The Whole-Brain Child

anyone nearby.
As you know if you’ve found yourself in this situation, the best
way to ease him through this crisis (and in his mind it really is a
crisis) is to soothe him and help him shift his attention. You might
pick him up and show him something else of interest in another
room, or you might do something silly or oʃ-the-wall to change the
dynamics of the situation. When you do this, you are helping him
unlatch the gate, so that the stairway of integration can once again
become accessible and he can engage his upstairs brain and begin
to calm down.
The same goes for when the problem isn’t anger but fear. Think
of an active, athletic seven-year-old who refuses to learn to ride a
bike. Her amygdala produces such paralyzing fear that she won’t
even attempt an activity at which she’s more than capable of
succeeding. Her amygdala has not only placed a baby gate at the
bottom of the stairs, it has littered the stairway with the equivalent
of balls, skates, books, and shoes—all kinds of obstacles that come
from past frightening experiences and make it impossible to reach
the higher parts of her brain. In this situation, there would again be
many diʃerent possible strategies for clearing the pathway. Her
parents might try to persuade her of the reward of taking on a new
challenge; they might acknowledge and discuss their own fears;
they might even oʃer an incentive to help her conquer her fear.
Any number of approaches might work to help her clear the
connection to her upstairs brain and quiet her amygdala, which is
shouting the message that she might fall and hurt herself.
Think about what this information means, practically, as we
raise kids who don’t have constant access to their upstairs brain.
It’s unrealistic to expect them always to be rational, regulate their
emotions, make good decisions, think before acting, and be
empathetic—all of the things a developed upstairs brain helps them
do. They can demonstrate some of these qualities to varying