The right brain controls the way children are raised. This means that they can only live in the present and ignore all outside influences. If the left brain is not used, the child’s emotional environment will be a desert. Parents can listen, pay attention, and share their experiences to help recognize the emotions of their children and help them combine the right and left brains. Then, they can balance the strong emotions with the logic and logic of both the left and the right brains. When they can manage emotions well, they will be happier, added experts from Unity Care, a foster care agency. Founded in 1993, the group provides caring connections, life skills, support, and stable housing options to help its youth meet their potential. Unity Care’s housing and programs are available to foster youth, age 16-21, at a transitional age as well as families. The program serves Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda, Sacramento, Monterey, Placer, Nevada and El Dorado counties in California.
Thomas’s four-year-old daughter Katie enjoys school and doesn’t cry every time her dad takes her to the school to say goodbye. Katie fell ill at school once, so Thomas called Thomas to pick her up.
Katie started crying when she got to school the next morning, but she was fine before. Over the next few mornings, the same thing will occur. Even though Thomas attempted to persuade Katie to go to school even though she was resisting and crying, things did not get any better once she arrived at school.
Katie will be more “abnormal” after she gets out of the car and parks in the school lot. She will exhibit “non-violent uncooperative behavior” near the school building. She holds on to her father because her small body is as solid as gold.
Thomas had to drag her along the steps to the classroom despite her resistance. Thomas was held tighter after she got into the classroom. Katie did a “handsoff” and placed all the weight onto Thomas’s leg. Thomas managed to escape Katie’s “devils grip” but was just about to leave the classroom when he heard his little girl’s hysterical voice. “I will be dead if I go!”
This is a very common cause of separation anxiety among young children. Thomas says that school can be scary for some children. But, he is still puzzled by the statement: “Katie always looks ahead to going back to school before she gets sick. She loves school, makes friends with her classmates and loves telling stories. Her teacher.
What happened? Why was Katie able to give birth to these extreme and unreasonable fears because of an illness? How should Thomas respond to this? His first task is finding a way for Katie willingly to go to school. This is his “survival goal”. He hopes to make this difficult time a learning experience that will help Katie to overcome her problems and to encourage her growth in the future. This is his “developmental training”.
Later we’ll return to Thomas’ problem and discuss how he used basic knowledge about the brain to transform the “survival” moment that only meets minimum requirements into an “development moment” that helps children develop unlimitedly. He is familiar with the basic principle of left brain and right brain function.
1. Left brain and right mind
You might already know that the left and right brains are divided. They are both anatomically separate, as well as very different in function. Some people believe the left and the right brains are distinct and have their own “personality” and have their own ideas. But, for simplicity, we’ll be discussing the left brain and right brain in lay terms.
The left brain craves order. It is rational, realistic, verbal, linear, and logical. The right brain can be both verbal and comprehensive. It is responsible for communicating and receiving signals to accomplish communication. These signals include eye contact, facial expressions, body posture, tone of voice and gestures. The right brain is not concerned about order or details. Instead, it cares only about the overall scene. This means that the meaning and feelings of an event are what the brain cares about. The right brain produces intuition or “feeling with the heart”
Some believe the right brain has more intuition and perceptual abilities. From a professional perspective, it is more accurate for the right brain to be directly affected by the body. The right brain is responsible in receiving and interpreting emotions. The left brain is verbal, logical, and realistic. The right brain is nonverbal, empirical and emotional.
This is how it works: the left brain cares for the legal provisions. As children grow up, they will be very adept at left-brain thinking. I just pushed her gently.” While the right brain cares about the spirit and values of the law, it also considers the emotion and experience that are involved in interpersonal relationships. . The right brain is more concerned with the context, while the left brain focuses only on the text. Katie’s non-logical, emotional right mind was what prompted her to shout at her father: “I will be killed if you leave!”
Children’s brains are dominant in their growth, particularly before age 3. Children do not yet have the skills to use logic and words to communicate their feelings. They live entirely in the now. This is why they can squat on the street to see ladybirds crawling and feel no guilt if they’re late for class. For them, logic, responsibility, and time are not yet concepts. When a toddler keeps asking “why”, it’s a sign that the left brain is active. The left brain wants to know the linear causal relationships between all things in the world, and then express this logic with words.
2. Connect the left-right brains
To make your life meaningful, harmonious, and to build good interpersonal relationships, you need the coordination of the left- and right-brains. The brain structure has been designed in this manner. As an example, take the corpus Callosum. It is a bundle that connects the right and left brains by the brain center. The fiber bundles connect the right and left brains. They function together, which is exactly what we want for children. We believe that children’s brains will be integrated horizontally so that the left brain and right brains work together. Children will be able to confront their own logic and emotions, as well as better understand the world around them.
Because each part of the brain has a unique function, we can accomplish more complex goals and complete more challenging tasks by dividing it into two distinct parts (left and right). If the brain cannot be merged or we have only one side to experience the world, then there are problems. You can’t use the right brain or only the left. It’s like only using one arm to swim. While one arm is capable of swimming, can it not be more direct to the target?
The brain is no different. If we want our lives and emotions to have more meaning, emotions are indispensable. But, emotions can’t control our lives. If our right brain controls us and we ignore logic from the left brain, we’ll be submerged by emotional sensations and imagination. The left brain is not meant to be used to separate logic, language, and feelings. We will feel trapped in an emotion desert.
Our goal is to avoid an emotional tsunami or desert. We hope that irrational thoughts, autobiographical experiences, and emotions that are important to us can play a part, but we also hope that order and structure can be achieved. Katie’s right brain was dominant when she shouted at school. Thomas observed an emotional tsunami when Katie’s emotional right and logical left brains did not cooperate.
This is an important point. Emotional tsunamis are not the only thing that can cause problems. Neglecting or ignoring emotional deserts can also cause problems. This is more common for older children. Here’s the story of a 12-yearold girl. This experience is common for many.
Amanda was at odds with her best friend. We learned from her mom that the argument was very painful for her. When we discussed this, she shrugged, looked out the window and said that she didn’t care. “She annoys my mother, so I won’t talk to her anymore.”
While her expression was calm and stoic, I could see the nonverbal signals her right brain sent to me. “Rejection” is an indication of a type of pain. Amanda’s method of managing fragile emotions is to retreat into her left brain. This is her desert-like brain that is predictable and controlled, but is not as edgy as it looks.
Amanda must understand that even though reliving the conflict with friends can be very difficult, she needs to pay attention to what happened in her right mind. The right brain is closely connected to the body’s sensations as well as the information released from the underlying brain. They are the source of emotions. The right brain’s images, feelings, autobiographical memories, and emotions are all full of emotion. When we are sad we tend to turn away from the unpredictable and perceptive right-brain and return to the predictable, controlled, and logical.
We will feel safer in the left brain.
Amanda needs to be able to see her true feelings. This is the key to my helping. I didn’t directly point out the things she kept from me, or herself. Nor did I point out how her relationships with important people affected her. I was trying to get her right-brain to communicate with mine. My facial expressions, gestures, and body language let her know I am interested in her emotions. I also help her empathically to “feel” her feelings. Once they have made a connection, it will become easier for them to communicate. I can then slowly enter her mind and see what has happened.
Amanda told me about her fight with her best friend. By paying close attention to the pauses she makes in her story and watching her subtle emotional shifts, I helped Amanda get back to her true emotions. This was how I attempted to connect with her right brain and her left brain. We can now understand the differences between the right and left brains and how to integrate them.
Although we do not want our children to suffer, we also want them to be able to face the challenges of life and grow up. Amanda was forced to retreat to her left brain in order to avoid the intense emotions that were raging in her right. This led to her denying some of her important selves.
3. Stereotyped left brain
The dangers of too much reliance on the left-brain are not limited to denying our emotions. This can cause us to become rigid and lose the ability distinguish between different opinions. We may also lack the ability understand the context of events because this is the specialty for the right brain. A kind joke to an 8 year old child might cause him to be defensive or angry. The right brain interprets nonverbal information. If the child is tired, or is having a bad day, he may not be able to see your jokes and humorous expressions. .
Tina encountered an interesting instance recently that demonstrated what happens when the stereotyped right brain dominates the brain.
Tina purchased a cake from the local food store to celebrate her son’s one-year anniversary. Tina is looking for a “cake of cupcakes”, meaning to join many cupcakes together with frosting, so that it looks big. She asked the cake master for her son’s name to be written on the cupcakes. The cake she ordered was delivered before the birthday party. It said JP on it.
Our goal is for children to learn how to use their left brain and right brain simultaneously. This is also known as integrating the left and correct brains. It’s like a river of joy. The river’s two banks are both chaotic, and the middle is straight. The best way to maintain mental health is not to move between these banks. By helping children to connect their left brain with right brain, they will have more chances to avoid chaos and stereotyped river banks. This will allow them to live in a healthy, happy, and continuously flowing river.
The right and left brains should be integrated to ensure children don’t get too close to either side of the strait. It will become a chaotic river bank like Katie if the emotions of the right brain are not matched with the logic of its left brain. It is important to encourage children to use their left brain to think and act on emotions. If he does not feel the emotions and hides behind his left brain, he will become a riverbank like Amanda. This is when we need to encourage children’s right brains to engage more in order to allow them to accept new information.
