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Brain-body Parenting

Mona Delahooke

Brain-body Parenting

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16min

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Being a parent is undeniably one of the most challenging jobs of all. Unfortunately the vast majority of parenting guide books refer to a single type of child that doesn't actually exist. Each and every single human being has their own individual reactions to the world because they experience it in their own unique way. Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids empowers parents with tools to help their children develop self-regulation skills while also encouraging parental self-care, which is crucial for parents to have the capacity to provide the essential “co-regulation” children need. When parents shift from trying to secure compliance to supporting connection and balance in the body and mind, they unlock a deeper understanding of their child, encouraging calmer behaviour, more harmonious family dynamics, and increased resilience.

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Analysis and key concepts

01.

Common sense parenting guides don’t take into account the most important factor: tantrums are not intentional and cannot be handled with negotiation and reasoning. They are expressions of the emotions that children don’t know how to manage

02.

Behaviours are nothing more than the body’s reaction to the emotions and our ability to process them correctly grows and changes with time

03.

The mind-body connection, our nervous system, is made up of a “neural platform”, an apparatus that influences all human behaviour, including that of little ones

04.

Body budgeting is a continuous balancing of our energy and resources to help us feel safe

05.

The challenge zone is where growth happens, it’s where our children learn new things and reach their full potential with the proper level of support

06.

Neuroception: a human innate process for detecting threats, a hidden sense we all use to keep us alive

07.

To keep us safe, our body responds to micro-experiences, second by second, via three pathways within the two branches of the autonomous nervous system: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic

08.

Quotes

09.

Take-home message

01. Common sense parenting guides don’t take into account the most important factor: tantrums are not intentional and cannot be handled with negotiation and reasoning. They are expressions of the emotions that children don’t know how to manage

Tantrums, wobblers, meltdowns. All parents have to deal with them sooner or later; some more than others. The biggest mistake you can possibly make during a child’s tantrum is focus on the behaviour. Doing so will lead you to react to the behaviour and respond to the child’s brain, trying to use reasoning to deal with it by offering incentives, or threatening consequences.

Bookshops are full of parenting guides, and there is plenty of material online; all of which is generally inspired by a healthy philosophy: be positive and focus on encouragement, show solidarity, but be strong and authoritative, let your child make mistakes, don’t project your problems onto them, help them learn to talk about their feelings, and teach them to manage their emotions.

The problem is that almost all of these guides have one thing very wrong: they are all written with one type of child in mind. Not only that, these books also assume that the child is intentionally behaving in a certain way, as though they were able to control themselves, or that they could behave better if they really wanted to.

Contrary to popular belief, children don’t throw tantrums on purpose. The notion that they do comes from a lack of understanding of how small humans develop impulse control, initially over their emotions, and consequently, over their behaviour: meltdowns, at any age, are in fact a sign that the brain-body connection is in a state of overload, struggle or vulnerability.

02. Behaviours are nothing more than the body’s reaction to the emotions and our ability to process them correctly grows and changes with time

03. The mind-body connection, our nervous system, is made up of a “neural platform”, an apparatus that influences all human behaviour, including that of little ones

04. Body budgeting is a continuous balancing of our energy and resources to help us feel safe

05. The challenge zone is where growth happens, it’s where our children learn new things and reach their full potential with the proper level of support

06. Neuroception: a human innate process for detecting threats, a hidden sense we all use to keep us alive

07. To keep us safe, our body responds to micro-experiences, second by second, via three pathways within the two branches of the autonomous nervous system: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic

08. Quotes

09. Take-home message

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Many useful tips to:

  • Understand and learn to manage the triggers for tantrums and irrational behaviour.
  • Explore the mind-body relationship from a scientific perspective.
  • Learn to listen to and understand children’s emotional needs.

Mona Delahooke is a best-selling author and child psychologist who aims to reduce suffering and increase resilience for children and families. Her paradigm shifting model, based on neuroscience, offers a new way of understanding the emotional and behavioural challenges of children. Delahooke has written several best-selling books, and runs an online community and blog designed to help parents and childcare workers experience what she calls "connected relationships."

Publishing house:

Harper Wave

Year:

2022

Pages:

352

ISBN:

978-0063061316