Streamline Learning
Mothering Magic
The End of Self-Sacrifice
— BRYN MAWR PARENT
— GILMAN PARENT
Streamline Learning
Assembly Line Learning… SUCKS for Moms
Learning in school is a lot like being a product churned out in a factory. But when students have learning disabilities or psychological challenges, schools don’t take responsibility for the quality of their product (students’ brains). Instead, these challenges typically become mothers’ responsibility.
If school accommodates these challenges, it doesn’t actually change the way it delivers instruction to make learning faster for your child.
Instead, schools give students more time to do the same work. The rationale is that by providing more time for students with cognitive dysregulation, education can be more fair.
In this context, mothers “learn” about their children in all the wrong ways. They get handed down information about their child that often boils down to some sort of “defect” with their child, whether it’s a cognitive challenge or a downstream effect like challenges with performance on standardized tests.
We find that school tends to overlook what’s special about a child unless that child requires little effort among teachers to help them learn. “Brilliant” children at school are just ones that require little work for teachers.
This is not teachers’ or administrators’ fault. It’s the ENVIRONMENT at school that prevents teachers from learning (about learning), TOO.
Report Cards + Tests are for Moms
Report cards and test scores dictate mothers’ futures just as much as they do their children’s. Success in school and higher education is correlated with higher earning potential for students. When students struggle in school or don’t stack up, mothers face the immediate and long-term consequences.
As de facto CEOs of their own learning companies, mothers are constantly learning by integrating the perspectives of their loved ones. When their children aren’t learning and growing, mothers are first to observe and experience stress.
This biological mechanism of the maternal brain is an evolutionary mechanism that keeps children alive and learning. It also makes mothers MORE AWARE than anyone when their child is not learning or in pain.
Unfortunately, school teaches parents to let go of the brilliance they see in their children, claiming an unbiased perspective. The reality is that school’s perspective IS biased by how easily your child is able to function within the constraints of an institution that doesn’t have the capacity to learn deeply about your child. When gatekeepers to a child’s future don’t know the child, mothers struggle to lead the brilliant lives they’re meant to lead.
Flipping The Script:
How mothers can test school
Is my child breathing clean air at school?
Humans have basic needs. One of them is clean air. The White House reports that Indoor Air Quality is our number one public health emergency, citing school’s air quality as the worst in the nation. For decades, indoor air quality has grown worse with aging buildings and poor construction practices. With so many children struggling with a sensitized immune system post COVID-19, millions of children are experiencing significant cognitive, pyschological, and immunological dysregulation from breathing bad air at school, disrupting their ability to learn. Learn more.
Screen for a brain on fire
Have your child take this 5-minute neuro-inflammation screener at school. Doctors specializing in chronic illness have found the VCS to be an accurate assessment of whether a patient is struggling with a curable condition called Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS). When combined with at least 7 symptoms across 13 symptom clusters, the VCS produces a 3% false positive rate. The assessment’s results can be validated by specific hormone testing as well as transcriptonomic testing found here. (Note: There is a 20% false negative rate among women.)
Test home and school to identify the culprit
See past the veil shrouding neurological realities at school. Use simple, cheap EPA-developed dust swiffer tests to check for bacteria/mold toxin levels in school (or any old building with dusty HVACs or water damage). We recommend testing for the two most problematic microbes: actinomycetes and endotoxins.
Apply Ian’s insights into brainwise coaching at home.
Mothering Magic Consulting:
The End of Self Sacrifice
Although it may appear that high school and college students need good grades and test scores to succeed in life, addressing these challenges directly (with accommodations and/or psychotropic drugs) represents a missed opportunity to consider the environment that may be causing these problems at their root. Just as important, brain-aware moms can use their awareness to end a pattern of self-sacrifice in relation to their family members’ brain health. We help moms do that.
Step 1: Put your "oxygen mask" on first.
We know to put our own oxygen mask on before our children’s in case of an emergency on a plane. The same goes with breathing clean air. To be able to be to protect your child, you’ll need a clear mind and the ability to trust your instincts. Get screened for Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome here. Test your house here. We recommend testing for the most common culprits of chronic inflammation: Acitnomycetes and Endotoxins.
Step 2: Develop brain-wise second sight
Moms have incredible intuitive capacities when it comes to protecting their children. What’s challenging is that society’s ignorance around neuro-immunological realities concerning bad IAQ has caused mothers to ignore their intuition. When mothers look for specific behaviors in their children and the people in their children’s environment, they can re-frame their awareness around the pure goodness that exists in their child and focus their energy on addressing root causes to negative behaviors and/or limiting beliefs that keep their child from learning.
Step 3: Develop brain-wise listening skills
When you develop an awareness of the relationship between bad IAQ and brain dysregulation, you can appreciate why institutional forces that obscure realities around learning about your child are made worse. Because teachers and administrators work in the same buildings where your child goes to school, it’s important to keep in mind that professionals who are evaluating your child may have trouble learning about your child because adults working in school have been exposed to toxic sources the longest. Mothering Magic teaches mothers how to practice brain-wise compassionate listening, learning what they can but also grounding their perspective in the reality that school officials’ perspectives of their child is likely very much incomplete.
Step 4: Reclaim your maternal green thumb
After integrating brain-wise seeing and listening skills, you’ll start to recognize how well you’ll be able to understand the relationship between cause and effect in your examination of your child’s environment and their behaviors around learning. This is where the Mothering Magic begins. By communicating strategically and taking advantage of the latest insights into brain health, you’ll begin to see how powerful you can be in creating an environment for your child that allows them to be brilliant, happy, and completely themselves.
Step 5: End the pattern of self-sacrifice
Since mothers tend to be more connected to everyone in the family than any other family member, they uniquely feel the pain and take on the responsibility of their family members’ brain health in an act of self-sacrifice. To prevent the breakdown of the family unit, this sacrifice is honorable and has been needed. It has also paved the way for us to learn. What doctors have learned about bad IAQ and brain health gives mothers the chance to redraw the lines of responsibility for their family members’ brain health and lead the charge toward a life of brilliance and joy. Mothering Magic Consulting accelerates this process for mothers who are ready to put their brilliance and their children’s brilliance first.
Do flowers grow when you call them names?
Flowers are meant to blossom. Children are meant to learn. When this potential isn’t fulfilled, it’s safe to assume something from their environment is affecting their brain. This may be true biologically, but most professionals in psychology and learning (as well as most doctors) are brain-blind. That’s not to dismiss their perspectives. In fact, using their perspectives as data points in understanding your child can be invaluable when you recognize that diagnoses of learning and psychological conditions are just trailheads pointing you toward the Native Brilliance you have complete power to unlock as a mother.
Below, you’ll find a breakdown of common diagnoses and a translation of what brilliance potential is available for your child once their chronic neurological stress is relieved. Complete our Native Brilliance Assessment about your child to get a deeper sense of their Native Brilliance and the way chronic neuro-inflammation can give teachers the wrong idea about your child’s brilliance at school.
Anxiety / Depression = Visionary
Incredible perceptual powers and powers of anticipation
ADHD = Pioneer
Impressive ability to learn on the fly and turn that learning into action
Autism = Accountant
Incredible memory and ability to distill what’s important from the past
Dyslexia/Social Anxiety = Integrator
Uncanny ability to think from and integrate the perspective of others
Manic Depression = Persuader
Innate creativity that makes them best at changing others’ minds
OCD = Investigator
Powerful analytical faculties that help them catch important realities others miss
About Us
Katherine Smith, PhD
Family & Individual Therapist
Katherine combines her experience recovering from CIRS with over three decades of family and individual therapy work. Her interest and research areas are in Family Systems and Polyvagal theory, which inspired the development of the Native Brilliance Assessment..
You
CEO of YOUR "LEARNING COMPANY"
As a mother, you’re the resident expert on this page. You engage with the ideas Katherine and Ian have spent decades learning about on a daily basis. When you really think about what your brain is capable of, you ARE brilliant. For this reason, we are subsidiary CEOs to your “learning company.”
Ian Siegel
CEO of Streamline Learning & CIRS Certified Partner
Ian uses his personal experience recovering from CIRS, his experience tutoring more than anyone in the country in the last decade, and his experience being the CEO of Streamline Learning to empower mothers to lean into their intuition and witness the true magic of their children’s brilliance fully realized.