In the previous article we referred to the powerful effect that the questions we ask ourselves and the questions we ask others have on psychology and the development of our mentality. Regarding the questions that as parents we are constantly asking unconsciously to our children.
Questions have the power to direct the attention of the mind towards a particular purpose.
Questions have the power to direct the functioning of a great part of our brain, and to a large extent they have a huge impact on the sensations we can experience in our lives.
Numerous experts in neuropsychology in development of human behavior affirm that THE QUALITY OF THE QUESTIONS WE ASK OURSELVES DETERMINES THE QUALITY OF OUR MENTAL HEALTH, our self-esteem and our personal development.
Experts say that the questions are the answers. That the question contains, in itself, the answer.
What does this mean? To better understand, we will give an example.
We saw part of this example in the previous articles. If we ask ourselves: Why does everything go wrong? Why is it so hard for me to get up early? Why is it so difficult to progress in my work? Why does my husband always treat me badly? Why do my children always give me hard work? Why is my career stuck? Why does this or that always happen to me?
What we are doing is ordering our brain - the largest data processor ever
known so far - to search by all means and with all its resources the reasons that justify these questions.
And what the brain will do will be - like the perfect biological machine it is - find, either way, all the logical and illogical reasons (and if it does not find them, it will create them) to justify the answer to those questions.
That is, the brain will bring to mind the memory of all situations and moments, using images, words, smells, flavors and sensations as possible, which will respond specifically to the question asked.
Something interesting that has been discovered recently, is that the brain, although we are not aware of it, is processing information subconsciously, and will not stop working and processing information until it finds all the justications for the question. It will not stop until it is achieved. Awesome, right?
FOR THAT REASON, IT IS KEY, FUNDAMENTAL, IMPERATIVE !!! to be attentive and to be aware of the type of questions we ask ourselves, and mainly the type of questions we ask our children, who are in the midst of mental development.
The quality of the questions we ask children is essential for the correct development of their psychology, because as many of you already know, childhood is the most important moment of our lives. Because that is where unconscious behavior patterns are generated for the rest of our adult life.
WHAT ARE THOUGHT AND BEHAVIOR PATTERNS?
Everything in our universe works by following patterns and our brain and our mind does not work differently. A pattern is an established behavior model that is repeated frequently.
Everything in the mind and in the brain works by following patterns.
If in our childhood we get used to having a negative reection pattern, induced by the negatively oriented leading questions (such as the examples given above) then that pattern will accompany us for the rest of our life. The opposite is equally true.
If we get used to thinking positively when we are children, always looking for the solution to problems, this pattern will also be part of our life as adults.
For that reason as parents and educators we must always be very attentive to what kind of questions we ask our children and therefore what kind of patterns we are installing in their psychology.
SOME EXAMPLES OF THE NEGATIVE USE OF THE QUESTIONS
When asking for example, why are you bored? Why did you behave badly? Why do you always come home dirty? Why are you afraid? and a thousand more examples… What we are doing is inducing the child's brain to look in any way for justifications, reasons, and answers to those questions.
Instead of helping you reflect on what we are doing, it is to anchor the negative pattern more, further strengthening the neural networks that generate those kinds of thoughts and emotions, that kind of behavior we want to avoid. Because what the brain is going to do is look for the reasons why it is boring or bad behavior, etc.
Unfortunately, since we are all part of the same society and share the same unconscious pattern, 98% of the questions (and this is scientically proven) that we ask ourselves and ask others, have a negative connotation and what they do It is to reaffirm our mental programming, our low self-esteem, our role as victims. It's like the dog that bites its tail.
To change this modality, it is essential to take the work seriously and make a rigorous internal observation and be very attentive to the internal dialogue itself and to the questions we ask the little ones and for what purpose.
THE GOOD NEWS is that using the same powerful resource of the questions, we can generate a great change in our mentality and help our children to be the owners of their own psychology. The owners of their mental and emotional state.
What we must always remember and convey to our children is that: sentences close the mind, block the correct functioning of the brain and the questions, as we have seen, open the mind and put into operation the entire psychological mechanism. And the right questions give us the right answers, resulting in appropriate mental and emotional states that allow us to act with greater independence and security.
Instead of saying: "I don't know how to do this," "I can't do it," "I don't have a way to do it." "I think I don't feel good doing this effort." We can ask ourselves:
HOW CAN I DO THIS? HOW CAN I GET IT? HOW CAN I FEEL GOOD? We will be turning on the most powerful machine in the universe - our brain - and putting it to work in our favor, in favor of our well-being.
HOW CAN I? It is the master key, the key by which the entire universe is put into operation. Countless millions of neural connections will be launched in your child's brain after that question, and I will not stop until I find the solution to the difficulty or challenge that lies ahead.
Countless experiments show that even while we sleep our brain continues to work to find or even create the solution and not rarely does it come through a dream, an idea or an inspiration. For that is the power of our brain and with the resource of the questions we can use it in favor of our progress and the progress and development of our children.
The challenge of us as parents is to educate our children so that they learn to use self-inquiry of their own accord and in a correct way, and that they always automatically face any mental, emotional or nature challenge: HOW CAN I SOLVE THIS? HOW CAN I DO THAT?
To achieve this, the first step is to be ourselves who help our children, through the correct and conscious use of the questions, to induce them to think for themselves and to find the solutions for themselves. Installing them in this way a pattern of positive and prorevolutionary thinking and behavior.
If we can teach that resource to our children, so that they can use it for their own benefit, we will have given them a powerful mental defense that will allow them to achieve everything they propose in life, because they will be making use of the greatest and most powerful tool they have available: their own brain.
There are many more resources in the form of questions that we can use to hack our automatic mental programs and provide our children. We will see them gradually to haunt us with so much information and to give us the necessary time to experiment with these valuable pedagogical tools. Because the key to mastery is in experimentation.
“Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day and you will have created in him the need to ask for more. Teach a man to fish and you will feed him for the rest of his life and you will also have provided him with dignity”. Chinese proverb.
With Love,
The Extasticks Team