Thanks to Dr. Dan Siegel, the lay are able to understand the brain in a way that makes so much sense, especially when it comes to children and their behaviors. If you have not had a chance to read “The Whole Brain Child” or if it has been sitting on your night stand collecting dust, it is time to pick it up and give it a quick read. It will provide you with such a great understanding of children and their behaviors. In the meantime, let’s talk about how you can nurture your child’s brain stem.

From Dr. Siegel’s guidance, my decades of work with children and their families and my personal experience as a parent, I have come to understand that there are all different kinds of behaviors that children can exhibit, especially in moments of high emotion. The biggest challenge as a parent is to be able to recognize what part of the brain are you dealing with when you are connecting and communicating with your child.

Imagine yourself stuck in traffic, late to work and having just spilled your fresh cup of Starbucks coffee on the seat. Are you calm? Are you able to engage in an intellectual conversation? Are you your best self? If you answered yes to any of these, you deserve a gigantic pat on the back because it is nearly impossible to be calm and rational when you are emotionally flooded. Therefore, we have to think about when our children are reacting to their environment from an emotional place, when they are overwhelmed, they are responding from their brain stem. They are in reptilian brain and relying on the survival techniques of fight, flight or freeze. They are no longer able to access their frontal cortex and think, behave or respond in an age appropriate manner.

What does that mean? It means that we cannot, and I really stress cannot, engage in a rational conversation with your child because they will not hear you. Let’s be honest, when you try to engage in conversation and your child does not respond to you or starts screaming and kicking even louder, it makes it hard for us, as parents and as human beings, to stay in the rational part of our brains; we may start to react from our brain stem. Therefore, nurture their brain stem. I know that this may sound counter-intuitive, but I invite you to move in, get closer, use less language and just hold them. They are in survival mode, so they need a rational being (yes that is you as the parent) to silently but securely, let them know that they are safe.

I know what you are thinking, this is going to spoil them. This is going to allow them to always behave like this. I have had countless parents share these exact same sentiments, but once they do it a couple of times, they are able to see and feel the difference. I promise you that by nurturing their brain stem, when they are responding with their brain stem, will help them gain more emotional regulation, more body awareness, increase their ability to engage in rational conversation and overall increase their self-confidence and competence in themselves and their relationships.

When your child is using fighting words, able to negotiate or appearing to be “manipulative” then we are not talking brain stem, so that requires a different form of parental engagement. On the other hand, when your child seems raw, vulnerable, irrational and emotionally overwhelmed, then I would invite you to move in. Nurture their brain stem. Provide comfort and security until both you and your child have rode the wave and you know that you are able to engage in an age appropriate, rational and connected conversation! By reacting and responding to your child’s brain stem, you are helping them developmentally move through tough situations with the security of love, kindness and respect!

Keep Calm and Carry On!