The Whole Brain Child method can revolutionize your parenting

“Integration” is a fundamental part of understanding child psychology. This is getting the left brain (logic, reason, analysis) to work together with the right brain (creativity, intuition, imagination) as well as the upstairs and downstairs (conscious and subconscious).

Young children, especially toddlers cannot use their entire brain at once. Often logic is gone and they’re throwing a tantrum solely because of their right brain. It’s critical to empathize before trying at all to logic them out of a tantrum.

For example, a child crying over not being able to walk on walls like Spiderman feels very intensely, even if it’s not logical. Connect and redirect them using your own right brain. A simple “I wish I could walk on walls too” can go a long way.

Connecting and redirecting upstairs and downstairs brain might mean appealing to logic when children are being deceptive or manipulative, or appealing to emotions when they are overwhelmed with strong feelings.

Often children’s seemingly baffling behaviors can be understood through implicit and explicit memory. For example fears and apprehensions may be tied to deep implicit memories the child doesn’t explicitly remember.

Mindsight is the idea that feelings, memories, thoughts and perceptions are controlled by a central hub (this is the prefrontal cortex). If the feelings and thoughts take over, causing anxiety, it’s critical to take control of the central hub. Teach kids feelings are important.

Redirecting negative emotions and thoughts is critical. For example, embarrassment after a fall during a dance performance is a natural feeling. But encourage children to change negative thoughts by redirecting attention to helpful facts like how others have similarly overcome.

The ability to objectively distinguish thoughts from emotions is a skill that children can use throughout their lives. As adults they will be equipped to articulate what’s on their minds, which will improve their relationships and overall well-being.

As a family there are many whole-brain activities you can all do together to learn and grow in awareness. Simply pointing out the behaviors of others and encouraging children to try to identify the underlying feeling and most helpful response can be a quick learning opportunity.

There are numerous techniques that can increase empathy, understanding and ultimately improve behaviors in children. Most important is first recognizing and respecting feelings together and then attempting to redirect or reframe to a more positive outlook.