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Downstairs-brain and right-brain takeovers are usually triggered by something in the present—but, sometimes, your child may have a strong and unexpected reaction to something because of something in the past. For example, if your child normally loves swimming, but she’s refusing to take swimming lessons, it’s possible that a past experience is haunting your child and making her act irrationally without her realizing why. The right side of the brain pays attention to your emotions. When your emotions get really big, it feels like they’re taking over your whole brain and body, which can make you do and say things that you normally wouldn’t. This can feel like a big wave that’s crashing over you. strategies that help parents identify their own discipline philosophy—and master the best methods to communicate the lessons they are trying to impart
The key to thriving is to help these parts work well together-to integrate them. Integration takes the distinct parts of your brain and helps them work together as a whole. It's similar to what happens in the body, which has different organs to perform different jobs: the lungs breathe air, the heart pumps blood, the stomach digests food. For the body to be healthy, these organs all need to be integrated. In other words, they each need to do their individual job while also working together as a whole. Integration is simply that: linking different elements together to make a well-functioning whole. Just as with the healthy functioning of the body, your brain can't perform at its best unless its different parts work together in a coordinated and balanced way. That's what integration does: it coordinates and balances the separate regions of the brain that it links together. It's easy to see when our kids aren't integrated-they become overwhelmed by their emotions, confused and chaotic. They can't respond calmly and capably to the situation at hand. Tantrums, meltdowns, aggression, and most of the other challenging experiences of parenting-and life-are a result of a loss of integration, also known as dis-integration.Complete with age-appropriate strategies for dealing with day-to-day struggles and illustrations that will help you explain these concepts to your child, The Whole-Brain Child shows you how to cultivate healthy emotional and intellectual development so that your children can lead balanced, meaningful, and connected lives. A stronger relationship with you, as well as a blueprint for healthy relationships for the rest of her life If his mother hadn't helped him tell and understand the story, Marco's fears would have been left unresolved and could have surfaced in other ways. He might have developed a phobia about riding in cars or being separated from his parents, or his right brain might have raged out of control in other ways, causing him to tantrum frequently. Instead, by telling the story with Marco, Marianna helped focus his attention both on the actual details of the accident and on his emotions, which allowed him to use both the left and right sides of his brain together, literally strengthening their connection. (We'll explain this particular concept much more fully in chapter 2.) By helping him become better integrated, he could return to being a normal, developing two-year-old rather than dwelling on the fear and distress he had experienced. This erudite, tender, and funny book is filled with fresh ideas based on the latest neuroscience research. I urge all parents who want kind, happy, and emotionally healthy kids to read The Whole-Brain Child. I wish I had read it when my kids were young, but no one knew then what Siegel and Bryson share with us in an immensely practical way. This is my new baby gift.”—Mary Pipher, Ph.D., author of Reviving Ophelia and The Shelter of Each Other
Additionally, you’ll gain insight into your own emotions. You can apply many of the same strategies yourself, so that you’re not just teaching your child about integration, but also modeling it. Integrating the Left and Right Brains Giving your child a kid-friendly explanation of the brain science behind the strategies we’ve discussed will help her to understand what’s going on in her mind and why these strategies are helpful. Use the suggestions below to help your child grasp the concepts. Left and Right Brains facts on brain development—and what kind of discipline is most appropriate and constructive at all ages and stagesThe way integration actually takes place is fascinating, and it's something that most people aren't aware of. In recent years, scientists have developed brain-scanning technology that allows researchers to study the brain in ways that were never before possible. This new technology has confirmed much of what we previously believed about the brain. However, one of the surprises that has shaken the very foundations of neuroscience is the discovery that the brain is actually "plastic," or moldable. This means that the brain physically changes throughout the course of our lives, not just in childhood, as we had previously assumed. For example, children whose parents talk with them about their experiences tend to have better access to the memories of those experiences. Parents who speak with their children about their feelings have children who develop emotional intelligence and can understand their own and other people's feelings more fully. Shy children whose parents nurture a sense of courage by offering supportive explorations of the world tend to lose their behavioral inhibition, while those who are excessively protected or insensitively thrust into anxiety-provoking experiences without support tend to maintain their shyness.
Emphasize how the situation was resolved, which reassures your child that there’s a solution if the situation were to come up again. Marianna, a principal at an elementary school, frantically rushed to the scene of the accident, where she was told that the babysitter had experienced an epileptic seizure while driving. Marianna found a firefighter unsuccessfully attempting to console her toddler. She took Marco in her arms, and he immediately began to calm down as she comforted him. One day Marianna received a call at work telling her that her two- year-old son, Marco, had been in a car accident with his babysitter. Marco was fine, but the babysitter, who was driving, had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance. On one hand, if you rely too heavily on your right brain, you face an emotional flood, bombarded with feelings and physical sensations, unable to make sense of it all. On the other hand, if you rely too heavily on your left brain, you end up in an emotional desert in which you lose compassion, empathy, and big-picture perspective.Featuring clear explanations, age-appropriate strategies and illustrations that will help you explain these concepts to your child, The Whole-Brain Child will help your children to lead balanced, meaningful, and connected lives using twelve key strategies, including:
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