Daniel Siegel Hand Model

One of the most
rewarding experiences for me

has been to study brain science

and apply it
to the experience of parenting.

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

is very useful
to understand that.

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

put your fingers over the top.

This is a very useful model
of the brain

and when we can actually see
in front of us

what's going on in the brain

then we can change
what the brain does.

So let me walk you through
very basically

what happens in this brain
and the structures in it

and it goes like this.

The spinal cord comes up,
representing the wrist

and then you have coming up
into the skull

the brain stem and the limbic area
which work together

to regulate arousal
and your emotions

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

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

and the cortex
is this higher part of the brain

that allows us
to perceive the outside world

and to think and reason.

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

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

that regulates the subcortical, limbic,
and brainstem areas.

This regulation is very important

because sometimes we can have
all sorts of things happen

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

someone pushes a particular
emotional button,

and we can flip our lids.

So rather than being tuned in,

and connected and balanced,
and flexible,

we can lose all that flexibility,
even lose moral reasoning

and act in ways
that are terrifying to others

including our children.

Now, you can actually
bring yourself back online

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

and that's important to explain to them

and you can also use
this hand model of the brain

to explain to children
even as young as five and six

how to understand when their emotions

are rising up from the brainstem
and limbic areas here

and how it's overriding
the prefrontal area

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

So I've had kids come tell me

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

They need a time out.

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

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

and our children

to help us all make sense

of what goes on
in the emotional communication

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