Teaching Children to Resolve Conflicts by Engaging their Intellect
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Teaching Children to Resolve Conflicts by Engaging their Intellect
Controlling one's emotions is a lifelong challenge but teaching children how to understand that challenge and why it's important is crucial to leading a healthy, happy, and productive life.
This week, we are taking another look at the brain with the help of the bestselling book, The Whole Brain Child by Daniel Siegal and Tina Payne Bryson. In chapter 3, the authors discuss the importance of building a metaphorical staircase between the upper and lower parts of the brain.
Basically, the cerebral cortex part of the brain, described simply as the "upstairs" part because it's located in the upper half of the brain, is responsible for controlling one's more reactional and emotional feelings, which comes from the amygdala, located in the bottom half of the brain. When one is able to effectively regulate the lower part of their brain with the upper part, Siegal and Bryson describe this as a "functioning staircase."
Siegal and Bryson write: "A child whose upstairs brain is properly functioning will demonstrate some of the most important characteristics of a mature and healthy human being. We're not saying she'll be superhuman or never display childish behavior. But when a child's upstairs brain is working well, she can regulate her emotions, consider consequences, think before acting, and consider how others feel - all of which help her thrive in different areas of her life, as well as help her family survive day-to-day difficulties."
So how do we develop our children's upstairs brain so they can be thoughtful and considerate about the consequences of their actions? One way to accomplish this is by treating tantrums as a teachable moment.
Two Types of Tantrums
According to Siegal and Bryson, the upper part of the brain and lower part of the brain each convey different types of tantrums.
During an upstairs tantrum, the child is deliberately acting out in order to elicit a response from their parent. Their actions might be unpleasant and make you angry, but in the child's mind, their actions are calculated and, to them at least, rational. This is because their upper brain is in control and they're fully aware of what they're doing, even if they know it's wrong. During an upstairs tantrum, parents are able to use reason by explaining to their child why their behavior is wrong and what the consequences will be if they don't correct their behavior. Obviously, these conversations don't always go smoothly. But in general, the resolution is a matter of parents being firm and teaching their child about right and wrong.
The downstairs tantrum is trickier. This is when the child has "flipped their lid" emotionally and sometimes physically. There's no calculated control on behalf of the child. Rather, it's an eruption of emotion that can involve crying, screaming, or even acting out violently. According to Siegal and Bryson, the child is not in control of themselves because the part of the brain responsible for thinking through actions has taken a backseat while the lower brain - the impulsive, reactive part of their brain - has taken the wheel. And this requires a measured response from parents.
"When your child is in this state of disintegration and a full-blown downstairs tantrum has erupted, a completely different parental response is called for," Siegal and Bryson write. "Whereas a child throwing an upstairs tantrum needs a parent to quickly set firm boundaries, an appropriate response to a downstairs tantrum is much more nurturing and comforting."
Similar to last week's discussion of the concept of "connect and redirect," the goal here is to calm the child enough that they're no longer in an emotional frenzy dominated by the lower brain and get their upper brain back in control of themselves. You can accomplish this by appealing to the child's upstairs brain.
Engage, Don't Enrage
Siegal and Bryson recommend an easy to remember phrase for those difficult downstairs tantrums: Engage, Don't Enrage.
Meeting their downstairs tantrums with your own lower brain reaction can be like throwing gasoline on a fire and you might find yourself in a tantrum contest with your child, which can be embarrassing, but worse - teaches your child the wrong way to deal with disagreeable situations. That's the "enraging" part. Don't do it. Instead, engage.
Persuade your child to talk about the problem that's plaguing them and then guide them to figure out a way to resolve the issue. The example Siegal and Bryson give is a story many parents can relate to: A child is refusing to eat his dinner because he just wants dessert. Many parents would simply tell the child that he must eat dinner or else he won't get dessert. Simple as that. And that's not wrong. But it does miss an opportunity to teach the child to use the upper part of their brain to resolve a problem.
To utilize the upper brain, the mother in the example story tells her son to "negotiate" with his father what would be a fair amount of dinner to eat in order to get dessert. The child is immediately out of the clutches of his own emotions and is involved in a cerebral state of mind to resolve his problem. He and his father agree that 10 bites of a quesadilla would be a fair amount of dinner to eat before dessert. Both sides were happy.
The solution used here is so common and simple, we overlook the benefits. As Siegal and Bryson explain:
"Every time we say, 'Convince me' or 'Come up with a solution that works for both of us,' we give our kids the chance to practice problem-solving and decision making. We help them consider appropriate behaviors and consequences, and we help them think about what another person feels and wants. All because we found a way to engage the upstairs, instead of enraging the downstairs."
Reacting to a problem with a clear head is one of the greatest problem-solving skills one can have. By teaching children early on that when they face a conflict, the best way forward is to calmly and coolly figure out a rational plan towards resolution, we prepare them for the many conflicts they will face in life and give them the best chance for success.