A Minute for Parents

Summary

The Brain Believes What You Tell It

Article

By JoAnn Hibbert Hamilton

“The human brain is capable of doing anything we would like it to do,” according to Dr. Dean Belnap, a specialist in pediatrics and child/adolescent psychiatry and author of the book, A Brain Gone Wrong – Hope for the Troubled Teen, Meridian Publishing, www.meridianbooks.net. This is actually an exciting concept.

Dr. Belnap continues, “But we have to know how to use it (the brain) and how to treat it. What we imprint determines what we see, feel, do and like. If we treat the brain carefully, giving it the right direction, it will do the right thing and work for us in the right way . . . . But if we give our highly sophisticated brain the wrong directions, those imprints will develop negative programs that ‘dumb-down’ our potential. For example, those who are addicted feel and think of nothing but feeding their need; those who have lived with violence and abuse see no other way to survive. Negative imprints dominate our society” (Ibid.).

I worry about the images that we do not know about that are negative that are being imprinted on our children’s brains. For instance, I received a letter from a bus driver who lives in Bountiful. He had a concern. As he drives to school many of the children on his bus are sharing images they have on their cell phones. His comment was, “I can tell by the reaction that the pictures they are looking at aren’t pictures of cars.”

A brain imprinted with pornography rewires to the new stimulation which sets aside the ability to plan, organize, manage emotions, understand others, read circumstances, and exercise judgment in place of the need to feel exhilarated by sexual stimulation. (Ibid.). Because of the way the brain is developed teens can become addicted to pornography, alcohol or drugs very easily, and they need to understand this before they are curious about it. About pornography, Dr. Belnap on page 46 says that “because of a strong and natural human sex drive, all it takes is one view, no more than four, to be imprinted and possibly addicted—for life.” He suggests that parents talk and talk and talk about this as well as fill down time with something that stimulates their creative senses, their athletic interests, or their social skills. He states, “Be there for their activities and their quiet moments.”

“Damage has been documented; the damage is real.” Dr. Belnap continues: “They (youth) . . . should talk with Paul, a young man who is recovering from addiction to pornography. Paul said, ‘The other drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and met amphetamine, they will eventually just leave your body, but the pornography images will stay in your head for a long, long time.’”

It is encouraging to know that with help the negative programming can be erased—just like a disk in a computer—and replaced with positive programming that will stay with us and drive our thinking, our feelings and our actions.” Evidently the brain isn’t fully developed until about age 25, but as parents we realize that it is easier to avoid some problems than to overcome them.

Dr. Belnap states that “we become the living results of our own thoughts. Every action we take, of any kind, is affected by prior programming—imprinting. A positive set of attitudes, beliefs and behaviors prompts an abundance of self-belief and the moral foundation for our life’s direction. The same is true for established patterns that follow the darker side of society.” He states that “many of our youth are living out the ‘wrong’ picture of themselves that has been created in their minds.”