At times i will say to parents of children that I
have assessed that they are not seeing
properly. The child all the while doesn't know
any different, thinking that seeing double
is normal or they have been labeled with
inattentiveness but are unaware that their
eyes aren't seeing properly. The parents
often will tell me that they have just seen an optometrist who said that their child has 20/20 vision, with good visual acuity. However seeing and vision are not the same. Vision deals with the part of sight that receives the image on the retina to be processed. Having 20/20 vision does not necessarily mean you have perfect vision. 20/20 vision only indicates the sharpness or clarity of vision at a distance. Seeing however is the physical process of sight, how well can we steer and control our eye muscles to see. It's made up of four elements: focus, teaming, fixation, and eye tracking. Together, this is what is called "eye fitness".

These are all some of the capacities of the frontal lobe’s executive functions in the cognitive higher brain that plays a key role in:

• Responding sensitively to other people and to read their emotional and social cues required to help a child know when to say “I am sorry”  “please”  “thank you”

• Ability to think, plan, reflect and make choices.
• Effective management of strong feeling
• Inhibiting primitive impulses of fight-flight and freeze
• Inhibiting “motoric impulses” – our urges to run, jump, and climb.
• Problem-solving
• Self-awareness
• Kindness, empathy and concern
• Delay gratification
• Creativity and imagination

 
MRI scans shows that only at 21 years of age is the frontal lobe area of the higher brain (neo-cortex) mostly matured to allow top-down brain pathways to be developed to override lower brain functions.  However you as parents can positively impact the connections from the lower infant immature survival brain to the frontal lobes of a child’s brain  as early on as the birth of your child.

I will present FOUR ways that you as parents can be proactive in helping your child make those very vital connections to their brain’s control center.

If you have ruled out:

• Tiredness and hunger
• Intolerance to certain foods and additives
• Need for structure and recognition
• Picking up on your stress
• You’ve unwittingly activated the rage and fear systems in their reptilian brain by for example shouting and issuing endless commands  “Do this”  "Don’t do that”.

 Then your child will be having a temper tantrum which are intense storms of feelings.

They usually happen because a child’s higher brain is not sufficiently developed to deal with powerful feelings in more socially acceptable ways. Many tantrums are the result of genuine emotional pain that should be taken seriously: the pain of impotence, deep frustration, loss, disappointment, and feeling misunderstood. Only some tantrums are primarily motivated by a wish to have control over a parent.