The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind

kk: From The Parents Club, I’m Karsen Kolnicki. This is your briefing.

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kk: Today, we’re discussing *The Whole-Brain Child*. Written by *Daniel J. Siegel & Tina Payne Bryson*.

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In this New York Times bestseller, the authors of No-Drama Discipline and The Yes Brain explain the new science of how a child’s brain is wired and how it matures in this pioneering, but practical book.

Daniel J. Siegel, a neuropsychiatrist and author of the best-selling title, *Mindsight*, and parenting expert Tina Payne Bryson offer a revolutionary approach to being a parent with twelve key strategies that foster healthy brain development, leading to calmer, happier children.

kk: Vincent Phamvan on the key takeaways [pause] and what you need to know.

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kk: Vincent, other than the obvious, what’s the benefit of healthy brain development for a child?

vp: Well, the thing that new parents would care most about in the short term is that it helps calm your child down when he or she is scared. So I think most new parents would love to learn how to calm their child down.

It turns out that making a big fuss in a restaurant can actually be a good thing, which we’ll talk more about later.

This title mainly is about how to ensure that as a parent, you’re encouraging your child to explore the different functions of their brain, such as the ability to reason and show them how to use these capabilities.

Humans don’t naturally and suddenly use all of the functions of their brain, and the brain functions develop at different speeds, so there are things that parents can do to ensure healthy brain development.

kk: What’s an example of using your whole brain to teach your kids how to do the same?

vp: That’s a great question that doesn’t often get asked or told in parenting advice. New parents get so much advice—whether they want it or not—on everything from teething to potty training. No one talks about how to nurture your child’s brain though.

So encouraging healthy brain development according to Siegel, who is a neuropsychiatrist, involves teaching kids how to interpret and deal with their experiences.

Our experiences mold our brain, they change the brain, and how we interpret events like temper tantrums will fire neurons in our brain. When the same neurons fire over and over again, they connect to one another.

This means that as a parent, as counter-intuitive as it may be, you don’t necessarily want to protect your child from difficult experiences. Instead, as a parent, you should encourage your child to use their entire brain when dealing with things that happen, whether or not it’s enjoyable or painful.

This is a concept the authors refer to as integration. So the brain has different parts, and for the child to thrive, those different parts need to work together. That’s what’s called whole-brain parenting.

So getting back to your question about an example of using your whole brain. When your child throws a temper tantrum, instead of losing your temper or being distant or detached, you can instead use your empathy to connect with your child and learn what’s bothering them using the parts of your brain that allow you to keep your anger under control.

kk: You mentioned earlier that different areas of the brain develop at different rates. What are these different areas? And how do they function together?

Vincent: Yea, so the authors describe in the book that the brain has two hemispheres. You’ve likely heard of the right brain and the left brain before.

The left hemisphere takes longer to develop. This includes functions like language and logic.

The right hemisphere is focused on the big picture, not details. And it includes nonverbal signals, images, and feelings.

When a child is under the age of three, their right brain is more developed. That’s why it’s hard to reason with younger children. They’re actually unable to see the rational side of things.

kk: So what’s the consequence on a child if both sides of their brain aren’t fully developing?

vp: Young children are going to be naturally right-brain dominant. Even when both hemispheres are developed, if you rely too much on one side over the other, that can be problematic.

If you’re overly reliant on your left brain, which is where logic occurs, will fail to see and understand feelings.

While someone overly reliant on your right brain will act more like a toddler by not understanding societal rules or logic.

kk: So it sounds like teaching a child how to use both hemispheres is important.

vp: Absolutely, so by the time a child reaches their third birthday, there are two things that parents can do.

The first is to connect and redirect. This helps your child when they get overwhelmed by illogical concerns, like a monster in the closet.

You start by connecting with his or her feelings, soothe them by showing your empathy to calm their right brain. Then the second part is redirect, where you address the logical left brain. So you might address their inability to reason by opening up the closet to prove that there’s no monster in there.

kk: And you mentioned there’s a second thing parents can do?

vp: Right, the second strategy is to name it to tame it. This is where you have a child share their experiences while naming the feelings that come along with the experiences.

This will connect the left-brain functions like language to the emotional thoughts in the right brain.

Whenever we name our emotions, our brain decreases activity in the areas of the brain that cause emotion, which tames our feelings.

kk: Okay, so the two strategies are “connect and redirect.” And the second is “name it to tame it.”

vp: That’s right.

kk: Got it, so what else should parents know?

vp: The next concept that Siegel and Bryson explain is the difference between lower and higher functions in the brain.

kk: I assume that higher functions are better to nurture?

vp: Yes. So the lower functions of the brain are the primitive parts, so think about the basic functions that keep you alive. These are the lower functions—breathing, impulses, strong emotions like anger.

kk: So when a toddler is throwing a tantrum, they’re using the lower function.

vp: So the goal is to counterbalance that by encouraging the use of the higher part of your brain. This is known as the cerebral cortex. That’s the part of your brain that’s responsible for impulse control, thinking, planning, and self-understanding.

So yes, you’re right, the lower function is the dominant part of the brain for children. The higher part of the brain takes longer to mature, so it’s easy for the lower parts to take control.

This is especially true with the amygdala, which is an almond-sized part of the brain that processes emotions and can seize control of the upper part of a person’s brain. So when this happens to a child’s brain, it floods their stress hormones and makes them act before they think.

kk: That sounds pretty bad. So how does a parent counter-balance that?

vp: So the authors have a three-part framework for counterbalancing this.

First, you should ask your misbehaving child what is happening and if a problem caused them to become angry. Then you want to offer a solution, which engages your higher brain as well as their higher brain.

Using your lower brain, by responding with a punishment, would just enrage the child’s lower brain as well.

kk: That makes sense. What’s next?

vp: Second, is you want to encourage your child to use their higher brain whenever they can. This will let them make decisions so ask them why they behaved in this way. This will strengthen the upper brain while connecting it to the feelings and impulses in the lower brain.

And lastly, you can soothe the child’s lower brain through exercise. So if you have a child overwhelmed by homework, running around the block can calm the lower brain and improve their mood.

kk: That’s great to know. Soothing the lower brain through exercise may actually be good for adults too. How does the brain process different memories or experiences?

vp: The authors talk about how memories influence your actions, even memories that you aren’t aware of.

kk: That’s odd, how can you not be aware of a memory?

vp: I thought the same thing too, but Siegel explains that there are explicit memories. These are things you remember, like a childhood trip to Disneyland. And the other type of memory is called implicit memory, which you’re not consciously aware of, but it still guides your actions.

So, for example, if your son had a painful medical treatment as a child, which he can’t remember, but when he wants to go to the bathroom at the school, he can’t get past the door.  His brain is associating the faint smell of disinfectant and the tiles in the restroom with the hospital that he was treated at when he was a patient.

And this implicit memory may be causing him to anticipate pain, which can be paralyzing.

kk: Is there a way that parents can help with this?

vp: There are two different strategies to help a child alter and control their memories. The memories aren’t fixed, and they can be changed by focusing on the positive or happy ending. The example they give in the book is a daughter that gets lost in a grocery store, but in the end, a kind old lady helped her find you.

kk: What if the child refuses to talk about the memory, or they just don’t remember?

vp: Siegel suggests encouraging the child to talk about their memory in great detail. This drives the hippocampus, which is like the Google of the brain, to fill in the gaps in memory.

One way of doing this is instead of asking “how was your day?” you should instead reframe the question as “what did you play today?”

These changes will help them build a super-detailed picture of their actions and commit them to memory.

kk: That sounds easy enough to implement… just reframe questions to ask about specific details in a memory. What about social interactions? How can parents encourage their children to develop healthy social relationships?

vp: The brain is what’s called a social organ, which means it’s designed to be shaped and reshaped through interactions with other people.

There’s actually something called mirror neurons, which come into play when we see people acting with intention. The mirror neurons will actually cause us to do or want to do the same thing as what we see other people doing.

For example, if you see someone else drinking water, you might become thirsty yourself. Humans don’t do well in isolation.

Children at a young age, if they don’t know how to navigate social situations appropriately and they don’t learn how to do so at an early stage, may end up feeling alone or not having many friends.

kk: That would be unfortunate, so what should parents do instead?

vp: They should give children opportunities to be social. A child’s relationship with their caregivers is the most important determinant of how they’ll empathize and communicate.

To help your child’s social brain, you can make family life fun. Playful parenting, like acting silly and playing games, is a great way to do this.

When conflict occurs, it’s an opportunity to teach your child empathy. You want to acknowledge the child’s feelings to make sure they don’t feel like they’re being attacked… but then after that, you can build up empathy by asking them to consider the other person’s perspective.

If you take this a step further, you can also draw attention to body language and teach them about recognizing non-verbal cues.

kk: It sounds like the key takeaway from this book is that parents can nurture their children’s brains. Using the methods we talked about requires understanding both the left and right sides of the brain along with the higher and lower functions. By encouraging children to use the higher functions, it helps them become self-aware and a calmer, more controlled person.

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kk: That’s it for your briefing. I’m Karsen Kolnicki. See you next time.

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