How a Mother Nurtured her Son's Hidden Genius

This Mother Tore Off Labels And Nurtured Her Son’s Hidden Genius

By Stephanie Broadhurst/The Mother List
Here’s an incredible story about a mother who totally disregarded what experts said about her son and threw off the label that was slapped on him as a toddler. Instead, she followed her own instincts – with astounding results.
Kristine Barnett’s son Jacob was diagnosed with autism when he was 2, and doctors said he would never speak. She tried special education programs and therapies aimed at addressing his limitations. When teachers told her there was no hope, she rebelled and took her own path.
“A lot of people thought that I had lost my mind,” she recalls.
Instead of focusing on Jacob’s limitations, Kristine nurtured his interests. Now her 15-year-old son is on track to win a Nobel Prize for his work in theoretical physics.
Relying on the insights she developed at her in-home daycare, Kristine resolved to follow Jacob’s “spark” — his passionate interests. Why concentrate on what he couldn’t do? Why not focus on what he could? This philosophy, along with her belief in the power of childhood play, helped her son grow in incredible ways.
“He liked repetitive behaviors. He would play with a glass and look at the light, twisting it for hours on end. Instead of taking it away, I would give him 50 glasses, fill them with water at different levels and let him explore,” she says. “I surrounded him with whatever he loved.”
The more she did that, the more it worked. Then one night, as he was being tucked in, Jacob spoke. “It was like music … because everybody had said it was an impossible thing,” Kristine recalls.”I would tuck him in every night and say, ‘Goodnight, baby Jacob, you’re my baby angel, and I love you very much.’ One night he looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘Night-night baby bagel.’ All along he must have thought I had been calling him a bagel!”
Jacob is now a student of theoretical physics at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, with an IQ measured to be higher than Einstein’s.
Kristine chronicles her son’s incredible journey and breakthrough in her book “The Spark: A Mother’s Story of Nurturing, Genius, and Autism.”
When she talks to other moms who have children on the spectrum, ADHD, learning disorders, or other disabilities, she tells them: “It’s really important that when you have a label, you don’t let that label define you. What are your children good at? Let that define them. Create motivations that are self-driven. Let them pursue what they love.”
“As parents, we know in our hearts what our kids need,” she says, “and we need to trust that a little more. Even if that goes against what others are saying.”

Reblogged via : The Mother List

What has humanity come down to?

Today I was crossing the road & there was this poor lady (who looked physically distorted) trying to get passerby's attention.
But so many people passed her without even looking at her.
She wasn't begging for money, she was asking someone to buy her an asthma medicine (an empty bottle of which she held in her hand)
& people passed by as if she did not even exist.

What has mankind fallen to if we are not compassionate to fellow human beings?

Why Learning is Important when you can Google Everything

Most of us can remember formulae, etc., or google most of the stuff we talk about in class. But the one thing you cannot google is how to think.
- Professor Kaul

What led me to write the previous post

I forgot to mention the context of the previous post. My (maternal)
grandfather had a minor heart attack today. He was brought from the
village to Jaipur & admitted in Fortis. I met him in the morning then
came back from showroom later in the evening to meet him. One of his
acquaintances, a 'powerful' person with contacts at Fortis was also
there with me to meet him.
Now neither of us had visitors passes. Both the passholders were
upstairs. I called upstairs to send a pass.
While we were waiting for the passes, I was shocked that this person
argued with the guard, used their 'power' to enter the lift & get to
the ICU floor without the pass.
The reason I was shocked was at the abuse of power on someone who was
doing his duty, the guard, to crush a system that was made for the
benefit of the patients.
Do we humans, possibly the most intelligent species on the Earth,
really need to be so SELFISH?

Truth, the anti-venom of fear

'Tu kar khudko buland itna, ki khuda bhi pooche,

Bata teri raza Kya hai|

Tu khuda ke bhi samaksh na jhuke,

Aisa aatmavishwaas tu swayam mein jaga|'

I do not know the source for these poetic lines, but sure do agree
with the essence.
Something bad happened lately, that should in ideal terms not happen,
not just to me but to anyone. But the world is not ideal.
When bad things happen, people tend to be afraid, be fearful. That is
wrong, fear is a venom, it spreads, it wrecks, it curbs the mind &
saps strength.
When I realized I was becoming fearful, of something, of unknown, I
realized the fear itself will not let me work. I started out to find a
cure, an anti-venom of fear.
What I realized was strikingly simple yet so profound.
Being Righteous, is the anti-venom of fear, in all rights. What
righteousness does is give you courage, self-reliance, freedom from
fear.

Mind, a pitchfork

This is story of me, my mind. It is a pitchfork in essence.
For those that may not know, pitchfork is a simple instrument that can
be tuned into a particular frequency. i.e. it responds only to that
frequency & considers any other frequencies as noise & does not
'respond' to it.
Similar is my mind. It needs to be tuned, aligned to a frequency only
then does it respond to that goal or stimuli otherwise it does not
care about that frequency or stimuli, ignores it as if it were noise.
A few years back I'd tuned it to studies, I excelled. Anything else,
my mind would simply ignore, because it was not tuned in to those
other frequencies.
Then there was a turbulent magnetic wind in my third year that
disturbed the tuning. Since then, being a pitchfork, it tuned in to
many frequencies from time to time, but none stuck for long.
Now I have a goal, Jewelove, I need to tune it again. I have done it
before & can do it again. Only when it is tuned in, will it the work
the way it should.
Only then, will there be freedom.

True Story of the sacrifice of Mother

This is a true story of Mother’s Sacrifice during the China Earthquake.

After the Earthquake had subsided, when the rescuers reached the ruins of a young woman’s house, they saw her dead body through the cracks. But her pose was somehow strange that she knelt on her knees like a person was worshiping; her body was leaning forward, and her two hands were supporting by an object. The collapsed house had crashed her back and her head.

With so many difficulties, the leader of the rescuer team put his hand through a narrow gap on the wall to reach the woman’s body. He was hoping that this woman could be still alive. However, the cold and stiff body told him that she had passed away for sure.
He and the rest of the team left this house and were going to search the next collapsed building. For some reasons, the team leader was driven by a compelling force to go back to the ruin house of the dead woman. Again, he knelt down and used his had through the narrow cracks to search the little space under the dead body. Suddenly, he screamed with excitement,” A child! There is a child!“

The whole team worked together; carefully they removed the piles of ruined objects around the dead woman. There was a 3 month old little boy wrapped in a flowery blanket under his mother’s dead body. Obviously, the woman had made an ultimate sacrifice for saving her son. When her house was falling, she used her body to make a cover to protect her son. The little boy was still sleeping peacefully when the team leader picked him up.
The medical doctor came quickly to exam the little boy. After he opened the blanket, he saw a cell phone inside the blanket. There was a text message on the screen. It said,”If you can survive, you must remember that I love you.” This cell phone was passing around from one hand to another. Every body that read the message wept.” 

If you can survive, you must remember that I love you. Such is the mother’s love for her child!!

Remember, if you are reading this you are alive & no matter what, your mother loves you!

Human Interference or Extinction by Natural Selection

What set me thinking & reference for data : BBC Documentary

What I'm thinking is a bit strange & many may find the idea(s) weird too, but its an exploration into "What If?"

I Love Science & Technology, but what if?

The FACTS & ASSUMPTIONS
These are basic facts, if you know them, move to The IDEA!

• Fact : Almost 27,000 species of plants & animals are wiped out of existence eveyr year! Primary reason : Human activities.
• Fact : By mid 1970's 50% of the virgin rainforests were destroyed. Primary reason : Deforestation by Humans
• Fact : CO2 concentrations in air have increased by almost 40% in the last 250 years. They have crossed a limit in the last 250 years that they never crossed in the past 800,000 years! Primary reason : Industrialization of the Earth by Humans!
• Fact : Ozone Layer is depleting at a rate of about 4% every decade, way too fast! Reason : Emission of CFCs & excess Nitrous compounds which cannot be regulated by Nature's existing mechanisms.
• There are a lot of other facts & assumptions that can be set out. By the way, the assumption in the above points is that Human/Human activities are the primary reason of this all.
  

The Idea

Now, what I am thinking right now is

• What If all this is not the wrongdoing of Man (not wanting to be a sexist, let's say) Humans, but that is how evolution works when Mass Extinction is required or desirable by Nature & its mechanisms?
• What If when a species starts dominating the Earth, or Mass Extinction is desirable by Nature (for whatever reason, some discussed below), Nature "makes" the dominant specie lose control & initiate mass extinction?

Possible Reasons for Nature "wanting" this
Pure Science Fiction here, feel free to chip in!

• Dominant specie(s) are breaking the Natural Cycle. For instance, in case of human civilization, advancement of medical sciences, ability to travel across the oceans, overcoming the need for migration etc.
• Nature thinks it might be a good idea to let them dominate, then changed its nature or as we humans call it, changed its mind.
• Nature wants to bring about a drastic change in the Life & Species & needs a medium to do that. Historical examples, extinction of the HUGE & Mighty dinosaurs & reducing their heirs to the size of snakes & lizards.
• Nature determines a change in the planet-wide conditions is required without the influence of external forces likes an asteroid/meteorite strike, solar flares etc. which can lead to other changes undesirable by Nature.
• Nature just got bored of the dominant species & wants a change.
  

This is primarily a creation of my mind & imagination & so in the blog, "Into the Mind!"