The Whole-Brain Child

young man. Go sit down and eat your lunch or you won’t get
any dessert.”
At times option #1 might be an appropriate parental
response. But for my little guy, this verbal and nonverbal
confrontation would have triggered all kinds of reactive
emotions in his downstairs brain—the part scientists call the
reptilian brain—and he would have fought back like a reptile
under attack.
Or option #2: I could tap into his upstairs brain in an eʃort
to get more of a thinking—as opposed to a fighting/reacting—
response.
Now, I make plenty of mistakes as I parent my boys (as
they’ll freely tell you). But just the day before, I had given a
lecture to a group of parents about the upstairs and
downstairs brain, and about using everyday challenges—the
survival moments—as opportunities to help our kids thrive.
So, luckily for my son, all of that was fresh in my mind. I
decided to choose option #2.
I started with an observation: “You look like you feel
angry. Is that right?” (Remember “connect and redirect”?) He
scrunched up his face in ferocity, stuck out his tongue again,
and loudly proclaimed, “Yes!” I was actually relieved that he
stopped there; it wouldn’t have been at all unlike him to add
his latest favorite insult and call me “Fart-face Jones.” (I
swear I don’t know where they learn this stuff.)
I asked him what he felt angry about and discovered that
he was furious that Scott had told him he needed to eat at
least half of his quesadilla before he could have dessert. I
explained that I could see why that would be disappointing,
and I said, “Well, Daddy’s really good at negotiating. Decide
what you think would be a fair amount to eat, and then go
talk to him about it. Let me know if you need help coming up