The Whole-Brain Child

needed his downstairs brain—in this case, his amygdala—to take
over and do exactly what it did: cause him to call out even before
he consciously realized what he was doing.
Clearly, acting before thinking is a good thing when we’re in a
situation like Dan’s, or when we’re in danger in some other way.
But acting or reacting before we think isn’t usually so good in
normal, everyday situations, like when we storm from our car and
yell at another parent for breaking the no-waiting rule in the
carpool pickup circle. As we’ll explain in the “Whole-Brain Kids”
section below, that’s what we call “ɻipping our lid,” and it’s how
the amygdala can get us into trouble: it takes over and relieves the
upstairs brain from its duties. When we’re not truly in danger, we
want to think before acting, instead of the other way around.
We want our kids to do the same. The problem, though, is that
especially in children, the amygdala frequently ɹres up and blocks
the stairway connecting the upstairs and downstairs brain. It’s as if
a baby gate has been latched at the bottom of the stairs, making
the upstairs brain inaccessible. This of course further compounds
the other problem we just discussed: not only is the upstairs brain
under construction, but even the part of it that can function
becomes inaccessible during moments of high emotion or stress.
When your three-year-old erupts in anger because there are no
orange Popsicles left in the freezer, his downstairs brain, including
the brain stem and amygdala, has sprung into action and latched
the baby gate. This primitive part of his brain has received an
intense surge of energy, leaving him literally unable to act calmly
and reasonably. Massive brain resources have rushed to his
downstairs brain, leaving little to power his upstairs brain. As a
result, no matter how many times you tell him that you have
plenty of purple Popsicles (which he liked better than orange last
time anyway), he’s probably not going to listen to reason in this
moment. He’s much more likely to throw something or yell at