For adolescents it is important to stimulate the neurons growing in their mind as much as possible before they reach the middle of puberty. This help stimulate the different areas of the brain so that as it rewires over the following few years in preparation for adulthood. The best way of doing that is to expose them to many new activities and problems that they haven’t experienced before.
I recently listened to Steve Wosniak, co-founder of Apple. He is a truly amazing person to listen to. Apart from some of the insider stories, did you know that after Apple was a success he went back and trained as a teacher and taught in a school for 8 years under a false name?
One of the things Steve spoke about really linked in with the development of the brain for adulthood. Whilst at school he did extra studying, whilst at college he did extra projects in his evenings, whilst working at Apple, he would develop different things at night. Steve believes that if you raise your children to only be able to answer the questions they need to answer for their school tests, then they will only know what everyone else knows.
Now let’s think about this, it’s very important that our children enjoy and succeed in education. There is no doubt about this and I would strongly argue with anyone who said differently. However, what Steve is saying is that if you want your child to be different, to be one of the few life changing people in this world then they need to be able to do more than do what everyone else is able to do.
This is such a valid point, think about what makes you special. I bet it’s the differences that make you you. Think about the things you celebrate as successes in your life, I bet they stand out from the normal. And that is exactly the point, what are you going to teach your children that is additional to what they need to pass their exams at school? It may be that that makes the difference to their lives in the future.
And how do you achieve that?
By exposing your child to as many experiences as you can during their early teenage years!
