…Discipline, Thinking Skills, Motivation, and Get Good Grades in School

Parents, Grandparents, and teachers should do everything they can to inspire and teach children to exercise their brains and get good grades in school. There are many reasons why children need help and inspiration to be taught thinking exercises, creativity, curiosity, and learning. There is an increasing need to face the increasing obstacles that will need to be overcome as they get older. Many parents, grandparents, and schools are lacking in preparing children for the many thinking and learning skills that create a curious and mentally active mind. A big challenge awaits them as they face technology and political problems as they got older.

The U.S. is not keeping up with the learning knowledge of other nations. Education is the key to motivation, learning skills, and technology which creates a higher education and greater paths that they can choose from in their future.

Most importantly, discipline is a big factor in children’s learning and education. My parent’s goal in life for their four children was for them to get higher education with vocations or college degrees. They were inspired because they were not given the opportunity to get higher education when they were young. They did everything possible to help their children get a higher education. They also understood that discipline was a vital component of both thinking and learning.

Dr. Ben Carson, a brilliant neurosurgeon that ran for president in 2016, was urged by his mother to read as many books as possible. That was the trigger that inspired him and his brother to acquire a college education. Reading is a great way to increase mental acuity and knowledge. There are many other mental exercises that are also a great way to increase thinking ability and learning.

Some of the great ways to learn thinking skills, motivation, and get good grades in school are as follows:

ONE. Starting children out very young with reading and writing are number one on my list of providing thinking skills and learning. Children as young as 2 or 3 need to be taught by parents to start reading, writing, and simple math. Today, there are many learning programs on the internet and at libraries that are great for young children. Spending time with children and teaching them to learn and develop thinking skills will pay many dividends in the future. As they grow older, more complex exercises will help them increase their mental acuity and alertness. These are the steps toward teaching the child to keep learning and increase their knowledge. Parents should do everything they can to help young children start very early to read, write, and do simple math. They are great mind stimulants.

TWO. Reading, writing, and simple math exercises establish structural thinking patterns. Every parent should be aware of establishing discipline, focus, concentration, and thinking skills for their children.

THREE. Music. Music is a great mental thinking exercise. Whether children learn to read music or not, it has been established as a great mental stimulant. Giving all children the opportunity to play the piano or musical instrument increases mental acuity, focus, and concentration. Even singing and memorizing words is a great mental exercise. Many neuroscientists have recommended learning music for children as the number one way to establish thinking patterns and increase mental learning.

FOUR. Thinking and learning skills instill pride and self-esteem in children. No matter at what age, the more education a person gets will help, and will give them more confidence they get in what they do. One of the most valuable mental predictions of successful mental capabilities is the ability to focus. Today we live in a world that is highly technological and complicated in many professions. The ability to focus and stay focused is a get ability that should be taught to all children. Concentration, focus, learning, memory exercises, and recall are vital elements to improving any child’s life. Parents and teachers need to teach focus and concentration. These are learning techniques for all successful people and are the foundation for a person’s success.

FIVE. Creating a positive thinking mind. When children learn to concentrate and learn, they not only create a positive thinking mind but chase out the negative thoughts that will sometimes creep into one’s mind. Positive thinking creates new skills, fresh ideas, and new constructive thoughts. Negative thoughts lead to anxiety, depression, and lower self-esteem.

SIX. Teach your child to ask questions in their mind. Great scientists, philosophers, inventors, physicists, and great thinkers have to ask great questions in their minds before they can research and produce the answers. When a child is young, if you ask them questions about their questions, they will not only learn to answer your questions, but this technique will develop a questioning and curious mind. For instance, if the child asks the parent a question, the parent can ask, “what are your thoughts concerning the subject?” Another example is “ if they ask a question, the parent may say, “ how would you solve the subject you are asking about?” Then the parent could answer the child’s question. I’m sure that Einstein had to ask in his mind, “does gravity bend when it encounters a solid object or gravity like the sun?” Or he asked in his mind, “ how can I find out if energy equals mass times velocity squared?” He then sought out to find the answers. If you have a problem, what do you think in your mind? Probably it is “what can I do to fix the problem?

Believe it or not, six words produce 90 percent of all questions in people’s minds. They are included in my 8 rules of COGNITIVE THINKING. My eight rules are ONE. TEN RULES to follow to produce answers. TWO – SIX. These five words create ninety percent of all questions in people’s minds, What, When, Where, Why, and How. Rule # 7. The TOFE rule.

There are Ten Options (solutions) For Everything, and EIGHT. Keep your mind and body healthy with a great bio-electric diet. Brain health is related to the health of the blood, body cells, organs, and immune system.

These are the rules that start activating your mind to question what, where, when why, and how. These words stimulate your brain and create a way to find a solution. All concepts, discoveries, inventions, and new ideas are the result of someone’s questions in their mind. Children should be taught to learn these eight rules.

Above, I talked about discipline and listed six important patterns and guides for teaching thinking skills that motivate children plus create great neuron and brain development.

Now, I would like to back up a little and discuss thinking skills, motivation, and why these thinking skills are so important for children. It is easy for children to swing into daydreaming and mind loitering. It is hard to keep many children’s attention. Parents and teachers first need to teach children to focus and concentrate for them to be able to absorb any information or knowledge. To concentrate is to exclude or not pay attention to related thoughts, distractions, ideas, feelings, or environmental situations.

One of my teachers in grade school used a method that I did not realize at the time but helps to train children to focus and concentrate. It was an exercise in drawing continuous circles within the lines of a blank page. We had to fill up a whole page of continuous circles without stopping. This exercise takes about ten minutes of a child’s time. When they continue without stopping for that amount of time it will usually help them develop focus and concentration skills. My teacher used to begin the class with the students filling out one page of circles each day. Parents and teachers would be able to use this method as one of the ways to teach children to focus and concentrate. This is also a good way t help them learn to write so it is legible.

Parents and teachers can find other exercises that require a child’s full attention like coloring, math quizzes, writing about excursions that they take, etc. Here are some other ideas that may help children focus and concentrate.

1. Teach them to focus on one thing at a time. Keep their attention until an exercise is done.

2. Use desired subjects that they are interested in and have them try to complete the task at hand.

3. Emphasize them to get 8 or 9 hours of sleep each night.

4. Teach them to focus on one thing at a time.

5. Keep their attention by being near them and helping them.

6. Eliminate distractions, phones, the internet, and external disturbances.

7. Try to use short exercises that do not take a long time.

Continuing with my 20 thinking skills and brain-enhancing subjects, the following are also very important in teaching children thinking skills, focus, concentration, motivation, and getting good grades in school.

SEVEN. A great learning tool is a computer. Children can learn to focus and concentrate by doing research and exercises on the computer. The faster they learn to accomplish goals, the faster they will improve many parts of their thinking skills, plus the more they will learn. Most children usually will learn to use the computer in a short time. If they are directed toward the right learning subjects, they will pick up many thinking skills. My suggestion is to introduce goals or research subjects that they are interested in on the computer. Have them investigate subjects that they like and enjoy. Some supervision is needed to steer them in the right direction.

EIGHT. Introduce them to the library and help them look up enjoyable learning subjects that they are interested in. Some of the reading goals that a parent or teacher may try to achieve are; teaching them to remember information that the child researches and studies, remembering dates, ideas, and concepts while increasing focus and concentration. The library will allow them the opportunity to open up new areas of learning, new information, and knowledge, plus reading increases short and long-term memory. Teaching them to remember information that they research is also a very good practice.

NINE. Books are magical windows that allow children to expand their perspectives and teach them to focus and concentrate. Some of the great benefits of reading books are exercising the neurons in the brain and helping children reduce stress and tension. Scientists have shown that reading exercises help both the right and left sides of the brain. Reading creates new neural pathways and connections in a child’s brain. When interested in what the child is reading, it has been shown that children increase their long-term memory. One great benefit of reading is that it gives children confidence and increases retention and recall. Also, neurons in a child’s brain react to stimulated activity in the literature. George R.R. Martin, an author, wrote: “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, but a non-reader lives only one life.”

TEN. Reading helps children in their relationships with other children and adults. It increases cognitive learning and new neuron development. It is a great learning tool. The more awareness the child interprets, the broader their everyday prospectives become. Reading books are a great brain-developing tool and gifts for birthday and Christmas. The foregoing advantages of learning with books and on the computer can not be overstated. Parents, grandparents, and teachers can all help increase the child’s thinking skills with some attention and help in computing and reading suggestions.

ELEVEN. A great trait is to teach children to be the devil’s advocate. Recently, I read a story about a teacher who mentioned in a geography class that a kilometer was the same length as a mile. One child raised his hand and said he disputed the teacher’s logic and said that a kilometer was not as long as a mile. The teacher mentioned that the student should not question his authority, but the child kept insisting that a kilometer was shorter than a mile. The teacher, after he chastised the child, wrote a letter to his father stating that his child should not question his authority. The father went to the school with his encyclopedia and finally convinced the teacher that he was wrong. I mentioned before that when a child asks a question, it is good to answer with a question like, “what are your thoughts, or what do you think the answer might be? The parent or teacher is teaching the child to be the devil’s advocate. In today’s political world, there are more and more lies that need someone to question them. All people need to be the devil’s advocate when politicians create lies.

TWELVE. Thinking skills, learning, and getting good grades in school help children obtain scholarships for higher learning and education. My daughter was a valedictorian in high school and obtained a great scholarship for four years in college. It was a reward for getting good grades in school. Children today have a great many scholarships to choose from if they get good grades in high school. Getting good grades is a great asset and will bring rewards throughout their lifetime, even if the child is not able to get scholarships or awards. Starting when a child is very young, parents need to understand that by helping their children learn thinking skills and study habits, they are doing the child a lifetime favor. It usually will bring parents great rewards when they keep up teaching the child ways to think and learn.

THIRTEEN. Learning and thinking skills enable a child to be able to make better choices in their goals and path to higher education or other vocations. There are many obstacles that a child faces in deciding on a lifetime vocation. Usually, the better the education and learning, the more able the child is to make intelligent decisions about their future. Please do not think that a child has to make up their mind by the time they graduate from high school. Sometimes it takes a few years and many students may choose the armed forces, or other paths. That may be the best choice for them. As a veteran, they will get an education that they may not be able to get otherwise. If they have not made up their mind about a vocation they may need some extra time.

We are in some turbulent times. The political situation in the United States is worse than it has ever been since 1776. The government needs to get a lot of things straightened out.

August 2022

~ the Author ~
Merle E. Loudon, B.S., D.D.S. graduated from the University Of Washington School Of Dentistry in 1957. After two years of service in the Air Force, he started a private practice in East Wenatchee, Washington. For the past 45 years his practice has included Orthodontics and TM Dysfunction treatment specializing in temporomandibular pain treatment, headache, head and neck pain control, functional jaw orthopedics, and straight wire orthodontics. Associated with mercury elimination, oral surgery, crowns and bridges is TMJ treatment, diet control, parasite elimination, intestinal cleansing and healing (wellness).

Merle E. Loudon, B.S., D.D.S. has taught advanced courses for dentists on TM Dysfunction treatment, orthodontics and related pain control for more than 30 years. In 1972 he was the first dentist in Washington to use straight wire orthodontics and the first dentist to correct vertical deficiencies in children by placing vertical dimension-primary molar buildups and/or vertical (erupting) appliances. Merle E. Loudon, B.S., D.D.S. was involved with the first group of dentists to recognize lateral tongue splinting in young infants and integrate functional and fixed techniques to correct vertical dimension deficiencies and condylar placement. He is the originator of vertical dimension-primary molar build ups, which help to correct deep bites and Otitus media in children. He invented the Loudon-Chateau Anterior Repositioning Appliance, the functional muscle malocclusion concept, the twelve commandments of occlusion and the vertical overbite domino rule. Merle E. Loudon, B.S., D.D.S. has written numerous articles in several American and foreign dental journals and has lectured in over 50 cities and 7 foreign countries on functional jaw orthopedics, fixed wire orthodontics, Otitus media treatment and TM Dysfunction treatment. He has been instrumental in setting up criteria for teaching in the International Association For Orthodontics, including the certified instructor program.

Dr. Loudon is a member of The American Dental Association, Diplomat and Senior Instructor in the International Association for Orthodontics, and is a Diplomat of the American Academy of Pain Management. He also is a member of the American Orthodontic Society.