tension in his voice had dramatically decreased. Over the coming
weeks they had to return to the story and retell it, and Eli still felt
somewhat nervous around knives, but with the help of his father,
Eli’s hippocampus integrated his implicit memories into his explicit
awareness. As a result, Eli could now deal with the issues that had
resurfaced. He and his dad then built one of their best Pinewood
Derby cars ever—and named it Fear Factor, writing the name on
each side of the car in scary, Halloween-style letters.
Remember, your goal is to help your kids take the troubling
experiences that are impacting them without their knowledge—the
scattered puzzle pieces in their mind—and make those experiences
explicit so that the whole picture in the puzzle can be seen with
clarity and meaning. By introducing them to the remote of the
mind, which controls their internal DVD player, you make the
storytelling process much less scary, because you oʃer them some
control over what they deal with, so they can interact with it at
their own pace. They can then look at an experience that scared (or
angered or frustrated) them without having to immediately relive
it scene for scene.
Whole-Brain Strategy #7:
Remember to Remember: Making Recollection a Part of Your
Family’s Daily Life
The act of remembering comes naturally for most people. But
memory is like so many functions of the brain: the more we
exercise it, the stronger it becomes. That means that when you give
your children lots of practice at remembering—by having them tell
and retell their own stories—you improve their ability to integrate
implicit and explicit memories.
So our second suggestion is simply that you remember to