Dharma Parenting: Understand Your Child's Brilliant Brain for Greater Happiness, Health, Success, and Fulfillment

Dharma Parenting: Understand Your Child's Brilliant Brain for Greater Happiness, Health, Success, and Fulfillment

Two renowned neuroscientists and pioneers in documenting the benefits of Transcendental Meditation give parents a guided tour of their children's brains through contemporary science and ancient Ayurvedic typology (parents can "type" their kids and themselves) for a wealth of methods and insights to maximize your child's learning and behavioral style. Dharma Parenting offers a uniquely individual approach to raising a happy and successful child. The word "dharma" means a way of living that upholds the path of evolution, maintains balance, and supports both prosperity and spiritual freedom. For the first time, we can understand why one child learns quickly and forgets quickly while another learns slowly and forgets slowly; why one child is hyperactive and another slow moving; or why one falls asleep quickly but wakes in the night while another takes hours to fall asleep. Leading brain researchers Robert Keith Wallace and Frederick Travis combine knowledge from modern science, ancient Ayurveda, and their personal experience to show how to unfold the full potential of a child's brain, as well as how to nurture his or her inherent brilliance and goodness.         The first tool of Dharma Parenting is to determine your child's--and your own--brain/body type through a simple quiz. The Eastern system of natural medicine called Ayurveda has used three distinct mind/body types (and combinations of these types) for thousands of years. Scientific studies suggest that there is a specific set of genetic, biochemical, and physiological characteristics that underlie each of the three main Ayurveda mind/body types. Coupling old and new wisdom, Dharma Parenting offers unique insight into why a child is the way he or she is and reveals how to bring each child into a state of balance. Its language is readily comprehensible by parents of any cultural background, with real-life stories to illustrate areas of universal parental concern--such as emotions, behavior, language, learning styles, habits, diet, health issues, and, most importantly, the parent-child relationship. ROBERT KEITH WALLACE is a pioneering researcher on the physiology of consciousness. His research has inspsired hundreds of studies on the benefits of meditation and other mind-body techniques. Dr. Wallace's findings have been published in Science, American Journal of Physiology, and Scientific American. He received his BS in physics and his PhD in physiology from UCLA and conducted postgraduate research at Harvard University. Dr. Wallace is the founding president of Maharishi University of Management (MUM) in Fairfield, Iowa. FREDERICK TRAVIS is a world-renowned neuroscientist who has discovered brain wave patterns in children and young people that correlate with  greater moral reasoning, happiness, emotional stability, and academic performance. Dr. Travis has authored or coauthored 70 scientific papers, many published in leading peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Travis received his masters and PhD in psychology from Maharishi University of Management (MUM). After a two-year post-doctoral position at University of California at Davis, he returned to MUM to direct the EEG, Consciousness, and Cognition Lab. DHARMA PARENTING is a unique approach to raising happy and successful children. It starts with the understanding that kids are people with their own strengths and weakness, their own gifts and preferences. Dharma Parenting provides you with simple tools to help your children discover who they are and what they can become .   Dharma is a concept found in Eastern traditions. The word “dharma” comes from the Sanskrit verb dhri , which means to “uphold” or “support.” Our dharma is our path in life—the lifestyle that supports our personal growth, happiness, success, and fulfillment. Dharma is different at different ages, and for different children. One child learns quickly and forgets quickly, while another learns slowly and forgets slowly. One may be content to work alone for long periods of time; another wants to be surrounded by friends. If we are lucky, we find our dharma early in life.   For example, we know a brilliant second-year college student who wants to teach high school math. He feels that he was born to be a teacher—his parents were both teachers, and he has been tutoring classmates since third grade. He tells us there’s nothing as satisfying as his friends’ “Aha!” when they finally “get” what he’s trying to teach them. It’s clear that teaching is his dharma. Two of his college professors, however, were shocked when he revealed his career goal. One responded by telling him to get a PhD: “You could do brilliant theoretical work!” And his computer science teacher said, “You could become a world-class programmer and be a millionaire before you’re twenty-five!” Both of these professors were projecting their own talents and desires onto the student, instead of encouraging his special aptitudes and interest. Rather than help him find his