Thanks to the latest neuroscience research and findings, we know so much more about your child’s brain. To me it’s fascinating and so exciting. Now we’re understanding more and more about how different brain states affect your child’s body and behaviours, mood and emotions, as well as the quality of their thoughts.
With all the latest information we have more tips and tricks to get the best results for your child, and to give you a roadmap to follow for effective parenting.
Before we jump right into HOW to do this we first need to understand brain states, and acknowledge how there are developmental changes as your child grows.
The brain has three main parts which can be likened to the traffic light system. It’s a very simplistic model although a very helpful way of viewing the parts of the brain. (I’d like to acknowledge world-leading expert Dr. Daniel Seigal and Carrie Contey who have influenced this section).
REPTILE Brain {RED} – all about survival, the oldest part of the brain.
This is the only part of the brain that is wired at birth. Moment-to-moment, 24-hours a day, it is constantly scanning the internal and external environment to check: “am I safe or not safe?”
Our reptilian brains keep us alive. It’s the part of our brain that is in charge when we’re stressed and overwhelmed. This is the lowest part of our brain, and when we’re in this brain state, we’re “in the red”, or “in our animal brain”.
LIMBIC or MAMMAL Brain {YELLOW} – at six weeks after birth the mammal brain starts to wire up.
This is the part of the brain where it’s all about emotions, connection, feeling understood or misunderstood, seen and valued, or neglected. This part of the brain allows for a little person to create an attachment (healthy relationship) to his or her caregivers, and it’s why babies begin to smile at about this time.
This part of the brain is mostly non-verbal. It responds a lot to your body language, tone of voice, touch and the ability to be present and ‘with’.
HUMAN Brain or Neocortex {GREEN} – at about one year old, it starts to wire.
This is the juicy part where language, rational thought, learning new information, creativity, intuition, empathy and compassion wire up. It’s the higher-functioning part of the brain which is active when we’re calm, relaxed and able to think clearly and perform at our best.
What’s happening developmentally?
Babies arrive and can’t do anything for themselves. They need us to care for their bodies and their emotions. In only three short years a massive growth happens. By this time they’re actually doing most things. They’re running around, talking, making jokes, telling stories and so on. It’s incredible. How is this even possible? It’s all because of development in the brain.
For the first year of life babies are mostly operating from red and yellow brain states.
Up to seven years-old children continue to operate in their red and yellow brain states as they begin to grow the green part of their brain.
It’s not until the age of around 25 years-old that the foundational brain wiring is complete and they have an ‘adult brain’.
Hopefully this will help you have a deeper understanding of your little person. Often mothers are able to be more compassionate with themselves and with their child when they can reframe the challenges with the understanding that their child’s brain is “just not fully wired up yet”.
What we know is that all three parts of your child’s brain are operating on and off at different parts of the day. This information will help you navigate the way you interact with them.
As an intuitive mother you’ll have an individualised approach, and even though you’ll be getting a clear roadmap here, you’ll also notice that this approach supports you to be flexible and adaptable to changing situations moment-by-moment, day-by-day, in accordance with your personality and your child’s uniqueness.
How does your child act in each part of the brain?
Now its time to find out what your child looks like, sounds like and acts like in each part of the brain states. Below are some of the different behaviours you might see when you child is in each of the three brain states. You might have some of your own to add – use them in the observation exercise coming up below. In order to parent like a mama goddess, you’ll need to be able to meet your child where he or she is at. That’s why understanding these brain states is important.
HUMAN – Green Brain: relaxed and easy-going, using language, thinking, is compliant, happy to do what you ask, funny and delightful, loving
LIMBIC/MAMMAL- Yellow Brain: whining, clinging, not listening, resisting, bossy, speeding up, nervous laughing, crying, everything’s NOT right.
REPTILE/ANIMAL – Red Brain: full-on fight or flight. tantrums, kicking, biting, screaming, hitting , spitting, fighting, aggression OR shutting down, running away, avoiding eye contact, freezing, collapsing, meltdown.
So in the new paradigm you can read what part of the brain your child is in to determine how you’ll respond! (Red, Yellow or Green)
Exercise:
First of all you need to be observant and curious about your child’s behaviour so that you can begin to recognise when your child is in each of these brain states- the Red, the Yellow and the Green. This will later help you to learn how to catch your child as they slide from an upper brain state to a lower one, giving you the opportunity to positively intervene. And you might notice how your child can move from a lower brain state to an upper brain state and you can learn to develop interventions that can help this happen.
You’ll also be observing your own brain states and how this affects your response to your child’s brain state.
The OBSERVE YOUR CHILD play sheet, included in this module, helps you chart your observations of your child. Included is a section for charting your own responses, feelings and brain states to observe and record as well.
Download the OBSERVE YOUR CHILD play sheet, do the exercises and report back your findings to The Village Facebook group.
With love,
