The Whole-Brain Child

integration in your children and helping develop their upstairs
brain, you prepare them to be better friends, better spouses, and
better parents. For example, when a child learns how to SIFT for
the sensations, images, feelings, and thoughts in his mind, he’ll
have a much deeper understanding of himself, and he’ll therefore
be better able to control himself and connect with others. Likewise,
by teaching about connection through conɻict, you give your child
the invaluable gift of seeing that even unpleasant arguments are
opportunities to engage with and learn from the minds of others.
Integration is about surviving and thriving, and about your child’s
well-being now and in the future.
It’s extraordinary when you think about the generational impact
of the whole-brain approach. Do you realize the power you now
have to eʃect positive change in the future? By giving your
children the gift of using their whole brain, you’re impacting not
just their lives, but also those of the people with whom they
interact. Remember mirror neurons and how social the brain is? As
we’ve explained, your child’s brain isn’t an isolated, “single skull”
organ, acting in a vacuum. Self and family and community are
fundamentally connected neurologically. Even in our busy, driven,
and often isolated lives, we can remember this fundamental reality,
that we’re all interdependent and connected with one another.
Children who learn this truth have the chance not only to
develop happiness and meaning and wisdom in their own lives, but
to pass their knowledge along to others as well. When, for
example, you help your kids use their internal remote to make
their implicit memories explicit, you’re helping create within them
the skill of self-reɻection that will make them much more capable
of meaningful interactions with others throughout their lives. The
same goes for teaching them about their wheel of awareness. Once
they understand about integrating the many parts of themselves,
they’ll be able to comprehend themselves much more deeply and