The Whole-Brain Child

canoes, and they ɻoat down their own river of well-being. Many of
the challenges we face as parents result from the times when our
kids aren’t in the ɻow, when they’re either too chaotic or too rigid.
Your three-year-old won’t share his toy boat at the park? Rigidity.
He erupts into crying, yelling, and throwing sand when his new
friend takes the boat away? Chaos. What you can do is help guide
your child back into the ɻow of the river, into a harmonious state
that avoids both chaos and rigidity.
The same goes for older children. Your normally easygoing ɹfth-
grader is crying hysterically because she didn’t get the solo she
wanted in the school play. She refuses to calm down and
repeatedly tells you that she has the best voice in her grade. She’s
actually zigzagging back and forth between the banks of chaos and
rigidity, as her emotions have clearly taken control of her logic. As
a result, she stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that someone else
might be just as talented. You can guide her back into the ɻow of
well-being so that she can achieve better balance within herself and
move into a more integrated state. (Don’t worry—we’ll oʃer you
plenty of ways to do this.)
Virtually all survival moments ɹt into this framework in one
way or another. We think you may be astounded to see how well
the ideas of chaos and rigidity help you understand your child’s
most diɽcult behaviors. These concepts actually allow you to
“take the temperature” of how well integrated your child is at any
given moment. If you see chaos and/or rigidity, you know she’s not
in a state of integration. Likewise, when she is in a state of
integration, she demonstrates the qualities we associate with
someone who is mentally and emotionally healthy: she is ɻexible,
adaptive, stable, and able to understand herself and the world
around her. The powerful and practical approach of integration
enables us to see the many ways in which our children—or we
ourselves—experience chaos and rigidity because integration has