Jello Brain | How Kids’ Brains Work

We’ve all been there. You know, that day when you and your child have worked so hard learning something new, like their ABCs or how to do long division. They’ve got it and you are so proud of them. Then … all of a sudden, out of the blue … they can’t remember how to do it! No matter how you hint, cajole, or even threaten, they keep insisting they don’t remember. You know they know this stuff! What’s up? Makes you want to tear your hair out!

But, before you engage in a battle of wills, assuming your child is rebelling and lying to get out of work, I want you to consider another possible explanation. I call it “Jello Brain”.

You see, the brain is made up of about a billion neurons. These little neurons communicate with each other by sending electronic impulses from one neuron to another. When we learn something new, these neurons fire electronic impulses along a new path through the brain cells. When this path is well established, the thing that has been learned is very easy to recall, sometimes to the point of being automatic, not requiring much thought at all. Remember when you were learning to drive? You had to put a lot of thought into every action, but once you learned, driving became almost automatic – to the point where if you are in the passenger seat and you see a threat of crashing, you automatically step on a brake that isn’t even there!

A path on the earth takes repetition, effort, and maintenance for it to become permanent. If I walk across my lawn one time, there will be very little, if any evidence that I’ve been there. But if I walk that same direction every day or many times a day, pretty soon a path will form. The neurons in our brains work in the same way. After a while, these paths become well established and if we really work at them they can become 8 or 10 lane highways!

Adults usually have lots of well-established highways from neuron to neuron, but children are just building them. And they face another challenge – their developing brains are rather “soft”. They have “set”, but are more the consistency of jello when it comes to holding information than the hard earth of an adult brain. Information hasn’t yet been crammed into them and packed down, so a pathway can be destroyed pretty easily. An oncoming illness, not enough sleep, a fight with a brother, or even watching a train race by, can jumble things up enough that part or all of that path is lost, rendering your child unable to retrieve the information.

Yes, your child might just be unwilling to work, but most likely they are experiencing “Jello Brain”. If you pressure, argue or try to shame your child into remembering, you will most likely just end up with a screaming, resentful mess on your hands. It’s better just to chalk it up to Jello Brain and start over. Most of the time it is better to wait an hour or a day or two before starting to rebuild so that whatever is interfering with the learning process has a chance to pass. Do something else and come back to it later.

Hope that helps!

God Bless You All!

~ Grama Sue