Flexibility: The Brain's Best Asset
I was recently chatting with my soon to be mom-in-law about how powerful mental flexibility is in almost branch of life. The conversation began simply with reflections about both of our experiences with toddlers, her having had three of her own, and I being nine years older than my youngest sibling, remembering how difficult it could be to decipher what a toddler really wants or needs. If a toddler asks for a banana, and you hand him a peeled banana, he may cry. Why? Because he had imagined an intact banana for himself to peel. Worse still if you peeled, cut and plated the banana and he wished to eat it from the peel, intact. A child can become so infuriated at having been given the wrong version of their request. As an older sister, I remember frequently being able to decipher my little brother's yearnings before our dad could, banana or otherwise. This nostalgic reflection on my own childhood inspired further thought into the strength tha...