The Whole-Brain Child

onstage for the holiday concert at his school, and nervous about
going on a sleepover at his friend’s house. Mindsight, along with
the awareness it brought, actually changed Jason’s brain. Because
of his nature, he may continue to deal with certain worries that
come with his personality. But for the rest of his life, he’ll reap the
beneɹt of this whole-brain work he’s done as a young child, and
he’ll have at his disposal a powerful tool for dealing with other
fears and obsessions.
As Jason’s mother and father found out, mindsight can be a
thrilling discovery for parents, especially when they see the power
of integration at work in their child’s life. It’s very exciting to
understand (and to teach our kids) that we can use our minds to
take control of our lives. By directing our attention, we can go
from being influenced by factors within and around us to influencing
them. When we become aware of the multitude of changing
emotions and forces at work around us and within us, we can
acknowledge them and even embrace them as parts of ourselves—
but we don’t have to allow them to bully us or deɹne us. We can
shift our focus to other rim points on the wheel of awareness, so
that we are no longer victims of forces seemingly beyond our
control, but active participants in the process of deciding and
affecting how we think and feel.
What an amazing power to bestow on your children! When they
understand some basic mindsight principles—and kids can often get
the wheel of awareness idea at a very young age, even at the
beginning of elementary school—they are empowered to more
fully regulate their own bodies and minds and actually change the
way they experience diʃerent life situations. Their downstairs
brain and implicit memories will control them less, and their
mindsight will help them live full and healthy lives from an
integrated brain.
But what if children get stuck on the rim and can’t seem to get