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 »

Is Over-Scheduling Really a Problem for Kids?

Date: 2011.08.03 | Category: Parenting | Response: 11

People talk a lot about the dangers of the over-scheduled child.  Kids doing too many activities become tired and grumpy.  They don’t have time to spend with their family.  They get burned out and begin to dislike whatever activity the parent was hoping they would embrace.  They don’t have time to just play and be kids.

Before I had my own children, all of this made sense to me.  That’s why I decided that my kids would participate in only one activity at a time.  If they wanted to take a dance class, that’s all they’d do until the class was over.  If they wanted to play a sport, they wouldn’t be involved in anything else until the end of the season.  I wasn’t going to have my kids dealing with all the problems facing over-scheduled children.

That was before I had kids of my own.

Then my first son came along, and I was giddy with all the opportunities available to him, and all of his many different interests, all of which increased with each passing year.  Especially once he entered elementary school, I quickly came to see that my one-activity-at-a-time commitment was going to be tested.  My husband and I wanted him to learn piano.  He wanted to be involved in Cub Scouts with his friends from school.  Plus, it was immediately apparent that his passion was athletics.  He wanted to play every sport in season.

Piano.  Scouts.  Sports.  Add in playdates, homework, family outings, and “unstructured play time,” and how were we supposed to fit all of that in?  And he was just our first child!  We now have three, all with their own opportunities and passions.

These days, as my oldest approaches adolescence, I still believe that over-scheduling kids really is a legitimate concern.  Children can become anxious and pressured and miss out on the benefits of boredom, down time, and the freedom of childhood.  But I no longer believe 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!

Does Your Discipline Ever Move From Consistent to Rigid?

Date: 2011.07.05 | Category: Parenting | Response: 15

There’s no question about it:  consistency is crucial when it comes to raising and disciplining our children.  Many parents I see in my office realize that they need to work on being more consistent – with bedtimes, limiting junk food, or just in general – when they interact with their kids.  But there are others who have placed such a high priority on consistency that it’s moved into a rigidity that’s not good for their kids, themselves, or their relationship.

Let’s begin by getting clear on the difference between the two terms.  Consistency means working from a reliable and coherent philosophy so that our kids know what we expect of them, and what they should expect from us.  Rigidity, on the other hand, means maintaining an unswerving devotion to rules we’ve set up, sometimes without having even thought them through.  As parents, we want to be consistent, but not rigid.

Kids definitely need consistency from their parents.  They need to know what the rules are, and how we will respond if they break (or even bend) those rules.  Your reliability teaches them about cause and effect, and about what to expect in their world.  More than that, it helps them feel safe; they know they can count on you to be constant and steady, even when their internal or external worlds are chaotic.  In this way, we provide them with safe containment when they’re exploding because they want an extra scoop of ice cream.

So how do we maintain consistency without crossing over to rigidity?  Well, let’s start by acknowledging that there are some non-negotiables.  For instance, under no circumstances can you Read the rest of this entry »

Give Your Toddler or Preschooler a Little Power (revised)

Date: 2011.06.29 | Category: Parenting | Response: 15

Toddlers and preschoolers see their grown-ups and older siblings doing everything so easily.  It can be frustrating and discouraging for these little ones to try and try, and not be able to do what they see everyone else doing.

Knowing that self-esteem can come from being competent at something, there are several ways we can empower our toddlers and preschoolers and give them opportunities to feel capable and competent:

Let them do things for themselves.

Sometimes it’s hard for a parent not to step in and quickly do something a child is trying to do.  Especially if the child is taking a long time to, say, figure out how all of the chalk pieces will go back into the box.  (Sometimes I want to pull my hair out when I’m watching my own four-year-old meticulously try to fix the Velcro fastener on the back of his Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

Should You Spy on Your Teenager?

Date: 2011.06.15 | Category: Parenting | Response: 12

An essential part of parenting is keeping your kids safe and helping them make good decisions. Your strong instincts to protect your teens from making bad choices is what motivates you to check in with them and even call their friends’ parents to check to make sure they are being adequately supervised.  But what about spying?  Is that going too far?  It’s possible that your desire to protect may lead you to cross a line that can not only be harmful to your teenager, but also damage your relationship with them.

So how do we act as conscientious, loving parents who responsibly watch over our kids, without becoming so overbearing that we cross that line and end up creating problems even bigger than the ones we’re trying to avoid?  Well, we can start by asking ourselves some basic questions:

What are my motives?

Ask yourself why you feel the need to spy.  Is it really necessarily?  Is your teenager in real danger?  If so, then there might actually be a need to monitor at least some of what they’re doing, so you can help them be safe.  But it’s a different story if your teen is actually a good, responsible kid.  Is there a chance that you’re being paranoid?  Maybe you made some mistakes in your youth, and you’re afraid Read the rest of this entry »