I have been fascinated by neuroscience for several years now. In fact, learning about basic brain function and child development is why I chose to leave conventional parenting methods behind. I’m certainly no neuroscientist, and I still don’t understand the deep complexities of the brain, but I’ve come to understand the basics through No-Drama Discipline by Drs. Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne-Bryson.
Dr. Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine. Dr. Bryson is a psychotherapist and the Executive Director for the Center for Connection. What they share in their book is huge, paradigm-shifting information that every parent needs to know. I’m going to share with you just a snippet that I feel is extremely important. Of course, I recommend adding their book to your library.
Let’s divide the brain into parts. The lower region of the brain is what Drs. Siegel and Bryson refer to as the “downstairs brain.” This is made up of the brainstem and the limbic region. The brainstem is our primitive “reptilian” brain and is responsible for operations such as breathing, digestion, and regulating sleep cycles. The limbic system houses our strong emotions. The downstairs brain is well developed at birth, so your child feels all of the strong emotions from the get-go, but managing those emotions is not a function of the lower brain.
The upper region, or upstairs brain as the authors call it, is made up of the cerebral cortex, the outermost layer of the brain. The upstairs brain is responsible for logical thinking, reasoning, making decisions, planning, regulation of emotions, empathy, morality, and much more, and this is very underdeveloped at birth. In fact, it won’t be fully formed until the mid 20’s.
Why does this change everything?
It takes the information we’ve been fed for years, such as the idea that a child who hits is just being mean and needs to be punished, or that a toddler having a meltdown is being manipulative and needs to be ignored, and blows it completely out of the water. None of that is true! A child having a downstairs tantrum (feeling truly emotionally overwhelmed) cannot just stop the tantrum no matter how much you threaten or bribe her to, because she’s locked in her primitive downstairs brain and cannot access the part that houses reason. A child who hits someone has lost access to his very underdeveloped upstairs brain and is reacting from his primitive brain. He’s not mean – he’s simply not capable of controlling his emotions and behavior all the time.
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Does this excuse bad behavior? Do we just let it go since they can’t help it? No, of course not. On the contrary, this is a good reason to set limits and ensure they stay within our boundaries. Drs. Siegel and Bryson say this – “The fact that she doesn’t have a consistently working upstairs brain, which provides internal constraints that govern her behavior, means that she needs to be provided with external constraints.
We need to help develop our children’s upstairs brain – along with all of the skills it makes possible – and while doing so, we may need to act as an external upstairs brain along the way, working with them and helping them make decisions they’re not quite capable of making for themselves.”
This information doesn’t change the fact that children need boundaries. What this information does do is change how we react when they step outside those boundaries. In the chapter Your Brain on Discipline, they talk about the ability to appeal to different parts of a child’s brain. Our parental responses activate one part of the brain to get one result, or another part to get a different result. So, with our responses to misbehavior, we can either appeal to our child’s upstairs brain or to their downstairs brain. They ask the question, “If your child is melting down and out of control, which part of the brain would you rather appeal to? The one that’s primitive and reactive? Or the one that’s sophisticated and capable of logic, compassion, and self-understanding?”
Obviously, we want to appeal to the higher brain. We want to engage the higher parts that can help override the lower, reactive parts. Which part of the brain do you think punishment appeals to? Which part does being ignored appeal to? What about threatening? These parental behaviors all activate the reactive reptilian brain. They call this “poking the lizard.”
But, by demonstrating empathy and respect and engaging in problem-solving, you don’t communicate a threat, and the reptilian brain can relax its reactivity. This is why I moved from time-out (which my son perceived as a threat) to time-in, because I wanted to appeal to his upper brain, not continue lighting up their lower brain. It’s why I now engage both my children in problem-solving when a problem arises rather than punishing them.
When we consistently help a child to calm down and work with them to teach good decision-making, we are actually strengthening the neural connections in their upstairs brain. From Drs. Siegel and Bryson, “The way we interact with our kid when they’re upset significantly affects how their brains develop, and therefore what kind of people they are, both today and in the years to come.”
This is a huge subject, and the book provides practical tips on how to implement this information. I can’t recommend it enough. Let’s stop poking the lizard! Engage the upstairs brain and then teach them better skills.