CHILD: "There's NO WAY I can go to school today! Mrs. Parsons HATES me and so does everyone else! Besides I feel HORRIBLE and I think I'm going to throw up. If you send me to school, then you really don't care at all about me! I'm NEVER going to school again!!!!!"
PARENT: ???!!!!!....
What is a parent to do when a child is overcome with conflicting emotions? This child has fired off 4 separate dogmatic statements... to which one should the parent respond? Insist that the child IS going to school? Supply evidence that Mrs. Parsons doesn't hate him? Take the child's temperature? Provide him recent evidence of your undying affection, despite your current exasperation? Drag him by his ears out to the bus stop?
When we see our kids exploding with big feelings such as these, we can know that they are experiencing big waves of right-brain domination without much left-brain logic. So what does our kid need at this moment? Someone to swoop in and supply left brain evidence of their crazy-talk?
In fact that is the least effective thing a parent could do, but its exactly what seems most instinctual to a parent. In exasperation, we try to talk some sense into them. Or dismiss their big demands as disobedience. Obey first, THEN we'll get to the bottom of this mess, right? Or we feel they are trying to manipulate us. They are not going to get away with this again!! Help them see how they are wrong, right?
Wrong.
When a child is stuck in their right brain, they literally CANNOT at that moment think logically. When children are overcome with emotion, they need a parent to connect with their right brain.
1. Connect with the right
A parent who can listen empathetically and give a child a safe place to express anger will open a door to the left brain. A nurturing tone of voice, nonverbal symbols of affection in a warm hug/touch, and non-judgmental listening help calm the emotional waves and open a path to a more integrated state.
2. Redirect with the left
Once a child feels emotionally connected to the parent, THEN you can entertain a logical conversation about next steps and new ways of seeing things. Not to say this always works quickly. Sometimes waves must crash until the storm passes. Nor is this to say that you should tolerate disrespectful or destructive behavior during big emotions. But a child will be much more receptive to discipline AFTER the storm passes. During a right brain flood, a child's brain simply cannot "learn a lesson." When someone is drowning, swim out at save them FIRST before the lecture about water safety!
*Adapted from Dan Siegel's The Whole Brain Child
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