WEBVTT

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One of the most
rewarding experiences for me

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has been to study brain science

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and apply it
to the experience of parenting.

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And the hand model of the brain
that I use to teach parents

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is very useful
to understand that.

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So if you take your thumb
and put it in the middle of your palm,

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put your fingers over the top.

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This is a very useful model
of the brain

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and when we can actually see
in front of us

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what's going on in the brain

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then we can change
what the brain does.

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So let me walk you through
very basically

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what happens in this brain
and the structures in it

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and it goes like this.

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The spinal cord comes up,
representing the wrist

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and then you have coming up
into the skull

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the brain stem and the limbic area
which work together

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to regulate arousal
and your emotions

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and the way you have
a fight-flight-freeze response.

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These are below the cortex,
the limbic and brain stem areas

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and the cortex
is this higher part of the brain

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that allows us
to perceive the outside world

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and to think and reason.

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And this frontmost part of the brain
right behind your forehead,

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so the person's orientated like this,
is actually the part

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that regulates the subcortical, limbic,
and brainstem areas.

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This regulation is very important

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because sometimes we can have
all sorts of things happen

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in our life:
we're tired, we're exhausted,

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someone pushes a particular
emotional button,

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and we can flip our lids.

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So rather than being tuned in,

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and connected and balanced,
and flexible,

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we can lose all that flexibility,
even lose moral reasoning

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and act in ways
that are terrifying to others

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including our children.

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Now, you can actually
bring yourself back online

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and come back to the high road
and make a repair with your child

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and that's important to explain to them

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and you can also use
this hand model of the brain

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to explain to children
even as young as five and six

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how to understand when their emotions

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are rising up from the brainstem
and limbic areas here

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and how it's overriding
the prefrontal area

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and making it so they may be about
to flip their lids.

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So I've had kids come tell me

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that they're about to go flip their lids
and they need a break.

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They need a time out.

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And by even just naming that,
they can tame it.

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And that's the power
of using the hand model for ourselves

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and our children

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to help us all make sense

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of what goes on
in the emotional communication

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that we have
in the course of day-to-day life.