The Committed Parent
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Employing social neuroscience to help parents raise kids we can live with and are crazy about ~
The BIG Brain Question
By Mark Brady
There’s ONE question that all human brains want answered, and they
want it answered, “Yes.” Parent’s brains, children’s brains, all brains.
And they don’t want a lukewarm “Yes,” or a “Maybe Yes” or a “Getting-
to-Yes Yes.” They want a substantial, resounding, unequivocal, “YES!
Yes.”
Before I tell you what that question is, however, I’d like to tell you a
little bit about what goes on in a child’s (or adult’s/parent’s) brain
when the answer is something other than “Yes.” First of all, if the
answer is “Maybe,” or “I’m not sure,” a confusion and uncertainty
begins to take shape in our children’s brains. How this looks under an
electron microscope is a significantly reduced number of grooves in the
brain together with fewer connections between neurons. Reduced
connections result, not unexpectedly, in reduced abilities in different
areas – for example, motor areas or immune function – resulting in
greatly diminished capacities, e.g. lower social or emotional
intelligence or reduced impulse control. If you go to my website (www.
committedparent.com) and click on the link to Gauss’s Brain, you will
be able to clearly see a side-by-side comparison of two brains, one that
very likely had the Big Brain Question repeatedly answered “Yes”
(Gauss’s) and another that most likely had it answered “Maybe.”
The greatest problems arise for parents and children when the answer
to the Big Brain Question is, “No.” When the answer to this question is
“No,” children are placed into an untenable position: the place where
they live, and the people they need to take care of them are not
performing that fundamental function very well. Because they are
unable to take care of themselves, our children are now stuck. Feeling,
or actually being helplessly stuck with no ready resolution in sight, has
been found to be the primary experience that results in Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD) in adults and children alike. What PTSD actually
looks like when a brain-scanning machine takes a picture of it can also
be seen on my website. (Click on the link “Damaged Prefrontals” on the
Resources Page).
This kind of brain damage, in differing degrees, is believed to have a
lifelong impact on our children. Here’s what “recovering neurologist,”
Dr. Bob Scaer, has to say about it: “The cumulative experiences of
‘life's little traumas’ shape virtually every single aspect of existence.
This accumulation of negative life experiences molds one's personality,
choices of mate, profession, clothes, appetite, pet peeves, social
behaviors, posture, and most specifically, our state of physical and
mental health.”
All that might not be so bad. It might be something children could work
with. However, Gabor Maté, a Canadian physician, sees the damage
caused by the answer “No” to the Big Brain Question as even more
serious. Here’s what he has to say: “The biology of potential illness
arises early in life. The brain's stress response mechanisms are
programmed by experiences beginning in infancy, and so are the
implicit, unconscious memories that govern our attitudes and behaviors
toward ourselves, others and the world. Cancer, multiple sclerosis,
rheumatoid arthritis and the other conditions we examined are not
abrupt new developments in adult life, but culminations of lifelong
processes. The human interactions and biological imprinting that shaped
these processes took place in periods of our life for which we may have
no conscious recall."
So, we can see that children’s brains need tender, loving, consistent
care. But what exactly IS this Big Brain Question, and what do we need
to do in order to consistently answer it “Yes”? To find out what the Big
Brain Question is, and the many ways that we can begin to answer it
“Yes” for our children go here.
Mark Brady, Ph.D. is a father and a child brain science educator. Many
years ago, together with friends, he co-founded the Children’s Grief
Program at Kara, a public service agency in Palo Alto, California, where
he still volunteers today. He is the prize-winning author of a number of
books. Two of his most recent books are entitled A Little Book of
Parenting Skills and A Father’s Book of Listening. Those and others
can be ordered from bookstores, or on the Internet or directly by
emailing: committedparent@gmail.com. His most current book- Safe
and Secure: How 12 Recent Findings from Neuroscience Can Help You
Raise Happy Healthy Children Who Live Long and Prosper will be
available in 2008.
By Mark Brady
There’s ONE question that all human brains want answered, and they
want it answered, “Yes.” Parent’s brains, children’s brains, all brains.
And they don’t want a lukewarm “Yes,” or a “Maybe Yes” or a “Getting-
to-Yes Yes.” They want a substantial, resounding, unequivocal, “YES!
Yes.”
Before I tell you what that question is, however, I’d like to tell you a
little bit about what goes on in a child’s (or adult’s/parent’s) brain
when the answer is something other than “Yes.” First of all, if the
answer is “Maybe,” or “I’m not sure,” a confusion and uncertainty
begins to take shape in our children’s brains. How this looks under an
electron microscope is a significantly reduced number of grooves in the
brain together with fewer connections between neurons. Reduced
connections result, not unexpectedly, in reduced abilities in different
areas – for example, motor areas or immune function – resulting in
greatly diminished capacities, e.g. lower social or emotional
intelligence or reduced impulse control. If you go to my website (www.
committedparent.com) and click on the link to Gauss’s Brain, you will
be able to clearly see a side-by-side comparison of two brains, one that
very likely had the Big Brain Question repeatedly answered “Yes”
(Gauss’s) and another that most likely had it answered “Maybe.”
The greatest problems arise for parents and children when the answer
to the Big Brain Question is, “No.” When the answer to this question is
“No,” children are placed into an untenable position: the place where
they live, and the people they need to take care of them are not
performing that fundamental function very well. Because they are
unable to take care of themselves, our children are now stuck. Feeling,
or actually being helplessly stuck with no ready resolution in sight, has
been found to be the primary experience that results in Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD) in adults and children alike. What PTSD actually
looks like when a brain-scanning machine takes a picture of it can also
be seen on my website. (Click on the link “Damaged Prefrontals” on the
Resources Page).
This kind of brain damage, in differing degrees, is believed to have a
lifelong impact on our children. Here’s what “recovering neurologist,”
Dr. Bob Scaer, has to say about it: “The cumulative experiences of
‘life's little traumas’ shape virtually every single aspect of existence.
This accumulation of negative life experiences molds one's personality,
choices of mate, profession, clothes, appetite, pet peeves, social
behaviors, posture, and most specifically, our state of physical and
mental health.”
All that might not be so bad. It might be something children could work
with. However, Gabor Maté, a Canadian physician, sees the damage
caused by the answer “No” to the Big Brain Question as even more
serious. Here’s what he has to say: “The biology of potential illness
arises early in life. The brain's stress response mechanisms are
programmed by experiences beginning in infancy, and so are the
implicit, unconscious memories that govern our attitudes and behaviors
toward ourselves, others and the world. Cancer, multiple sclerosis,
rheumatoid arthritis and the other conditions we examined are not
abrupt new developments in adult life, but culminations of lifelong
processes. The human interactions and biological imprinting that shaped
these processes took place in periods of our life for which we may have
no conscious recall."
So, we can see that children’s brains need tender, loving, consistent
care. But what exactly IS this Big Brain Question, and what do we need
to do in order to consistently answer it “Yes”? To find out what the Big
Brain Question is, and the many ways that we can begin to answer it
“Yes” for our children go here.
Mark Brady, Ph.D. is a father and a child brain science educator. Many
years ago, together with friends, he co-founded the Children’s Grief
Program at Kara, a public service agency in Palo Alto, California, where
he still volunteers today. He is the prize-winning author of a number of
books. Two of his most recent books are entitled A Little Book of
Parenting Skills and A Father’s Book of Listening. Those and others
can be ordered from bookstores, or on the Internet or directly by
emailing: committedparent@gmail.com. His most current book- Safe
and Secure: How 12 Recent Findings from Neuroscience Can Help You
Raise Happy Healthy Children Who Live Long and Prosper will be
available in 2008.