When Tina told the baker she wanted the cake to say J.P. on the cupcakes, a literal,
left-brain interpretation was not what she expected.The goal, then, is to help our kids learn to use both sides of the
brain together—to integrate the left and right hemispheres.
Remember the river of well-being discussed earlier, with chaos as
one bank and rigidity as the other. We deɹned mental health as
remaining in the harmonious ɻow between these two extremes. By
helping our kids connect left and right, we give them a better
chance of avoiding the banks of chaos and rigidity, and of living in
the flexible current of mental health and happiness.
Integrating the left brain with the right helps to keep children
from ɻoating too close to one bank or the other. When the raw
emotions in their right brain are not combined with the logic of the
left, they will be like Katie, ɻoating too close to the bank of chaos.
That means we need to help them bring in the left brain to get