could be as little as the emotional distance a child feels that exist between the parents and subsequently with himself.
Now you must be wondering what does any of this has to do with the physical pain!!!!
The emotional or mental pain (trauma) a child goes through, if it remains unresolved, unattended to, can manifest in the physical body as inflammation later on in life. Unhealed chronic emotions can give rise to chronic pain in the physical body.
In order to heal physical pain, one must understand that we are not just the physical body. Whatever physical pain we feel especially if its chronic in nature has a lot to do with what pain we felt at the mental or emotional level. Hence what got created in the mental and emotional world aka stress due fight/flight/freeze response has to be healed at that level only. Once that is healed it can allow new beliefs new perspective to emerge while dealing with situations in life.
Hence it is important to understand that anxiety and stress can have physical ramifications if not controlled through therapies or counseling. A number of studies have indicated stress can constrict the muscles and nerves, causing physical pain. The physical discomfort is often a signal to the brain that emotional traumas need to be resolved to reduce tension and other issues affected the nervous system. Certain body pains may indicate different emotional problems such as follows:
Headaches and Migraines: may indicate stress and tension.
Neck Pain: may indicate difficulty forgiving those you’re bothered by.
Shoulder Pain: may indicate carrying a big, emotional problem; you’re essentially “carrying the weight of a problem on your shoulders.”
Upper-Back Pain: may indicate you’re feeling unloved of do not have enough emotional support.
Lower-Back Pain: may indicate money problems or lacking both emotional and financial support.
Elbow Pain: may indicate resistance to change in life.
Following are some of the healing methods that can help deal with the physical pains and aches :
Reiki – it truly helps de-stress de-clutter the mind and body.
Hypnotherapy – helps to create an altered state of mind thus allowing a person to regress and heal the root cause. A lot of physical shifts happen when emotional wounds are healed
Family Constellations – it is an Ancestral healing method that allows healing physical issues with the lens of trans-generational trauma. Going back in time and healing the past, frees the client from the symptoms/illness.
Emotional Freedom Technique – It is looking at the physical issues and reducing the intensity of the pains and aches by releasing the stored energy in the body that could be causing it… people have reported feeling a lot better just after 1-2 EFT sessions.
As humans, we all have the ability to heal in a suitable environment. For every effect, there is a cause, so when there is enough human intent and energy towards health, love, and respect towards ourselves and our planet, we will only create a better world and a better life for all people on Earth.
Start by loving yourself, who you are, and why you are here experiencing this life. It’s not a coincidence. You designed it. So take responsibility for your wonderful creation. If you want to change your experience, send out the message and the universe will respond.
If chronic pain is impacting your life, don’t wait to schedule an appointment at Miracles Center.
P.S. We provide complementary therapies in conjunction with any medical treatment you are going through.
Click here for more information about the facilitator Shaista Zeeshan
Understand the realm of LBL, Hypnotherapy and Past Life Regression….
A series of thoughts…to understand the realm of LBL, Hypnotherapy and Past Life Regression…
By Indrani Sinha Seth
She is the 1st and only LBL Hypnotherapist certified by The Newton Institute (TNI) – USA, full member of TNI, based in the MENA region.
Life Between Lives (LBL) ® Hypnotherapy is a deep hypnotic process which develops with the therapist guiding the client into a space of physical relaxation and the awareness is then guided to one’s inner realm. This enables the client to access his/her subconscious mind and then even higher levels of the mind.
The Newton Method of LBL Hypnotherapy is the result of more than 25 years of initial research by Michael Newton with over 7,000 of his clients – research that continues to build via TNI, the organization he developed to continue his work. It was designed to reconnect you with your soul self, your guiding beings and thereby awaken an understanding of your immortal identity.
Each of us is so much more than the physical body which we can see. Based on the understanding that a soul can experience multiple lifetimes, we believe we are a combination of the energies, experiences and learning’s of countless previous lives; each life a set of contrasting experiences that embody the variety of lessons our inner, eternal self seeks to learn in its quest for development and perfection. That core, eternal self, always searching for growth and new levels of understanding, is our soul self…
Michael Newton’s research enabled him to assemble a model of the spiritual realm. He documented consistent reports from thousands of clients of the existence and incredible support offered by countless Higher Beings in the inter-life; personal guides and teachers, all ready to guide each one of us through and between each life. This session enables us to access the wisdom and insights and gives us further clarity of our present life and the patterns that are unfolding.
This session gives you enlightenment, a more complete perception of who you really are as the sum total of your past lives, the collaboration of your soul with other souls and with its guides and teachers, and what you are learning now. A sense of the eternity of the soul…and an end to the fear of physical death…The beauty of the experience leaves the client with a sense of bliss and wonder…where as you move beyond the physical and experience the unbound and limitless it enables one to get answers for many of their present life issues, clarity about things that overwhelm them and control them, understand their life purpose and join the dots on many of the apparently coincidental experiences of their present journey.
The following is from one of my case studies…its part of the debriefing I usually do after the session. This beautifully sums up what an LBL gives us:-
What did the client gain from the session?
She shared about her realizations, her clarity about many of the questions she had discussed with me during the case briefing. There was much joy and celebration when she finished. The closures she seemed to have received on various issues in her very long and detailed session with her Council made her value this session. The session validated her work as well as her relationship with R___ (names withheld for client confidentiality) her present husband.
The spontaneous hug after the session and the glow on her face said it all!
-What did you learn from the session that will make you a better LBL Therapist?
Being a therapist who has always enjoyed and valued spiritual sessions, LBL sessions give me a deep sense of fulfillment every time I share one…I say share because it’s as much a spiritual learning and healing for a client as it is for a therapist.
In the moments of silence in a session where the client is in a deep inner dialogue with her/his guide/soul family member/Council there is a lot to observe and learn …the art of keeping quiet and seeing healing happen in your presence. Indeed a very blessed experience.
LBL sessions make a therapist realize (over and over again) that healing is between the client and her/his universe…as a therapist one is just a channel…a conduit.
Understanding Hypnotherapy
Media and entertainment have always portrayed hypnosis as an intimidating idea, making the person believe they become slaves to the one performing hypnosis. It is shocking to see how many times we hear questions like – ‘So I will not remember anything after a session?’ ‘ Are we going to be made to do things the therapist wants?’ Even though we happy to see that our understanding of hypnosis has advanced a great deal over the past years, let’s gain a better perspective on how this technique works.
Hypnotherapy is used effectively to reprogram your mind in a positive way. The therapist takes you into a deep trance-like state through a relaxation technique. Once in this relaxed state, the therapist provides perspective to the individual’s situation that would change some of the belief systems in their mind through the power of suggestions.
During the session, the client feels very relaxed, just how you feel when you are watching a movie, or when you are in a dreamy state. The client is consciously aware of what is happening and is 100% in control of their own mind. Everyone has their own unique experience with hypnosis, but most people generally feel calm and relaxed.
It is our deep beliefs and patterns that shape our lives and decisions, so hypnotherapy helps change the beliefs and patterns that are negative or no longer serve us. Hypnotherapy can be effectively used to address fears, phobias, and addictions such as smoking, nail-biting, anxiety, stress, traumas.
It can also be used for treating chronic pains, physical ailments, or in weight management. Through hypnotherapy, we gain a better understanding of ourselves and of what is going on in the deep layers of our subconscious mind. We can then use this to our best advantage to change our lives for the better.
Busting 3 myths about hypnosis:
1. I don’t have control over myself, or my mind during hypnosis:
This is completely false. During hypnosis, you are completely aware of the suggestions being given to you and everything that is happening around you. Your mind will automatically reject a suggestion if you don’t agree with it. During a session, if you feel thirsty or feel that you don’t want to continue, you can easily drink water or stop the session in between.
2. I have never been hypnotized:
We all enter a mild state of hypnosis almost every day. For example, those moments you feel right before you are falling asleep, or when you are watching a movie, reading a book, or driving.
3. I can get stuck in hypnosis during a session:
Hypnosis is a natural state and no one can be stuck in trance. It is relaxing and you can snap out of a hypnotic state by simply opening your eyes or after making a few gentle prompts.
How many Hypnotherapy sessions do I need to see a difference?
You will see a difference after the first session. Generally, the number of session depend on the problem area being addressed. The range is 3 – 10 sessions. Smoking cessation, for instance, requires only 3 sessions.
How Do You Hypnotize People?
Hypnotherapists have different styles and techniques. My style is to bring about a hypnotic state through softly spoken words that encourage relaxation.
Will my problems completely go away with hypnotherapy?
Life is difficult and there will always be challenges. What we need to do is effectively cope with and master these challenges. Effective coping relates to self-esteem, confidence, assertiveness, and ability to communicate. Hypnosis is a valuable tool to build these strengths, in essence, giving us the foundation we need to deal with life’s adversities.