Category: Empowered to Connect

Before you can use Strategy 10 from The Whole-Brain Child, you have to understand what mindsight is. Siegel and Bryson describe mindsight as, “understanding our own mind as well as understanding the mind of another.” They go on to describe our mind:

“… as a bicycle wheel with a hub at the center and spokes radiating toward the outer rim. The rim represents anything we can pay attention to or become aware of: our thoughts and feelings, our dreams and desires, our memories, our perceptions of the outside world, and the sensations from our body. The hub is the inner place of the mind from which we become aware of all that’s happening around and within us … Our awareness resides in the hub, and from here we can focus on the various points on the rim of our wheel.”

We can have a lot swirling around in our head (the rim), but we learn to focus or not focus (the hub) on specific things. Many of our children haven’t learned this. They are focusing on thoughts, feelings, images that are negative, and they need to learn that they can change what they are focusing on.

Siegel and Bryson suggest teaching your children how to focus on their breath during nervous, anxious or difficult times to calm themselves, so they can change their focus from the rim to their hub. “Even as young as four or five, kids can learn to focus on their breath. A good technique is to have them lie down and place a toy—like a boat—on their stomach. Ask them to focus on the boat, watching it rise and fall as it rides the waves of breath.”

My daughter and I have not been able to recreate the activity of lying down with a toy on her stomach. I do find myself suggesting she take a break, breathe, and focus on what her body is telling her. One weekday morning, Elise knew she had a fun activity that day, yet every encounter we had with her that morning was a blow up. She was stuck in a funk. For example, “Elise, do you want milk or juice?” Her reply, “Fine, I just won’t drink anything! You never get me anything to drink!” It wasn’t really that bad, but you get the idea. After she took a break and focused, she told us that she was worried about the activity; we were able to navigate that issue with her. And she did great the rest of the morning and with the activity—she just needed to realize what she was paying attention to, what was going on in her body and then change it.

Practicing Strategy 10 will help your child get un-stuck and decide how they think and feel. It will take practice for you and your child. And you may not always get it right, but that’s okay—keep trying. Ultimately, by helping your child learn to get un-stuck, to get off the rim and back to their hub, you can help change your child’s brain. As Siegel and Bryson say, “it’s from [the hub] that we make our best decisions; it’s also the part of the brain that allows us to connect deeply to others and to ourselves.”

We want our children to make great decisions in the face of whatever life throws at them. In addition, we want them to connect in healthy relationships. This is why we must help our kids learn mindsight.

I found it difficult to find a time to apply Whole-Brain Strategy #9. SIFT stands for sensations, images, feelings, and thoughts. We want our children to learn to pay attention to their physical sensations so they can understand what’s going on in their body. The idea is that our children can do the following:

“… SIFT for images that are affecting the way they look at and interact with the world … SIFT for feelings and emotions they are experiencing … Thoughts are different from feelings, sensations, and images in that they represent the more left-brained part of the SIFTing process. They are what we think about, what we tell ourselves, and how e narrate the story of our own lives, using words.”

The goal is to use these four areas to help our children understand what is going on inside.

We had a life event that we knew affected our oldest daughter, but we were having a difficult time finding out why or how to help. After discussing with some friends, we realized we had never talked our daughter through the event — the birth of her little sister.

Fourteen months ago, we welcomed our youngest daughter, Maggie, and Elise got a new little sister. While we spent three nights away from Elise, she was lovingly cared for by her grandparents. The only hint we had that anything was going on with Elise was that she was always up, dressed, and playing in her room before any of the adults were up (so before 6AM). In retrospect, she was probably still processing the stress of those three days and nights when her parents weren’t at home with her.

I think for the first 6 months of adjusting to two kids we were just doing damage control. Then as my husband and I began to regain our wits, we started getting more in tune with Elise’s needs, but we were still running into problems when we made plans to do something in the evening or when my husband needed to travel. As we continued to give Elise the support she needed, we started dreaming about being able to get away for the weekend. But we were nervous because we didn’t want to suffer any setbacks since it took us so long to recover from her little sister’s birth.

Following the advice of some friends, we used Whole-Brain Strategy #6: Use the Remote of the Mind to revisit the days around Maggie’s birth. The first time Elise and I talked about it, she didn’t say much, but the next time was very enlightening. As I walked Elise through each day and event, she revealed what she had been dealing with. She told me that she missed us while we were gone, and she asked me if they needed to use scissors and if I was worried about the tools in the hospital hurting me.  I don’t remember telling her anything of those things, but she did come in the hospital room while I was in bed with an IV.

I asked her, “Were you worried I was going to get hurt?” Her answer was yes, accompanied with tears. Then as we talked about the day we all left the hospital together, Elise asked if my legs didn’t work because I had to leave the hospital in the wheelchair, so we talked about that, too. Then we pulled out Maggie’s baby book and oohed and ahhed over the tiny baby and remembered the happy memories (Whole-Brain Strategy #7: Remember to Remember). And as we remembered that time 14 months ago, we also talked about how we felt sad and worried at that time, but those feelings changed and now we feel happy and joyful (Whole-Brain Strategy #8: Let the Clouds of Emotions Roll By). And after we went through that whole process of remembering and talking about emotions, I finally understood Whole-Brain Strategy #9: SIFT: Paying Attention to What’s Going on Inside.

Elise had these images of hospital tools and thoughts of my legs not working and residual feelings of worry and sadness. And until we took the time to talk her through that event, she was probably always going to be plagued by those thoughts, images, and feelings when talking about mom and dad spending a night away. Now, I wish I could tell you that my husband and I just got back for a relaxing vacation, but we haven’t. I am hopeful that when we plan a trip we will be able to talk Elise through some of things she’s thinking and feeling about us leaving.

We hope we can enable her to let go of some the worry and sadness, and if we’re successful, we won’t spend the months that follow untangling the emotions incurred by a few nights away. Also, if we’re successful, our daughter will be able to better focus on wrapping her grandparents around her little finger while we’re gone.

The first strategy in Chapter 5 of The Whole-Brain Child addresses feelings. While we are striving to get our children to understand their feelings, we also need them to understand that their feelings change: “… feelings need to be recognized for what they are: temporary, changing conditions.” Siegel and Bryson explain why this is an important distinction:

“When children experience a particular state of mind, such as feeling frustrated or lonely, they may be tempted to define themselves based on that temporary experience, as opposed to understanding that that’s simply how they feel at the moment. Instead of saying, ‘I feel lonely’ or ‘I feel sad right now,’ they say, ‘I am lonely’ or ‘I am sad.’ The danger is that the temporary state of mind can be perceived as a permanent part of their self. The state comes to be seen as a trait that defines who they are.”

My oldest child is four, and she is not defining herself by her emotions – yet. But she can definitely get stuck in an unpleasant cycle of her emotions. So what do you do? In the book there is an illustration to demonstrate how to teach that feelings come and go. There’s a little girl who is mad at her dog for ripping her picture, and she hates her dog. The adult acknowledges her feelings, points out that’s how she feels in the present moment, describes a scenario when she felt love for her dog, and then uses those two moments to point out how her feelings change.

Right before the teaching example is the example of when we dismiss and deny. The adult says, “I’m sorry, honey, that Moby ripped your picture. Don’t worry though, you’ll get to paint another one at school.” I do that. I dismiss and deny my daughter’s feelings. Since reading this, I have caught myself several times. My intent is not to dismiss and deny; I think I’m helping my child get past their feelings. But what I’m really doing is shoving their feelings out of the way so I don’t have to deal with them. And then everyone “looks” happier.

I began making an effort to teach my four year old that feelings come and go — especially since I just needed to replace a little sister for the dog in the above scenario. Well, I’m hoping I get better with practice. So far I’ve felt clumsy with my words. I am really good at saying, “I’m sorry that you are angry that your sister has a toy. Remember when you were happy to play with her when she woke up this morning?” But I couldn’t ever remember how the cartoon demonstration ended: “See how sometimes you feel love and sometimes you feel anger? Your feelings change all the time, don’t they?” That makes sense, but whatever I said probably didn’t. Plus, my four year old daughter usually corrected me on what emotion she was feeling, so I probably need practice there, too.

For now, this strategy of teaching that emotions come and go is helping me be present through the emotions (usually I want to run far away from the screaming and crying). But I also think it would be helpful to revisit this idea of emotions coming and going during a calm, happy time. I found my daughter and I were using the strategy mostly during an angry or sad time referring back to a happy time. I wonder what connections my daughter could make when we referred back to a sad time when she is happy?

Or maybe I could just comment on her beautiful smile and ask how she feels, so that I can point out that her emotions changed. I figure it’s worth the try, and I need the practice.

To set up these next strategies in The Whole-Brain Child, Siegel and Bryson, explain memory. Before we can use the next strategies, we need to understand how our memory works and that there are two kinds of memory: implicit and explicit. The authors help us by describing memory:

“As an association machine, the brain processes something in the present moment—an idea, a feeling, a smell, an image—and links that experience with similar experiences from the past. These past experiences strongly influence how we understand what we see or feel … The brain continually prepares itself for the future based on what happened before. Memories shape our current perceptions by causing us to anticipate what will happen next.”

The other thing about memory is that, “whenever you retrieve a memory, you alter it … Thus memories are distorted—sometimes slightly, sometimes greatly—even though you believe you are being accurate … the story you actually tell is less history and more historical fictions.”

Now that you know you are actually telling historical fiction, you also need to know that there are two kinds of memory: implicit and explicit. The memory that enables you to do something without knowing that you are remembering is implicit memory while the conscious recollection of a past experience is explicit memory. And, “what’s crucial to understand about implicit memory—especially when it comes to our kids and their fears and frustrations—is that implicit memories cause us to form expectations about the way the world works, based on our previous experiences.”

If you are a parent of a child from a hard place, you should know your child could be acting out of fear from things they are not even aware they are remembering. So being able to bring awareness to our children and giving them voice are the keys for integrating memory. You can help your child bring their implicit memory into awareness and integrate their memory by empowering and encouraging them to use their voice. One way for your child to use their voice is through telling their story.

Whole-Brain Strategy #6: Use the Remote of the Mind: Replaying Memories wants us to help our children tell their story as they are ready, to replay what they need, pause when they need a break, fast forward through scary parts until they’re ready, and rewind and do it again as needed. While the idea of replaying memories may sound simplistic, I think replaying bad or scary memories goes against our natural instinct to push aside bad feelings and scary memories. We don’t want to dwell on bad memories; we want to move on, so why would we replay them? “Your goal is to help kids take the troubling experiences that are impacting them without their knowledge—the scattered puzzle pieces of their mind—and make those experiences explicit so that the whole picture in the puzzle can be seen with clarity and meaning.”

Elise and I had a traumatic experience last week. We were swimming at a friend’s house. Elise was with her little friend playing on the steps when she decided to reach for her kickboard, and she couldn’t quite get a handle on it before she fell off. My friend jumped in the pool at the same time I ran over to the edge of the pool and pulled Elise out. (That image of Elise right before I pulled her out is burned in my mind.) After she was out, I asked if she was okay, hugged her tight, and I told her that it scared me. She hugged me back, bit me on the shoulder (a fear response), and got back in the pool with her friend.

During the car ride home, Elise said, “Mom, I thought I was going to sink to the bottom and not see you again,” which was accompanied by many tears. I just kept telling her that I was so glad I was there to help her. She was very tearful that evening, and her dad and I just loved on her, reassured her, and assumed she was mostly tired from an eventful day.

The next day Elise didn’t bring up the pool incident. We went to the library, checked out several books, and came home for rest time. During rest time, Elise had been reading her new library books. When I went into her room, she immediately started saying, “Mom, mom, in the bear book something happens and he’s stuck in the water!” I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was really worried about this story. She was flipping hurriedly through the pages to show me where the daddy bear fell out of the boat and the baby bear pulled him out. I don’t remember how I started the conversation. I may have said something like, “Oh he fell in the water like you did yesterday.” And then Elise just started her story, “Yes, I reached for the kickboard and then I sank the first time. I held my breath and sank again. Then you came and pulled me out. I thought I was going to sink to the bottom.” I asked her if she was scared. She said yes, and I told her I was scared too. And that I was so thankful I was there to help her. We talked some more about swimming and being safe, and then she moved on and asked me to read her chicken book from the library.

A more natural response for me would have been to assure Elise that the bear was fine and show her the rest of the book—to put the past behind us, and I would have missed completely what was going on.  And Elise would still be scared. I credit The Whole-Brain Child with helping me understand what to look for in my child and teaching me strategies to connect with my child and help her make sense of her world. I also credit The Whole-Brain Child with giving me strategies to help myself cope with that traumatic experience. I pray that you and your child are never as scared as Elise and I were that day. But if you are, replay the story as often as they need it. It will help.

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.

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.

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.

The first strategy discussed in the Whole Brain Child is Connect and Redirect: Surfing Emotional Waves. The example used in the book is of an upset child coming to the parent shortly after going to bed, and the parent has to choose between redirecting the child or connecting and then redirecting.

I’m sure we’ve all been there. You’re tired or already asleep and in comes your sweet child seemingly wide awake. A couple weeks ago, this happened to us in the middle of the night, and one exasperated parent sent Elise back to bed before hearing what she said which resulted in her stomping out and slamming her door – at midnight. (And you’re left thinking: lovely, now the baby will wake up and we are all awake and tomorrow is going to stink.) It was a good two to three hours before Elise could be calmed back down; take my word for it, sleep deprived parenting is not the best.

So what would have been a better way to handle this situation? Siegel and Bryson say, “In a moment like this, parents wonder whether their child is really in need or just trying to stall bedtime. Whole-brain parenting doesn’t mean letting yourself be manipulated or reinforcing bad behavior. On the contrary, by understanding how your child’s brain works, you can create cooperation much more quickly and often with far less drama.” Less drama? Sign me up! They go on to say, “When a child is upset logic often won’t work until we have responded to the right brain’s emotional needs…’connect and redirect’…begins with helping our kids ‘feel felt’ before we try to solve problems or address the situation logically.”

I tried to paraphrase the principles to keep in mind when applying the first strategy: Connect and Redirect below:

Step 1: Connect with the Right Brain (Emotional, Nonverbal, Experiential, Autobiographical)

• Logic isn’t the primary vehicle for bringing sanity
• Our child’s feelings are real and important to the child
• Use nonverbal signs
  • Physical touch
  • Empathetic facial expressions
  • Nurturing tone of voice
  • Nonjudgmental listening

Step 2: Redirect with the Left Brain(Logical, Linguistic, Literal)

• Sometimes the emotional waves just need to crash until the storm passes
• Child may simply need to eat or get some sleep
• Rules about respect and behavior still apply
• Inappropriate behavior (as defined by your family) remains off-limits even in moments of high emotion
• Good idea to discuss misbehavior and its consequences after the child has calmed down (the middle of the night is not a good time)

“The key here,” according to Siegel and Bryson, “is that when your child is drowning in a right brain emotional flood, you’ll do yourself (and your child) a big favor if you connect before you redirect.” I think the other key is that the redirecting is not always immediate. Sometimes the connecting takes time. Elise may need a snack and some one on one time before she is ready to discuss what happened. And we have definitely experienced letting the “emotional waves crash until the storm passes.” Mainly, we (Elise’s parents) have to work on keeping our cool and being patient – even in the middle of the night.