When we enter this world our mind is like a sponge. It is ready to absorb and learn from every single thing in our surroundings.  From birth to age six, our brain stays in the low frequency activity range labeled as Delta and Theta wavelength (0.5-8 Hz). This is similar to when a hypnotherapist drops the brain activity to a state that is below conscious awareness.

This scientific measurement clues us into the importance parents play in shaping and creating a child’s world. Often parents think their children’s genes will be in charge of the way the child develops, but we are learning that is just not the truth. The study of how environmental input, or epigenetics, shapes a child’s health and behavior is a newly emerging area of research that has a lot to say about the way we raise our families.

Epigenetics says the sponge that is our developing brain will soak up the beliefs, attitudes and behaviors that we observe in our parents. We essentially download the environment onto our hard drive and compare every event in our life to this reference point. This means that as I grow up and I watch my parents fight about money, I will develop an attitude about money that reflects what I have stored on my hard drive. This is most obvious to any parent whose child has repeated a curse word with almost the same tone, inflection and meaning behind it as the parent did.

This precise and detailed behavior-recording system will cement into the circuitry of the brain whatever signals it receives. Whether they are of praise and joy or statements such as “you will never amount to anything,” “You are so stupid,” or “Grow up.”  At such a young age a child’s brain has not evolved enough to question these statements and once programmed into the subconscious will shape the behavior and life of a child’s development.

So as a parent you must identify what fears you are reinforcing in your own life and therefore passing onto your next generation. You must do the work on yourself and determine what unnecessary investment of your own focus is limiting you. And you must take care not to pass those limiting beliefs on. Know that your choices, actions and presence helps to shape their world and that you have an amazing responsibility to help them reach their soul purpose, aA duty to teach them of the greatness inside of them.  And above all else, JUST BE LOVE!