The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind

by Daniel J. Siegel

In a situation like this, many of us would be tempted to assure Marco that Sophia would be fine, then immediately focus on something else to get the child’s mind off the situation: “Let’s go get some ice cream!” In the days that followed, many parents would try to avoid upsetting their child by not discussing the accident. The problem with the “let’s go get some ice cream” approach is that it leaves the child confused about what happened and why. He is still full of big and scary emotions, but he isn’t allowed (or helped) to deal with them in an effective way.

When neurons fire together, they grow new connections between them. Over time, the connections that result from firing lead to “rewiring” in the brain. This is incredibly exciting news. It means that we aren’t held captive for the rest of our lives by the way our brain works at this moment—we can actually rewire it so that we can be healthier and happier. This is true not only for children and adolescents, but also for each of us across the life span.

In other words, on top of our basic brain architecture and our inborn temperament, parents have much they can do to provide the kinds of experiences that will help develop a resilient, well-integrated brain. This book will show you how to use everyday experiences to help your child’s brain become more and more integrated.

The good news is that by using everyday moments, you can influence how well your child’s brain grows toward integration. First, you can develop the diverse elements of your child’s brain by offering opportunities to exercise them. Second, you can facilitate integration so that the separate parts become better connected and work together in powerful ways. This isn’t making your children grow up more quickly—it’s simply helping them develop the many parts of themselves and integrate them.

Your left brain loves and desires order. It is logical, literal, linguistic (it likes words), and linear (it puts things in a sequence or order). The left brain loves that all four of these words begin with the letter L. (It also loves lists.)

The right brain, on the other hand, is holistic and nonverbal, sending and receiving signals that allow us to communicate, such as facial expressions, eye contact, tone of voice, posture, and gestures.

You might think of it this way: the left brain cares about the letter of the law (more of those L’s). As you know, as kids get older they get really good at using this left-brain thinking: “I didn’t shove her! I pushed her.” The right brain, on the other hand, cares about the spirit of the law, the emotions and experiences of relationships. The left focuses on the text—the right is about the context. It was the nonlogical, emotional right brain that prompted Katie to yell to her father, “I’ll die if you leave me!”

In terms of development, very young children are right-hemisphere dominant, especially during their first three years. They haven’t mastered the ability to use logic and words to express their feelings, and they live their lives completely in the moment—which is why they will drop everything to squat down and fully absorb themselves in watching a ladybug crawl along the sidewalk, not caring one bit that they are late for their toddler music class. Logic, responsibilities, and time don’t exist for them yet.

We don’t want our children to hurt. But we also want them to do more than simply get through their difficult times; we want them to face their troubles and grow from them.

Denial of our emotions isn’t the only danger we face when we rely too heavily on our left brain. We can also become too literal, leaving us without a sense of perspective, where we miss the meaning that comes from putting things in context (a specialty of the right brain). This is part of what causes your eight-year-old to become defensive and angry sometimes when you innocently joke around with her. Remember that the right brain is in charge of reading nonverbal cues. So especially if she is tired or moody, she might focus only on your words and miss your playful tone of voice and the wink that went with it.

The goal, then, is to help our kids learn to use both sides of the brain together—to integrate the left and right hemispheres. Remember the river of well-being discussed earlier, with chaos as one bank and rigidity as the other. We defined mental health as remaining in the harmonious flow between these two extremes. By helping our kids connect left and right, we give them a better chance of avoiding the banks of chaos and rigidity, and of living in the flexible current of mental health and happiness.

Based on our knowledge of the two sides of the brain, we know that Tina’s son was experiencing big waves of right-brain emotions without much left-brain logical balance. At a moment like this, one of the least effective things Tina could do would be to jump right in and defend herself (“Of course I do nice things for you!”) or to argue with her son about his faulty logic (“There’s nothing I can do about making your birthday come sooner. As for the homework, that’s just something that you’ve got to do”). This type of left-brain, logical response would hit an unreceptive right-brain brick wall and create a gulf between them. After all, his logical left brain was nowhere to be found at that moment. So, had Tina responded with her left, her son would have felt like she didn’t understand him or care about his feelings. He was in a right-brain, nonrational, emotional flood, and a left-brain response would have been a lose-lose approach.

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.

when a child is upset, logic often won’t work until we have responded to the right brain’s emotional needs. We call this emotional connection “attunement,” which is how we connect deeply with another person and allow them to “feel felt.” When parent and child are tuned in to each other, they experience a sense of joining together.

use these opportunities to realize that at these moments, logic isn’t our primary vehicle for bringing some sort of sanity to the conversation. (Seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it?) It’s also crucial to keep in mind that no matter how nonsensical and frustrating our child’s feelings may seem to us, they are real and important to our child. It’s vital that we treat them as such in our response.

Once she had connected with him right brain to right brain, it was much easier to connect left to left and deal with the issues in a rational manner. By first connecting with his right brain, she could then redirect with the left brain through logical explanation and planning, which required that his left hemisphere join the conversation. This approach allowed him to use both sides of his brain in an integrated, coordinated way.

Rules about respect and behavior aren’t thrown out the window simply because a child’s left hemisphere is disengaged.

The key here 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. This approach can be a life preserver that helps keep your child’s head above water, and keeps you from being pulled under along with him.

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.

There may be times when our kids won’t want to tell the story when we ask them to. We need to respect their desires about how and when to talk—especially because pressuring them to share will only backfire.

Instead, we can gently encourage them by beginning the story and asking them to fill in the details, and if they’re not interested, we can give them space and talk later.

Children are much more apt to share and talk while building something, playing cards, or riding in the car than when you sit down and look them right in the face and ask them to open up. Another approach you can take if your child doesn’t feel like talking is to ask her to draw a picture of the event or, if she’s old enough, write about it. If you sense that she is reluctant to talk to you, encourage her to talk to someone else—a friend, another adult, or even a sibling who will be a good listener.

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 and scary right-brain feelings so they can deal with them effectively. This is what storytelling does: it allows us to understand ourselves and our world by using both our left and right hemispheres together.

as it helps them try to understand their emotions and the events that occur in their lives. Sometimes parents avoid talking about upsetting experiences, thinking that doing so will reinforce their children’s pain or make things worse. Actually, telling the story is often exactly what children need, both to make sense of the event and to move on to a place where they can feel better about what happened.

This is how stories empower us to move forward and master the moments when we feel out of control. When we can give words to our frightening and painful experiences—when we literally come to terms with them—they often become much less frightening and painful. When we help our children name their pain and their fears, we help them tame them.

You’ve probably experienced just such a moment, where a situation with your child is delicately balanced and is about to turn ugly. Things could still be salvaged and tip toward a good and peaceful resolution. Or they could tilt in the other direction, devolving into chaos, anarchy, even violence. And it all depends on your little darling controlling an impulse. Calming some big feelings. Making a good decision. Yikes.

Imagine that your brain is a house, with both 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 are 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 is completely different. 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. Unlike your more basic downstairs brain, the upstairs brain is more evolved and can give you a fuller perspective on your world. You might imagine it as a light-filled second-story study or library full of windows and skylights that allow you to see things more clearly. This is where more intricate mental processes take place, like thinking, imagining, and planning.

The upstairs brain remains under massive construction for the first few years of life, then during the teen years undergoes an extensive remodel that lasts into adulthood.

that’s what we call “flipping our lid,” and it’s how the amygdala can get us into trouble: it takes over and relieves the upstairs brain from its duties. When we’re not truly in danger, we want to think before acting, instead of the other way around.

A parent who recognizes an upstairs tantrum is left with one clear response: never negotiate with a terrorist. An upstairs tantrum calls for firm boundaries and a clear discussion about appropriate and inappropriate behavior.

If you refuse to give in to upstairs tantrums—regardless of the age of your child—you’ll stop seeing them on a regular basis. Since upstairs tantrums are intentional, children will stop returning to that particular strategy when they learn that it’s ineffective—and often even leads to negative results.

A downstairs tantrum is completely different. Here, a child becomes so upset that he’s no longer

Once our son was more in control of himself and could actually be receptive to what we had to say, we discussed the importance of being respectful and using good manners in a restaurant, even when he’s unhappy.

Let’s make one thing clear: sometimes there is no place for negotiation in parent-child interactions. Children need to respect their parents’ authority, and sometimes that means that no simply means no, without wiggle room. Also, sometimes counteroffers are unacceptable.

Every time we say “Convince me” or “Come up with a solution that works for both of us,” we give our kids the chance to practice problem solving and decision making. We help them consider appropriate behaviors and consequences, and we help them think about what another person feels and wants. All because we found a way to engage the upstairs, instead of enraging the downstairs.

In addition to appealing to our children’s upstairs brain, we also want to help them exercise it. The upstairs brain is like a muscle: when it gets used, it develops, gets stronger, and performs better. And when it gets ignored, it doesn’t develop optimally, losing some of its power and ability to function. That’s what we mean by “use it or lose it.” We want to be intentional about developing the upstairs brain of our children.

As you and your children go through your day, watch for ways you can focus on and exercise different functions of the upstairs brain.

The point is to let your children wrestle with the decision and live with the consequences. Whenever you can do so responsibly, avoid solving and resist rescuing, even when they make minor mistakes or not-so-great choices. After all, your goal here isn’t perfection on every decision right now, but an optimally developed upstairs brain down the road.

Another important—and difficult—task for little ones is to remain in control of themselves. So we need to give them skills that help them make good decisions when they are upset. Use the techniques you’re probably already familiar with: Teach them to take a deep breath, or count to ten. Help them express their feelings. Let them stomp their feet or punch a pillow. You can also teach them what’s happening in their brains when they feel themselves losing control—and how to avoid “flipping their lid.”

One of the best ways to foster self-understanding in your children is to ask questions that help them look beyond the surface of what they understand: Why do you think you made that choice? What made you feel that way? Why do you think you didn’t do well on your test—was it because you were hurrying, or is this just really difficult material?

Empathy is another important function of the upstairs brain. When you ask simple questions that encourage the consideration of another’s feelings, you are building your child’s ability to feel empathy. At a restaurant: “Why do you think that baby is crying?” While you’re reading together: “How do you think Melinda is feeling now that her friend moved away?” Leaving the store: “That woman wasn’t very nice to us, was she? Do you think something might have happened to her that made her feel sad today?” Simply by drawing your child’s attention to other people’s emotions during everyday encounters, you can open up whole new levels of compassion within them and exercise their upstairs brain.

When kids can make sound decisions while controlling themselves and working from empathy and self-understanding, they will develop a robust and active sense of morality, a sense of not only right and wrong, but also what is for the greater good beyond their own individual needs.

Another way to exercise this part of the brain is to offer hypothetical situations, which kids often love: Would it be OK to run a red light if there was an emergency? If a bully was picking on someone at school and there were no adults around, what would you do? The point is to challenge your children to think about how they act, and to consider the implications of their decisions. In doing so, you give your kids practice thinking through moral and ethical principles, which, with your guidance, will become the foundation for the way they make decisions for the rest of their lives.

Research shows that when we change our physical state—through movement or relaxation, for example—we can change our emotional state.

At times, too, you can simply explain the concept: I know you’re mad you didn’t get to go on the sleepover with your sister. Doesn’t seem fair, does it? Let’s go ride our bikes and talk about it. Sometimes just moving your body can help your brain feel like things are going to be OK. However you do it, 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.

So what do you do when you recognize that your downstairs brain has taken over and you’ve begun to lose your mind? First, do no harm. Close your mouth to avoid saying something you’ll regret. Put your hands behind your back to avoid any kind of rough physical contact. When you’re in a downstairs moment, protect your child at all costs. Second, remove yourself from the situation and collect yourself. There’s nothing wrong with taking a breather, especially when it means protecting your child. You can tell her you need a break to calm down so she doesn’t feel rejected. Then, although it might feel a bit silly at times, try out the “move it or lose it” technique. Do jumping jacks. Try some yoga stretches. Take slow, deep breaths. Do whatever it takes to regain some of the control you lost when your amygdala hijacked your upstairs brain. You’ll not only move into a more integrated state yourself, but also model for your kids some quick self-regulation tricks they can use. Finally, repair. Quickly. Reconnect with your child as soon as you are calm and feeling more in control of yourself. Then deal with whatever emotional and relational harm has been done. This may involve your expressing forgiveness, but it may also require that you apologize and accept responsibility for your own actions. This step needs to occur as quickly as possible. The sooner you repair the connection between yourself and your child, the sooner you can both regain your emotional balance and get back to en...

memory is the way an event from the past influences us in the present.

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. Our past absolutely shapes our present and future. And it does so via associations within the brain.

Whenever you retrieve a memory, you alter it. What you recall may be close to exactly what happened, but the very act of recalling an experience changes it, sometimes in significant ways. To put it scientifically, memory retrieval activates a neural cluster similar to, but not identical with, the one created at the time of encoding. Thus memories are distorted—sometimes slightly, sometimes greatly—even though you believe you are being accurate.