Archive for the ‘The Brain’ Category

• Five Reasons I’m Not a Fan of Time Outs

  Date: 2011.08.23 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 17

  More and more, I find myself questioning time outs as an effective discipline strategy.  I’ve written some about this already, but now I’d like to go into my reasons in a bit more depth.

  I know lots of loving parents who use time outs as their primary discipline technique.  I’m not saying that time outs are completely unhelpful; more that I don’t think they’re the best alternative we have when it comes to discipline—the goal of which, remember, is to teach.

   

  Reasons I’m Not a Fan of Time-Outs:

  #1.  What we know about the brain. 

  Because I know that brain connections are formed from repeated experiences, I don’t want my kids’ repeated experience to be isolation, which they may view as rejection, when they’ve made a mistake.

  What I DO want them to repeatedly experience is doing things the right way.  So, instead of a time out, I’ll often Read the rest of this entry »

  

• If I Could Tell You Only One Thing about Discipline

  Date: 2011.08.09 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 15

  Discipline is a complex and complicated subject.  I could write a whole book about it.  In fact, I’ve already started working on one.

  But when we talk about effective discipline and how parents can achieve the results they want when they interact with their kids, it can actually be it pretty simple.  If it were a math formula, it would look like this:

   

  WARMTH  +  AUTHORITY  =  EFFECTIVE DISCIPLINE

   

  The research is really clear on this point.  Kids who achieve the best outcomes in life – emotionally, educationally, and relationally – have parents who raise them with a high degree of warmth and nurturing, or what I like to call emotional responsiveness, as well as a high degree of authority, where clear boundaries are communicated and enforced.  Their parents remain firm and consistent in their boundaries, while still interacting with them in a way that communicates love, respect, and compassion.  Warmth and authority are the two sides of the effective-discipline coin.

   

  The first side of the discipline coin:  Warmth

  When we nurture our children and attune to their internal world, we allow them to know and believe that they are seen, heard, loved, and approved of by their parents.  Then they’ll interact with the world around them based on that belief, so that their brains are wired to expect that their needs will be met in intimate relationships.  On the other hand, if a parent repeatedly Read the rest of this entry »

  

• Upstairs and Downstairs Tantrums

  Date: 2011.08.05 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 16

  Summary Bullets:

  • A child’s tantrum may originate in the upstairs brain, meaning the child is in control and is using the moment to intentionally achieve a desired end.  In moments like these, parents should respond with love, but set clear boundaries and avoid rewarding manipulative behavior.
  • If, however, the tantrum originates in the more primal downstairs brain, and the child is truly out of control, then the parents’ response should be less about setting boundaries, and more about nurturing the child and guiding him back into a state of calm and control.

  If you’ve heard me speak before, you may have heard me talk about the upstairs brain and the downstairs brain.  Or maybe you’re read about the concepts here, where I help you teach the basic information to your kids.

  Right now I want to apply that information in a way that can help us deal with one of the most unpleasant parenting issues we all face:  the dreaded tantrum.

   

  The Downstairs Brain and the Upstairs Brain

  The basic idea is that we can think about our brain as a house, with a downstairs and an upstairs.  The downstairs brain includes the brain stem and the limbic region, which are located in the lower parts of the brain, from the top of your neck to about the bridge of your nose.  Scientists talk about these lower areas as being more primitive because they’re responsible for basic functions (like breathing and blinking), for innate reactions and impulses (like fight and flight), and for strong emotions (like anger and fear).

  Your upstairs brain, on the other hand, handles much more sophisticated thinking.  It’s made up of the cerebral cortex and its various parts—particularly the ones directly behind your forehead, including what’s called the middle prefrontal cortex.  In other words, it is literally the higher (and thus upstairs) part of your brain.  This is where more complex mental processing takes place, like thinking, imagining, and planning.  Whereas the downstairs brain is primitive, the upstairs brain is Read the rest of this entry »

  

• When a Parenting Expert Loses It: How NOT to Discipline a Preschooler

  Date: 2011.07.26 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 17

  Here are some things parents say to me about their discipline frustrations:

  –I feel like I just put my daughter in time out all the time and don’t know what else to do when she’s misbehaving.

  –I don’t feel like I have an overall theory of discipline.  It’s more that I just do whatever comes out at the time.  Sometimes my reaction or instinct is really good, and other times I’m being just as immature or reactive as my toddler.  I just feel like I need to give more thought to it and have a plan.

  –I feel disempowered.  I think I’ve been told a list of things that I should NOT do –spank, yell, etc. – but I don’t know what I CAN do, other than just take a toy away.  So I find myself making empty or meaningless threats (“Do that again and you’re going to be in BIG trouble!”) and then I’m just so frustrated.  I don’t know what to do in the moment.

  Do these parents’ comments resonate with you?  I can certainly identify.  I remember how clueless I felt as a new parent, and even though the stories often end up being funny in retrospect, I’m embarrassed at how I responded at times when my kids acted out.

   

  The Parenting Expert Gets Taken Down by Her Own Reactive Brain

  One day my three-year-old got mad and hit me.  I guided him to his time-out spot at the bottom of our stairway, sat next to him, and smiled.  I lovingly (and naively) said, “Hands are for helping and loving, not for hurting.”

  While I was uttering this truism, he hit me again.

  So I tried the empathy approach:  “Ouch!  That hurts mommy.  You don’t want to hurt me, do you?”

  At which point he hit me again.

  I then tried the firm approach: “Hitting is not OK.  Don’t hit any more.  If you’re mad you need to use your words.”

  Yup, you guessed it.  He hit me again.

  I was lost.  I felt I needed to up the ante.  In my most powerful voice I said, “Now you’re in time out at the top of the stairs.”

  I marched him up to the top of our stairs.  He was probably thinking, “Cool!  We’ve never done this before. . . I wonder what will happen next if I keep hitting her?”

  At the top of the stairs, I bent over at the waist, my pointer finger wagging, and said, “NO MORE HITTING!”

  He didn’t hit me again. Read the rest of this entry »

  

• To Sticker or Not to Sticker

  Date: 2011.07.19 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 12

  One question I get asked from time to time is how I feel about using rewards and incentives to motivate kids to do what we want them to do.  You know the drill:  You set up a system where, for every day your daughter practices her piano, she gets a sticker, and once she earns a certain number of stickers, she gets a special treat or privilege.

  When I ask parents why they feel reluctant about using an incentive system like this, they usually name one or more of these reasons:

  • “Rewards are externally based, and I want my kids to choose to do the right thing because they’re internally motivated.”
  • “I’m afraid my children will become addicted to getting rewarded for every little thing.”
  • “I don’t want to reinforce materialism by giving my kids more things.”
  • “Why should I reward them for doing what they should be doing anyway?”
  • “They’ll expect to receive external rewards or everything they ever accomplish in life.  I’ll have to give them a reward for doing whatever it is forever!”

  I understand these fears, and I applaud parents for being so intentional about what they’re conditioning their kids to expect.  But I’m actually Read the rest of this entry »

  

• If I Had Bad Parents, Will I Be a Bad Parent, Too?

  Date: 2011.07.13 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 13

  Has the above question ever crossed your mind?  Dan Siegel and I respond in a new article published in the PBS series “This Emotional Life.”  Check it out here!

  

• I Like to Move It Move It! (revised)

  Date: 2011.06.22 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 11

  We tend to think that our emotions reside in our brain.  And they do, but they also can begin with our bodies.  In fact, by the time you realize that you’re anxious, your body has already known for a while—your shoulders are tight, your jaw is clenched, your stomach might be churning.  By the same token, you can make yourself feel more calm and peaceful, just by focusing on your body.

  Try it right now.  Wherever you are, pay attention to your body for the next few seconds.  Take a deep breath, then slowly let it out.  As you do, relax your shoulders.  Do you feel that?  Do you feel some of the tension in your body begin to dissipate?  Do it one more time.  Deep breath, relaxed shoulders.  Do you see how you can feel more calm and serene just by adjusting what your body’s doing?

  The reason is that our emotions are intensely connected to the sensations of the body.  Because the nervous system runs throughout the body and is part of the brain, what our body does significantly impacts our brain, including the way we experience our emotions.

  This is great news, because it’s just one more example of how we can intentionally influence, to a fairly significant extent, how we experience the world.  We can’t always choose how we feel, but in important ways, we really can influence our own emotions. You might have heard about experiments where Read the rest of this entry »

  

• Mom, I Know What I’m Doing

  Date: 2011.06.06 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 10

  Yesterday my eight-year-old was making a smoothie.   He’s been making one every day for the last week and now takes pride in his “smoothie-making mastery.”  These repeated experiences, along with the delicious products of his efforts, have made him confident in his ability, and the science of neural plasticity confirms his due confidence.  The brain changes – yes, actually physically changes – from repeated experiences, so his memory has now been wired for how to make a good smoothie.

  And yet, even though I know this, when I hear the blender going longer than what I think is the right amount of time – twenty seconds can be a very long time, by the way – my reaction is to step in and say, “Luke, that’s probably long enough.  Should you turn it off?”

  He says, “Mom, I know what I’m doing.  I like it really smooth and creamy, and the trick is to let it blend a little longer so the ice isn’t as chunky.”

  Then I have to respond, “You’re right.  I’m sorry to mess with the Smoothie Master.”

  We learn best from doing.  But ask yourself:  Do you step in and help when your kids don’t need help?  When they ask for assistance, could still do it themselves?  How often do you request that they do something your way, when the way they’re doing it is fine (just different)?  Do you do things for them that they could do for themselves?  You probably do at times when you don’t even realize it, just like I did yesterday with my smoothie intrusiveness.

  Sometimes we need to lend a hand because we’re on a schedule and we need them to finish something so we can get out the door quickly and peacefully.  Sometimes we need to assist because our child is getting too frustrated and they need help.  Sometimes we should step in because they need to learn the right way to do something – like when they need to learn that “flushing doesn’t actually CLEAN the toilet.  You need to use actual cleaning supplies.”

  But sometimes we’re stepping in because it makes things easier on us or them.  And of course that’s a good reason at times, but not all the time.  Sometimes we are taking over because we’re being too particular or controlling, or we underestimate them and their ability to do something or handle the struggle and frustration of working through it. Just be thoughtful about why and when to butt in, to rescue, to assist.  They know what they’re doing lots of times.  In those moments, the problem can be that we don’t know what we’re doing.

   

   

  

• Welcome!

  Date: 2011.05.24 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 13

  

   

  THE WHOLE-BRAIN CHILD is a bestseller!  I’m excited to let you know that my new book, co-authored with Dan Siegel and published by Random House, has been listed for several weeks on the Los Angeles Times Bestseller List.

  Harvey Karp (The Happiest Baby on the Block) says that Dan and I “turn leading brain science into simple, smart–and effective–solutions to your child’s struggles,” and Mary Pipher (Reviving Ophelia) calls The Whole-Brain Child “my new baby gift.”  You can see other blurbs to the right.

  Order your own copy!  (Or order two and give one to a friend or family member.)

  Thanks for reading.

  Tina