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By Annie, June 26, 2012 9:00 am

The Whole-Brain Child brings us Whole Brain Strategy #5: Move It or Lose It: Exercising the Upstairs Brain. I can’t read that title without getting the “I Like to Move It” song stuck in my head, but that’s partly because Elise performed a tap number to that song for her dance recital. But anyway, “Move It or Lose It” is based on research that shows, “when we change our physical state—through movement or relaxation, for example—we can change our emotional state.” So, “the next time your children need help calming down or regaining control, look for ways to get them moving … the point is to help your child regain some sort of balance and control by moving their body, which can remove blockages and pave the way for integration to return.”

We need to do the exercise or activity with our children. You can play a game, do jumping jacks, whatever you like to do together, but you also need to consider whether your child is tired or hungry. Most of mine and Elise’s troubles come from not eating enough for breakfast or not getting enough sleep the night before, so I have to consider whether she’s hungry or tired while trying to decide which strategy to apply to our situation. I do know she needs to be calmed before I offer her something to eat or I might get the food item lobbed back at me. Hopefully, some family jumping jacks or tap dance routines can help us.

What I find most interesting about strategy #5 is that it’s what works for me – most of the time. I need to go to another room and do an activity (lock myself in the bathroom), go for a walk or exercise, so I can clear my head and focus on a task. I do have a distinct memory from my childhood of acting a little crazy and being told to go outside and run ten laps around the tree in our driveway, and I did it. I only had to do it once, so I’m sure it worked. My sister thought it was really funny. But all joking aside, I definitely see the value in teaching this strategy to my children since I use it to help myself.

So the next time your child is about to lose it, get them to move it first.

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By Annie, June 21, 2012 9:00 am

Siegel and Bryson say that practicing using the upstairs brain is “the foundation of solid mental health.” For more information on the upstairs and downstairs brain read Whole Brain Strategy #3: Engage, Don’t Enrage. Here are some examples that I paraphrased from The Whole-Brain Child of how to exercise the upstairs brain.

• Sound Decision Making
  • Give your child practice making choices.
  • Let them experience consequences
    • More natural than parent imposed
• Controlling Emotions and the Body
  • Take a deep breath
  • Count to ten.
  • Express their feelings
    • Stomp their feet
    • Punch a pillow
• Self-understanding
  • Ask questions
    • Why do you think you made that choice?
    • What made you feel that way?
• Empathy
  • Draw attention to other people’s emotions
• Morality
  • Consistency takes time
  • Practice thinking through moral and ethical principles
  • Consider what behavior you model

I’m pretty sure we spend most of our time dealing with choices, consequences and controlling emotions and the body. When we make it past breakfast choices without losing control of our emotions, it’s a good day. We have noticed with Elise that giving her the choice between two breakfast items goes much better than the open ended question, “What do you want for breakfast?” (Breakfast just happens to be one of our optimal melt down times.) While we practice our choices at breakfast, I am still waiting for Elise’s brain to get strong enough to choose to walk away from her little sister instead of taking her little sister’s toy. Until then, Elise’s arms will have the bite marks (natural consequence) to show she still needs practice, and sometimes Maggie might be sprawled out on the ground because Elise didn’t control her emotions or body.

But when I find Elise with bite marks or Maggie sprawled on the ground, it does present the perfect opportunity to ask, “Why do you think you made that choice? What made you feel that way?” And we are able explore empathy while little sister is crying though we don’t care much at the moment. I do my best to try to get some empathy when I’m feeling frustrated or stressed, but neither girl seems to empathize with me yet which does highlight how far away we are from morality. It would be awesome to have two lovely girls who “make sound decisions while controlling themselves and working from empathy and self-understanding.” It seems to good to be true that girls will decide to do, “what is for the greater good beyond their own individual needs,” but they are only one and four years old. So we will keep exercising our brains through choices, consequences and controlling emotions and the body, and I will dream of the day one of my children empathizes with me.

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By Annie, June 17, 2012 7:46 am

DaDDY

My Dad’s name is Scott.

He is 5 years old, big tall and weighs 5 pounds.

His hair is long and brown and his eyes are blue.

He is smart because he knows everything.

At his job, my Dad writes.

My Dad is really good at for his boss.

My favorite memory with my Dad is playing hide and seek and doing work and playing games and going to bed, brushing teeth, doing conditioner, doing bath and trying to stick his hair up.

His favorite food is egg sandwiches.

My favorite this to do with Dad is a game.

It makes Dad happy when I ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­listen.

Dad always tells me what to do.

If he could go on a trip, he would go to Colorado.

And he would take all of us.

I’m just like my Dad because I play hide and seek and do work and that’s all we do.

I really love it when my Dad plays with me.

If I could give my Dad anything, it would be hugs and kisses.

What I love most about my Dad is playing with him.

Love,    Elise

And Maggie shows her love by taking Daddy’s things.

And Happy Birthday to my Dad! Yay for medicare and senior citizen discounts!

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By Annie, June 14, 2012 9:00 am

Before we can talk about strategy #3, we need to talk about the upstairs and the downstairs brain. To summarize what Siegel and Bryson say in their book, The Whole-Brain Child, the downstairs brain is well developed at birth and is responsible for basic functions, reactions, impulses, and strong emotions. The upstairs brain does not fully mature until we reach our mid-20’s and is responsible for sound decision making, control over body and emotions, self-understanding, empathy and morality. They go on to say:

“…the behaviors and skills we want and expect our kids to demonstrate, like sound decision making, control of their emotions and bodies, empathy, self-understanding, and morality – are dependent on a part of their brain that hasn’t fully developed yet. Since the upstairs brain is still under construction, it isn’t capable of fully functioning all the time, meaning that it can’t be integrated with the downstairs brain and consistently work at its best.”

Meaning the part we need to “work at its best” to help connect us with our children is sometimes unavailable to us, so we have to learn how to “engage” the upstairs brain and not “enrage” the downstairs brain. You could also think of an enraged brain as a brain in tantrum, and the authors go on to talk about the difference between an upstairs and a downstairs tantrum.

“An upstairs tantrum occurs when a child essentially decides to throw a fit … A parent who recognizes an upstairs tantrum is left with one clear response: never negotiate with a terrorist … A downstairs tantrum is completely different. Here, a child becomes so upset that he’s no longer able to use his upstairs brain … He’s flipped his lid.”

So clearly the goal is no tantrums, but recognizing the difference between your child’s tantrums can help you help the situation instead of exacerbate the situation. When your child has “flipped their lid,” their upstairs and downstairs brains are not working together. The downstairs brain as taken over, and you need to engage the upstairs brain so your child can move pass their tantrum. This is where Whole-Brain Strategy #3: Engage, Don’t Enrage comes in to play.

Engage, Don’t Enrage: Appealing to the Upstairs Brain

1. Giving Voice
2. Compromises/Shared Power

When my sweet little girl and I are in a disagreement over when to play with Barbies and she responds with a grimace and screams the words, “Fine, I just won’t play with anything!” I can choose my response. If I respond that my way is the only way, she and I will go round and round for as long as I try to convince her that I’m right. She will become angrier and more disrespectful in her choice of words; she will be enraged.

If I instead choose to acknowledge her feelings first by saying, “You sound angry,” this gives her voice and gives me the opportunity to continue: “Maybe we can work out a compromise. When would you like to play with the Barbies?” We don’t immediately agree; we have to find a compromise.  (The problem: I needed to take her younger sister downstairs to have a snack, and Elise wanted us all to play in her room first.) Elise suggested that we not go downstairs and have a snack, but that wouldn’t work for little sister. And my idea of going downstairs together and coming upstairs together didn’t work for Elise. We finally compromised and agreed that Elise could play upstairs for 10 minutes, then come downstairs for snack, and then we could all go upstairs together after snack.

I know it may sound silly, but if I had “forced” Elise to come downstairs, this would have enraged her downstairs brain. She would have stayed angry, probably screamed at me for a long period of time, not eaten (which can make the situation worse), and continued to spiral out of control. By acknowledging her feelings and giving voice to them and including her in the compromise process, she was able to engage her upstairs brain in the problem solving and be agreeable to the solution. Now in a perfect world, she would have remembered this process when she came downstairs 10 minutes later and disagreed with my choice of a healthy snack, but that just might be wishful thinking. And I know that we have to keep practicing these strategies, which is exactly what Strategy #4: Use It or Lose It will highlight for us next week.

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By Annie, June 6, 2012 8:08 am

I love that my child always has a behavior where I get to try one of the strategies from The Whole-Brain Child. It was a calm weekday morning. My husband was making breakfast, the girls were downstairs, I was by myself for a few minutes, and then the screaming started. Elise spilled juice on her flowered dress and proceeded to spew her feelings all over everyone. “Fine I didn’t want juice. Fine I just won’t have anything. Fine my dress is ruined. No I don’t want another dress. I can’t wear this dress it is wet. You don’t want to help me.” She has even started a new dig where she tells her dad she doesn’t love him anymore and that she won’t miss him if he dies. I don’t know why she feels the spilt juice so deeply, but she does. And what she’s screaming is typically the opposite of what she means, but I do not recommend trying to reason with her at this time.

So, what do Siegel and Bryson have to say?

“When a child experiences painful, disappointing, or scary moments, it can be overwhelming, with big emotions and bodily sensations flooding the right brain. When this happens, we as parents can help bring the left hemisphere into the picture so that the child can begin to understand what’s happening. One of the best ways to promote this type of integration is to help retell the story of the frightening or painful experience.”

In Elise’s case, she was extremely disappointed that she didn’t get to wear her flowered dress. I said, “You sound really sad and angry that juice spilled on your dress. Sometimes when I get dressed and then Maggie spits up on me or poops on me or I spill coffee, I get really frustrated because I have to pick something out to wear again.” And you know what Elise said, “Yeah, I really wanted to wear my dress,” sans screaming – amazing. I asked her if she wanted help picking out a new dress, and we were able to find one with a satisfactory amount of flowers. Now, I know this was not a “big” problem, but it was to Elise. And this was a first for it to be resolved so amicably. We have also used the name it to tame it with bad dreams, scary monsters and when we stayed three nights away from her. We have to retell the stories with her as often as she asks because she is the one still trying to make sense of what happened.

Siegel and Bryson go on to say:

“When children learn to pay attention to and share their own stories, they can respond in healthy ways to everything from a scraped elbow to a major loss or trauma. What kids often need, especially when they experience strong emotions, is to have someone help them use their left brain to make sense of what’s going on—to put things in order and to name these big scary right-brain feelings so they can deal with them effectively…stories empower us to move forward and master moments when we feel out of control. When we give words to our frightening painful experiences—when we literally come to terms with them—they often become much less frightening and painful.”

Now I wish I could say that Elise and I resolve all our issues as amicably as the split juice, but we are still new to this. And, I need just as much practice as she does. One of my favorites is the sandwich that won’t stay put together and is “ruined,” so obviously throwing the whole plate of food on the floor solves the sandwich issue. Then there is yesterday’s debacle of asking her to clean her room; we are still recovering from that. Like I said we need practice, and luckily, we have the whole summer to perfect our strategies.