Part of the reason why I wanted to read Makoto Shichida’s book was because I wanted to hear from the horse’s mouth exactly what activities are important for right brain development. I realise that I haven’t been recording what these activities are, so here is a review of the recommended activities to practice with your child for the first two chapters.
Chapter 1 – the Right Brain’s Ability to Perform Rapid Calculations
Important activities to do with your child to promote development of the right brain’s ability to perform rapid calculations:
- imaging (see below)
- dot cards – I think a good plan to follow is Doman’s Math program but you can probably cut down on the number of repetitions
Chapter 2 – ESP: the Right Brain’s Senses
The right brain has five ESP senses. These are telepathy, clairvoyance, tactility, precognition, and telekinesis. For the sake of understanding the right brain, let’s hold the skepticism for the time being and just look at the activities that Shichida promotes in order to develop the right brain’s senses. Even if you don’t believe in ESP, many of these activities are fun games to play with children.
The fundamental tool to use to help develop these senses is image visualisation.
1. Telepathy
Telepathy is when you are able to read someone else’s mind. You can practice telepathy with your child by forming images in your head and asking your child to tell you what they are. It could be name the colour, name the shape, etc. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t get any more specific than this in regards to how this activity should be performed. My suggestion would be to treat it as a game you can play with your child anywhere – in the car, in the restaurant while waiting for the food to arrive, passing time, etc.
2. Clairvoyance
Clairvoyance is the ability to discern images that are hidden. One activity involves placing cards face down and asking your child to arrange a second set of cards in the correct order as the cards that are facing down. For instance, if you have three cards facing down in the following order – cross, square, star – your child will have to arrange his set of cards in the same order – cross, square, star.
It reminds me of a game we used to play as a child called Mastermind where you have to guess the order and the colours of the pins that are hidden. To practice clairvoyance, you can use the Mastermind game board but omit the step of giving clues after each guess.
3. Tactility
Tactility involves guessing the letter or symbol of a card by touching it. The activity is similar to clairvoyance but you must offer your child the opportunity to touch the card facing down.
What’s the difference between tactility and clairvoyance? They sound almost the same. Well, the end is the same but the method of getting there is slightly different. From the testimonials in Shichida’s book, different children exhibit different abilities so I’m assuming that some children may be able to see the hidden cards through clairvoyance, while others may be required to touch the cards (using tactility) in order to feel what they are.
4. Precognition
Precognition is the ability to predict events in the future. The examples offered by Shichida include being able to predict the weather, the winning horse in a race, unexpected arrivals, and the exact time (to the minute) that a parent will arrive home.
How can you practice precognition? One example is to ask your child which elevator will arrive first in a shopping mall. I used to play this game with Gavin when he was very young – it was just for fun. I would always pick a different elevator from the one he chose just to keep it fun. It was interesting to note that he often got it right (and he was too young to follow the movement of the elevator through that panel that tells you which level the elevator is currently on).
5. Telekinesis
Telekinesis is the ability to move an object with your mind. Shichida offers testimonials from parents about the abilities of their children – such as making a cuckoo clock “cuckoo” even when it isn’t the right time.
Shichida mentions that these senses depend on an individual’s imaging ability so I guess practicing imaging is an important part of developing the right brain’s five senses.
Imaging
Imaging involves getting your child to view a movie in his mind. For example, you could take a magic carpet ride (this is a TweedleWink example) and pretend to fly around the world. Get your child to close his eyes and you can talk about the things you would see. Ask your child if he can see all those things.
In Heguru, the child practice imaging in a similar manner. The lights in the room are dimmed and a recording is played while the children close their eyes. The voice will tell to visualise images and sense everything as if they were there. For instance, feel the breeze, smell the flowers, look at the sunset, taste the ice cream, etc.
Another method of practicing imaging (which is done in Heguru and also in Wink) is to stare intently at a picture for a while then close your eyes. When you close your eyes, you should see an after image of the picture in your mind.
Irene Ng says
Haha…Want to tell you when Hegeru do the imaging session, Ben always pretend to fall asleep and fidget here and there. Cannot get him to pay attention 🙁
Shen-Li says
Ah… it is the same with Gavin. But I tried something new last week. I managed to get him to close his eyes and I talked him through it. For example, when they talked about driving down the road, I asked him which car are we in – Mummy’s car or Daddy’s car? I’ll continually ask him things – is the car black in colour? Look at the sun, did you see the sun? And he answers me back with his eyes closed, so I guess it helps.
physician says
a very nice article you have written about the Brain Education,you have given the two chapter for child’s right brain by this we can test our child’s brain.