Introducing the Brain & Nervous System
When we caution kids against watching too much [YouTube, TV, cartoons] because of how it affects our brain, kids are bound to ask, “Why?”
Now you have more to say than “Because I am the adult.” This is one way to explain why. Your brain is the boss of every other system in your body, and if we aren’t careful about what we watch and for how long, then your brain may not make the best choices when it signals the rest of your body about what to do.
Sometimes, the dialogue above doesn’t go far enough for kids, and they want to learn more. After watching this video, you can discuss why protecting your brain and its development is crucial. Your instincts, involuntary body functions like breathing, and your ability to make good choices depend on your brain developing in the healthiest way.
3 YouTube Videos About the Brain→
The nervous system, and thus the brain, your central nervous system, controls many important functions of our body and health. Our body’s “mission control” has three principal functions: sensory input, integration, and motor output. These three steps help us process when a spider crawls on our skin and analyze the situation before swatting it away.
You can see in this video how cells and neurons work together, using their processes and functions, and what they do to your body. These are under the most ideal of circumstances, including healthy brain development over the first twenty-six years of your life.
Caregiver Note: Young adults don’t fully develop their ability for long-term thinking until the last stages of their brain development. This means it’s hard to understand and process how what you do over many days/weeks/months/years can directly affect you as an adult. That’s why this dialogue is ongoing and can be tied directly to any guardrails you set up around technology.
For instance, you aren’t telling them to stop playing now just because you know what’s best for them; it’s part of your job as a parent to help them set good habits so their brain can develop in a healthy way. Maybe the older your child gets, the more they assert their independence and say they can make their own decisions. Keep reminding them that that is true, and that you love their independence, but it’s still your job as their parent to instill healthy habits for healthy brain development. If you use that reasoning consistently when they ask about their time limits, you can tie it back to these videos and past dialogues.
Emotional Language
Parents can help their children develop and practice emotional language every day, but Mental Health Therapist Lauren Mazzarese, LPC, cautions to not wait until a child is having a panic attack to start.
You can start by suggesting a feeling that you think they’re having. If you see your child act frustrated, introduce the words, “You seem really frustrated right now. What’s happening?”
Even if they say quite plainly, “I can’t get the block in the hole,” or “My stupid sister won’t let me play with her doll.” Introducing these words, and putting words to feelings, is a good place to start.
Mazzarese says that families can use TV shows and other media to play the game: Let’s identify the feeling.
When you observe them in distress, try choosing more specific feeling words to match what the child is experiencing. They learn everything from us; their parents model everything to a child. So, start introducing words that are more complicated than good and bad. Kids are kids; they can learn these things, and they will learn if we introduce them to emotional language.
Coping Skills
It’s important to help your child handle their emotions around a trauma that leads to anxiety. Suppose you try to “mute” your feelings. In that case, it creates a disconnect between your mind and your body, resulting in neuroception, Mental Health Therapist Lauren Mazzarese, LPC, says, or “the inability to accurately assess an environment for a realistic level of safety or risk….They can’t tell what is unsafe or safe. The brain gets scrambled.”
Even without serious trauma, she explains, children can create a disconnect just because they don’t like a feeling, and so do different things not to feel that feeling. So how can a parent help?
Raise Your Child in a Supportive, Secure Environment.
Human babies are the only creatures 100% dependent on a caretaker for a very long time. The way a caretaker takes care is vital in terms of what that child will learn and how they will perceive the world, Mazzarese says, and “it’s not just about clothes on your back and food in your belly. It’s about: if I fall, will someone be there to help me up and hold me – that kind of lesson.”
When we are four or five years-old, we are the center of the universe. The more we become aware of ourselves as part of a large population, we gain that insight and awareness. And then we want to fit in. Wanting to fit in is an ancient feeling; it’s how populations survived for centuries. Be there to support your child through not just pains and scrapes, but their feelings about it.
- Get them to blow bubbles. A child cannot always understand breathing exercises, especially in the midst of an attack or big emotion. The key is to focus on extended exhales. Extended exhales help activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is what helps us slow and stop. The sympathetic nervous system, it gets us going. The parasympathetic nervous system slows us down, and that extended exhale activates the slowing down. Ask your child to blow as many bubbles as they can, then stop and watch until every single bubble pops – adding mindfulness into the equation – and then blow more bubbles.
- Anchor them in the present using their senses. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you touch? What do you smell? What do you taste? If you have a peppermint, ask them to pop it into their mouth and ask them to describe the taste.
- Use the rainbow exercise. Look for something red, something orange, and so on. It brings you back to what’s happening in the moment.
Validate Their Feelings
We underestimate what children can learn in terms of emotional language; a lot of their experience will come from their adults’ insights into their own emotional language.
When introducing the feeling words, you’ll also validate the feeling: “I see that you’re feeling frustrated.” or “I see you banging your blocks.” “I see you slamming the door. That looks like you’re frustrated while you’re slamming your door.” Then help them: the more you use different, more specific, more specific language, they’ll be able to be more specific with you.