The Whole-Brain Child

diʃerent thoughts, desires, and emotions whirling around within
them, they ɹrst need to become aware of what it is they are
actually experiencing. That means one of our most important
parenting jobs is to help our children recognize and understand the
different rim points of their individual wheel of awareness.
You don’t have to have a serious sit-down meeting to
communicate this idea. Find ways to work with the concept during
your daily interactions with your kids. Tina recently decided the
idea would be helpful in changing her seven-year-old son’s mood as
she was driving him to school one morning. He was upset that his
trip to Dodger Stadium had been postponed, so she took the
opportunity to introduce him to the “windshield of awareness”:
“Look at all the spots on our windshield. These spots are like all
the diʃerent things you are thinking and feeling right now. There
are a lot! See this smudge right here? That’s how mad you feel at
Dad right now. And those yellow bug guts? That’s your
disappointment that you’re not going to get to go to the game
tonight. But see that splat right there? That’s how much you
believe Dad when he says he’ll take you next weekend. And that
one there is how you know you can have a good day today anyway
because you get to eat lunch and play kickball at recess with Ryan.
...” You can use anything available to you: a windshield, an actual
bicycle wheel, a piano keyboard, or whatever is nearby. Just help
your kids understand that there are many parts of themselves that
they can get to know and integrate with one another.
One of the best ways to begin orienting kids to what’s on their
rim is to help them learn to SIFT through all the sensations,
images, feelings, and thoughts that are aʃecting them. By paying
attention to their physical sensations, for example, children can
become much more aware of what’s going on inside their bodies.
They can learn to recognize stomach butterɻies as markers of
anxiety, a desire to hit as anger or frustration, heavy shoulders as