I am a clinical psychologist who has tremendous difficulty remembering the different parts of the brain and what they are responsible for in our lives. I have learnt it many times and forgotten many times. So when I was asked to write an article on children's brain development I had two simultaneous reactions. The first was 'who me, I have trouble remembering the different roles of the right brain and left brain'. My other reaction was, 'great, if I have to convey something to others in a clear style, it means I really have to understand it first-what a great opportunity for me'. So with the help of some recently published books on the subject, I would like to try to introduce you to Our Brain, and how understanding some very basic things about it can help us understand and aid our children's development (and help us make sense out of our reactions at the same time.)

            The first concept I would like to introduce to you is the concept of integration. 

Integration is what is going on when the different parts of our brain work together with one another. The more integration there is, the healthier we are. Another quick concept (and then we will apply the ideas to our brains) is the idea that our brains our made up of billions of neurons that are in communication with one another. Different experiences we have cause different groups of neurons to fire together.  We need to keep in mind that 'neurons that fire together, wire together'. This means that our experiences are constantly building new pathways in the brain and that our brain connections are malleable and changeable- a concept that is known as neuroplasticity.

            Ok. Enough of the brain double talk. Our left brain is logical, language oriented, works with sequence and order. Our right brain is nonverbal, looks at the big picture e.g. facial expressions, tone of voice. It receives and interprets emotional and experiential information. Very young children are right brain dominant. They cannot use language well; they live in the moment and for the most part are not particularly logical. They do not have very developed sense of responsibility of time. As they get older and hit the "why" stage we know the left brain is starting to develop and exert more of an influence.

            What happens to our children (and to us) if there is not right brain/left brain integration? At one extreme, a person works only from their logical, left side and tries to deny their emotions, living in what dr. Dan Siegel calls an 'emotional desert'. On the other side when a child operates only from the right brain, what we will see looks like an emotional storm with out too much logic attached. Lets give examples, along with what we can do to help our children use both sides of their brains and be more integrated.

 Dr. Siegel calls this strategy connect and redirect.  Let's say that our 9 year old childis in the middle of doing homework , becomes frustrated ,throws his pencil across the room, mutters about 'stupid homework, stupid teachers and slinks to the floor-clearly having no intention of finishing his homework. Our initial reaction may be to demand that not throw things, not call their teacher stupid and they sure as well will finish all of their homework,NOW. This reaction-giving logical commands in the face of an overwhelmed right brain, will most likely be unhelpful. Instead, if you direct your response to showing your child that their emotions are important to us and we validate their frustration in a sympathetic way, (our right brain being attuned to their right brain) our child is very likely to calm down and allow us to redirect them and introduce logic and try to problem solve. Please note-this idea does not mean it is ok to throw things, call names etc... We need to stick to our boundaries and rules. However, telling our child in the middle of a tantrum that they are not allowed to call names does not usually do the trick (and here I speak from experience). Talking about rules and consequences works much better when our child's left brain is on line.

            Another strategy that Dr. Siegel introduces to promote healthy right brain/left brain integration is called Name it to Tame it-Telling stories to calm big emotions. Our children often experience disappointments, scares, hurts that produce big enough emotions that the left brain goes off line temporarily. What are left are emotions, body sensations and images that may feel overwhelming. When that happens, parents can help children achieve integration by helping them tell the story of what happened-in other words engage the left brain in making sense of the emotions. Sometimes kids can tell you the story by themselves, sometimes parents need to tell the story and encourage the child to fill in the blanks. At some point the telling of the story should become easier and the intense emotions associated with the event will likely become much more manageable.

Dr. Aviva Biberfeld is a licensed psychologist in full time private practice in Brooklyn with over twenty years experience. She sees children, adolescents and adults and has a sub specialty in parental counseling and working with young adults . She lectures to professionals and lay audiences on a wide variety of topics of clinical interest and Torah topics. She is a member of the Board of Nefesh International. She can be reached at 718 4376995