How Elements Works
What is Brain Engineering?
The most crucial moment of the entire process is what happens before the first phone call. It is answering the question, "is this the right program for my child?" Most children experience struggles and challenges in school. In fact, it's crucial that they do! However, when those struggles start to bleed into family life, causing arguments and battles around homework, missing assignments, or sliding grades, it causes stress for every member of the household. Maybe your child is constantly missing deadlines unintentionally and is forgetful and absent minded in other aspects of life as well. Maybe they remember, but don't have the motivation to keep up with schoolwork, procrastinating until the last second (or later) to get started. It could be that after hours of YOUR time at the table, walking them through every step of the assignment, they don't even bother to hand it in the next day. Or maybe, they work and work and work, stressing and worrying about tests or assignments and put in countless hours, only to receive a disappointing grade that shakes their confidence even more.
Brain Engineering is a combination of academic coaching, tutoring, University/Career planning, and Mentorship and not only helps identify and target what the child is struggling with, but it also teaches self-advocacy, independence, and confidence along the way. The solutions are not just given through sessions, but taught and understood by the child, so they can apply that strategy many times, in different situations, in the years to come. Individual self-awareness is also taught through the use of reflection and mindful thinking, allowing children to understand their own brain anatomy, personality, and preferences. This allows them to set up the perfect learning environment for themselves.
1
The First Phone Call
After you have made the decision to move forward and made contact by leaving us a message in the contact us section, Josh Barry will be connecting with you by phone. In this call we'll get to know you and develop some context into the environment and learning struggles your child is having. This communication is absolutely free of charge, and hopefully would be helpful in clarifying if this program is right for you. It will also provide you with some information, as well as individual strategies. This conversation should help us to match your child with the best coach for them. Following this, we will schedule a Catalyst Session.
Catalyst Intake Session
Next, you will meet with your coach at Elements' headquarters. If possible, you, your child, and your spouse should all be in attendance to get as many perspectives as possible. We will cover some of the major topics and hear dialogue around your child's perspective and willingness to grow and change. However, as the name suggests, our main focus will be to create an environment that increases the growth and change of your child's goals and how to achieve them through Brain Engineering. Your coach will document all information from the session to help in the design of future sessions, and we will set up a regularly scheduled time for future one-on-one sessions to continue.
2
3
Brain Engineering
These sessions are to provide your child not only the necessary skills for a student to succeed and flourish in school, but in ALL LEARNING, from sports, relationships, careers, and everything in between. They all center around 3 commonalities:
1) Introspection (Inward looking)
2) Follow-through
3) Reflection
Each Element will be targeted as needed, with the order of the Elements changing, to individually accommodate each learner. Every Element will require your child to activity engage in the process. This can be through conversation and dialogue, answering questions related to how they prioritize and problem solve, completing activities, or even literally bouncing off the walls! The idea is to create a challenging, engaging, and active environment in which the student is in charge of their own learning. The Brain Engineer's job is not to stand and deliver content, but to direct the focus of the session and provide data into why it works. Again, this is not prescriptive, as a learner may need many sessions on one of the Elements to form the habit, while another Element may need 15-20 minutes. The eventual transition will be towards self-guided assessment and growth.
5
Finished, but Never Forgotten
Upon completion of the program and feeling ready to navigate the terrain on their own, the learner, parents, and coach will decide to move to "as needed" sessions.
The goal is to allow the students to feel proud of their momentous accomplishments, but always feel comfortable reaching out for mentorship when a curveball comes their way or a new level of Elements mastery is needed.
It is a very proud day for any coach when a student accurately determines that sessions are no longer needed.