Understanding your child: Strategies for all parents to nurture and understand your child’s developing brain PT.2

In our previous blog, we discussed the first three phases of a child’s brain and development, what exactly happens during these stages, and different strategies how to support them during each stage (If you haven’t read it, please make sure to read the first part before continuing). In this blog, we are going to cover the last three phases that our children’s brains and development go through and different strategies to help them during each stage.   

The second part will encompass and emphasize memories, identity, and socialization. These are all important stages that play an important role in the healthy and normal development of children. As per our previous blog, we will talk about different strategies to aid our kids during these phases. to Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson from their book, The Whole-Brain Child.

Part 4: Navigating the labyrinth of the past: Assisting your child through the maze of memories.

Memories play an important part in who we become and how we develop later on in life. Memories can be good or bad, and they both have different impacts in our brain and development. For example, when a child becomes very scared in an unseeingly benign situation; there is a possibility that there might be a negative implicit memory at work steering their actions and controlling their emotions without their conscious awareness. Implicit memories can influence us without knowing. Past experiences that we don’t remember as a child can have an impact on our behavior unconsciously.

These are two strategies that parents can implement:

1. Rewind and Remember: Help your children reshape and manage their memories by assisting them to remember things from the past and pair a negative experience with a positive outcome or conclusion. If your child is unwilling to revisit an unpleasant memory: You can propose to narrate this memory as if they were watching a film with the control remote in their hands, so they can pause, rewind, fast forward, or skip to the satisfying conclusion.
2. Remember to Remember: Help your children narrate their memories in detail to allow the hippocampus to fill in the blanks. You can help them construct detailed mental pictures of their actions and solidify them in their memory. For example, it could be something as simple as asking them, “What did you do today?” As opposed to “how was your day?”. Also help them integrate implicit memories with explicit memories, for example, important and valuable moments of their lives.

Part 5:  Constructing a whole self: Helping your child embrace the diversity of their identity:

Children must develop awareness of their own minds, understand their feelings and emotions, and understand how to control them. Children can easily get focused on one single goal and forget about the other goals or experiences. For example, the child wants to be the fastest in the class and fails to also recognize the fun of competing with other classmates, working as a team, helping or cheering for others, etc. So you can help them shift their focus on other aspects if they cultivate mindset and awareness and learn that they have the autonomy to choose where to put their focus.

These are three strategies that you can implement to aid your child in this phase:

1. Feelings Come and Go: teach your child that emotions flow naturally and last for about 90 minutes. Help your children understand that negative emotions are only temporary so that they focus on other feelings that last longer (usually positive ones).
2. SIFT: Foster your child with awareness of the sift. Teach children about sensations, feelings, and thoughts inside them and engage them to understand that they can change these experiences and reinforce that each is equally important.
3. Exercise Mindsight: Let your child flex their mindsight muscles by teaching them to soothe themselves and guide their attention intentionally. They can do this by focusing their attention on surrounding sounds, taking calm breaths, and visualizing a place where they feel safe and secure.

Part 6: Shaping Social Mind:

Mind sights is a powerful tool for decoding the minds of others. For example, mirror neurons in our brains come into action when we observe the intentional behavior of others which sparks neurons to mirror that behavior and helps us understand how others might be feeling.

In children, they are still learning the ropes of social navigation so it is very crucial to allow your child to hone their social skills. The relationship that children form with their caregivers significantly shapes their ability to empathize, communicate, seek interaction, and see themselves as a part of the community.

Strategies to practice with your children to boost their social brain are:

1. Enjoy Each Other: Infuse family live with fun, for example, practice playful parenting, be goofy, and engage in games. This approach prepares your child for relationships and demonstrates that socializing is enjoyable. This strategy helps your child to put themselves in the other person’s shoes.
2. Connect Through Conflict: use and view conflicts as opportunities for teaching moments that will encourage learning and growth. These conflict moments help children develop problem-solving skills and resilience.

In conclusion, understanding our child’s brain and how it develops is an important part of our parenting journey, this understanding can help us practice strategies and ways that will foster and encourage the development and personality of our children as they grow. We went over the last seven strategies that Daniel Siege and Tina Payne stated in their book “The Whole-Brain Child”. These strategies can be implemented during each stage of their development to assist them in understanding and shaping their emotions, feelings, and interactions with themselves, others, and the environment.

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Supplementary readings:

If interested in learning more about it, we recommend reading the book: The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel Siegel and Tina Bryson.