In the first edition, I tried to explain one of the critical factors of brain development and the importance of achieving it in our children’s lives.
Now let’s focus on ways of achieving an integrated brain. Let’s see how we can coach and help our children achieve that and use the daily experiences and challenges to get the outcome we want.
Understanding how our brain works, as parents, will enable us to create cooperation quicker and with less drama when it comes to our kids.
Before I go any further, I’d like to explain a word that came across to me when I was reading parenting books, “Attunement.”
Attunement was the early term adopted by energy medicine practitioners, initially developed by Lloyd Arthur Meeker (1907 – 1954) and his colleagues.
Attunement means empathy, mindfulness, immediacy, presence, actively listening. It is the process of connecting emotionally with other human beings.
This is a crucial step to help our children achieve brain integration. When our child is upset, there is usually no place for logic, meaning that the only side of the brain engaged is the right brain.
What do you need to do as parents or caregivers? You need to connect with them first!
You MUST take a step to make the child feel felt and make sure that you address the emotion involved. Once you achieve that, you can help him use the left brain and logically look into the issue to solve it.
Connecting with our kids on the accurate side of their brain before taking any other action is essential in helping them achieve this unification.
Remember, no matter how nonsensical and frustrating our child's feelings might seem, they are real and important to him. (The whole-brain child)
When trying to connect with your child's right brain, you can use physical touch, empathetic facial expressions, and nurturing and calm tone of voice. By doing this, you are helping him bring his brain to a more unified state.
Once you achieve that, it's then that you can try and bring the logic into the picture and explain why something is not doable or what was the real cause for how he felt.
Another approach is storytelling.
What I mean by that is to help our kids talk about the issue or what made them upset, hurt, or afraid in story format.
What this process does for them is help them understand their emotions and what's around them by using both sides of our brain in an integrated way.
Depending on their age, this process can happen by using their words to talk or write about what has happened, or if they are younger, it can be done by drawing and talking simultaneously.
Storytelling is a crucial skill to learn as it can help our kids to make sense of their emotions and also feel better about what happened in the end.
As humans when we can use words describing what has happened to us, the events become less upsetting or painful in our minds.
What’s required in this approach is for you to get connected with their left side so that they can use words to talk about the details of the incident and what they experienced and then engage the right side to share how they felt.
Respect them if you see that they are not ready to share or don't want to revisit the event just yet. Pressuring children to share could cause a reaction and take you far from what you'd like to achieve. You most likely would get a good response if you are strategic about when and how to initiate the talk.
Remember, the best conversations with our kids happen while they are busy doing something else. Building something, playing, etc.
Storytelling is a powerful approach no matter what age our kids are. Parents would be facilitators when using this technique, and children would actively tell the story.
When we help our children talk about their fears, emotions, and pain, we help them conquer them as well.
I want to finish this edition by saying that for us parents, it is essential to let our kids see their ability to solve problems. We need to make sure we give them a chance to feel empowered and coach them through opportunities to develop their brains and know that they can always make a choice.
If you find this useful or know someone who can find value in this, please help me spread the word.
Thanks for giving my work a slice of your attention!