The Busy Brain Book

A busy brain has a lot on its mind and cannot add anything more to it. With an overloaded mind, you can neither think straight nor pay attention very well. On top of that, you get tired and angry easily, and it prevents you from explaining clearly what you want to say. Working or playing together also gets a lot harder because of it. Some minds are just naturally like that and get crammed very fast. This book may also call them “easily overloaded minds”.

The book is especially written and intended for children aged 8 and older that have to deal with an easily overloaded mind, and the adults involved. It aims to explain information processing problems in the brain on a level that is understandable and accessible for children as well as the impact of this on their social-emotional development and self-image. ‘Short fuses’, inflexibility, inattention, distractibility, forgetfulness, impulsiveness and a slow responsiveness in a child’s behaviour can become major sources of irritation and annoyance to their environment. This misunderstood behaviour often causes lots of misunderstandings in communication and discussion as well as mutual incomprehension.

For this reason, the book focuses on psycho-education: ‘How do I take care of myself now I know my mind works like this, and how can others help and support me with that’. The book provides plenty of practical examples and metaphors for both children and adults.Thanks to the explanations being paired with illustrations, tips, (fill-in) exercises and tests, this book is a playful invitation to link the content to your own experiences. The easily accessible and practical aspect of the book will be a source of inspiration, encouragement and recognition for both experience experts and professionals in education and care.

Linde Kraijenhoff is a play therapist/trainer at Royal Dutch Kentalis, an organization for people to whom hearing and communicating is not always so straightforward.

Royal Dutch Kentalis is a national organization in the Netherlands specializing in providing diagnostic, care and educational services to people who are deaf, hard of hearing or deafblind, as well as to people with speech/language impairment. Including people with multiple handicaps, combined with auditory or communicative impairment.Kentalis possesses specialist knowledge that is made available to all those interested, worldwide.