November 11, 2024 • 29 mins
Episode 160 (a continuation from last weeks episode) with Dr Dan Siegel explores how a child's brain is different from the adult brain, and how by understanding a child's brain, we may parent from a place of empathy.
Daniel J. Siegel received his medical degree from Harvard University and completed his postgraduate medical education at UCLA with training in pediatrics and child, adolescent and adult psychiatry. He served as a National Institute of Mental Health Research Fellow at UCLA, studying family interactions with an emphasis on how attachment experiences influence emotions, behavior, autobiographical memory and narrative.
Dr. Siegel’s book, Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation (Bantam, 2010), offers the general reader an in-depth exploration of the power of the mind to integrate the brain and promote well-being. He has written six parenting books, including the three New York Times bestsellers Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain (Tarcher/Penguin, 2014); The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind (Random House, 2011) and No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind (Bantam, 2014), both with Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D., The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired (Ballantine Books 2020), The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity, and Resilience in Your Child (Bantam, 2018) also with Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D., and Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Child
Dr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children. Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner.
For more content from Dr Jessica Hochman:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
Hi everybody. I'm Dr Jessica Hochman, pediatrician
(00:02):
and mom of three. On thispodcast, I like to talk about
various pediatric health topics,sharing my knowledge, not only
as a doctor, but also as aparent. Ultimately, my hope is
that when it comes to yourchildren's health, you feel more
confident, worry less and enjoyyour parenting experience as
much as possible. Hi everybody.
Welcome back to part two of myconversation with Dr Dan Siegel.
It's truly an honor to have DrSiegel as a guest, and today
(00:25):
we'll dive deeper into hisincredible book, the whole brain
child, which has now sold over 1million copies in print. Yes,
you heard that right? 1 millioncopies in print. In our last
episode, we talked about howattachment can deepen emotional
connections with our kids.
Today, we will review some of DrSiegel's practical strategies to
help kids manage their bigemotions. I really appreciate
(00:47):
his insights and practical tips.
I find they really help parentsunderstand a child's mind, which
can ultimately help us supportthem as they grow up to be more
empathetic and self aware humanbeings. Thank you so much for
listening. If you have a moment,I would truly appreciate it. If
you could subscribe to ask DrJessica, leave a five star
review and share it with afriend or three or five. Your
support really helps spread theword about the podcast. Now,
(01:07):
back to Dr Siegel. I'd love toask you more about the book the
whole brain child. Yeah, what Ireally liked about this book, to
be honest, is kids act in waysthat can be really difficult for
parents, right? I mean, theyhave tantrums, they can act out,
they can misbehave, they can bewild. And what I enjoyed so much
about the neuroscience behindlearning about children's
(01:31):
brains, I feel like byunderstanding the way their
brains work a little bit more,it's making me forgive those
behaviors and be moresympathetic to how to why
they're behaving the way they'rebehaving. So first, I just want
to say thank you so much forwriting a book with more
neuroscience behind the brain ofthe child, because it helps me a
(01:52):
lot when I think about my ownkids.
Oh, great, great. Well, youknow, you always want to be
careful. You're not just puttingon to you know other people,
readers or students or patientsor whatever you know, just
because you're interested in youknow. So thank you. That's very
helpful. And I you know, I thinkthe fact that knowing about the
(02:16):
brain of your child and knowingabout your own brain actually
can give you very practicalavenues to making parenting
interventions that you wouldn'totherwise think of, you know.
And so what Tina and I did withwhole brain child was basically
(02:36):
take these nine domains ofintegration that I talk about in
the developing mind, and thengive 1000s of scientific
references to support. This iswhat a healthy mind is all
about. This is how it developsfrom birth onward. But what we
wanted to do is say, Okay, whatis a digestible way where a
busy, tired parent can get thesenotions of how an attachment
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relationship, a parent, childrelationship, can actually shape
the development of a child'sbrain, because there's something
called neuroplasticity, whichbasically means, how does the
brain grow in response toexperience? And if you learn
that which we teach in all ofour books, if you learn the
(03:25):
basics of your actions as aparent, are going to mold the
development of the child'sbrain, not to make you pressure.
Because some people would say,oh, isn't that a lot of pressure
on a parent that you're you'retelling them what to do, because
they think, well, the brain isgoing to develop whether you do
it in an informed way or not. Soso even if you're totally not
(03:48):
aware of this, your interactionsare still going to shape them.
So sorry, that's just a fact.
Why not actually do like LouisPasteur has this great phrase,
Chance favors the prepared mind.
Why not prepare your mind? It'snot saying, hey, because you're
reading this book, whole brainchild, you're now have the
pressure that you're shapingyour child's brain. No, you were
(04:09):
shaping it anyway. So why notprepare your mind to shape it in
a positive direction?
I do. I think about that a lot,the line that neurons that fire
together, wire together, becauseI think with my kids, okay, do I
want them to spend their timewhen they're kids, spending a
lot of time on the screens,watching TV? Because that's what
their brains are gonna shape andmold to be accustomed to doing.
(04:31):
So I try to with that in mind,thinking that the nerves that
fire together wire together, tryto emphasize what I think would
be more helpful and beneficialto them as they grow older,
exactly,exactly. So now I don't know if
this sits with you well, but,you know, people would ask me,
students of mine, who are, youknow, therapists and stuff, you
(04:52):
know. What does that reallymean? You know this, Carla
Schatz is the neuroscientist whoparaphrased Donald had. To make
that phrase, neurons are fired,either wired together, but what
a parent can use in a littlemore refined way is this
statement, where attention goes,neural firing flows and neural
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connection grows. So your realtool, because is about
attention. Because if you justhear Carol Le chat says Hebbian
synapse, paraphrase, you know,neurons that fire to the wire to
it, it's true, but then a parentmight ask, Well, how do I get
(05:32):
those neurons to fire? So that'swhy I created this other phrase
where attention goes neuralfiring flows, and that's the
neural firing piece, and thenneural connection grows. So why
do we want to know aboutattention? Because attention is
that process where you'redirecting energy and information
flow, and if your kids are busyon a screen, like you're saying,
(05:55):
it's that attention that getsthose particular neurons to fire
if they're with friends andthey're paying attention to the
friends, eye contact, facialexpressions, tone of voice,
their gestures, their posture,their timing and intensity
response, the non verbalsignals, research shows they
will actually develop thecircuitry in their own brains,
(06:19):
be able to interpret non verbalsignals and be able to be more
tuned in to other people, sothey'll develop emotional
intelligence and socialintelligence, but if they're
busy just on screens that aren'tteaching them to do that,
attention is going somewhereelse.
I'm curious if you agree withthis, but so many kids now
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because of the screens, andthat's where their attention is
going, I feel like they're notspending as much they are not
spending as much time reading. Iworry that that skill is going
to be lost amongst future kids,because it's hard to put
attention into reading when thescreens are so alluring.
Absolutely, that alluringquality is there. It's
(07:03):
intentional. They want to catcheyeballs because that gets them
money. It all comes down tobasically, money grabbing, yeah,
I mean, this is the readingthing. Is interesting because, I
mean, I had an eye problem, Ithink I mentioned that. You
know, no one diagnosed till Iwas 30, so it never became
natural for me to read, and Ireally have to struggle to read
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for pleasure. I can read for ifI'm, you know, preparing a
science book, mostly I listen toit, but, you know, I'll read all
my references. Auditorily, I'lllisten to it, but if I need to.
Now, I've taught myself to read,but just for pleasure, I don't
get what friends of mine who areor Caroline, who's my wife,
who's a great reader. You knowthis rich visual imagery by
(07:51):
taking in words from a page, Iunfortunately don't. Don't get
that. I get it if I listen to abook.
Dan, it's amazing that you areso accomplished as an author, as
a speaker. You went to HarvardMedical School. Your resume is
so impressive, and you were ableto do so much of it with your
eye. Situation,I know well, I got my eyes fixed
with prisons. I mean, I'mbasically not to make it a
mystery, but no one picked uptill I was 30 that one of my
(08:14):
eyes looks down here, and onelooks up here, and then you're
in pediatrics, and I'll justtell you, my pediatrician
thought it was the fluorescentlights flickering because
everything was shaking. Theoptometrist missed it when I was
like, 12 and 13, I wouldcomplain, everything shakes.
Anyway. So I was reading by thetime I was 30, and I was a
fellow Research Fellow, and hadall this reading due, and I just
(08:39):
couldn't do it. So I went andgot evaluated. They said, Oh,
you read. You read like a firstgrader reads. You have
comprehension of a first grader,you know. And after the first,
you know, 60 seconds of reading,your comprehension goes from,
you know, 95% to like, 10% Imean, I just, I was so
exhausted. Anyway, the bottomline of all that, for every
(09:00):
pediatrician, every parent, it'sso simple to look for something
called vertical for you, whichmeans one eye looks above the
other eye, an optometrist cancheck, but it's, it's super
easy. You just put basically,you put up you block one eye,
you have the kid look at a line.
You move the block to the othereye, and it'll pop up, and
they'll go, whoa. It jumped. Youknow, literally takes about 30
(09:22):
seconds to screen it. If someonejust had done that for me when I
was like 12, my life would have,I mean, I wouldn't have
developed my auditory ability.
But anyway, so Let's spare othercases.
Absolutely. Yeah, you never knowwho's listening, who this will
help. So thank you. Yeah. So Iwould love to talk about the
differences between a child'sbrain and an adult brain. I find
(09:45):
it so helpful when I hear peopletalk about how the brain doesn't
fully mature until the mid 20s,because I look at my kids if
they're doing something that Ifeel like they should know
better by now, it really helpsme to be reminded that their
brains are still maturing, stilldeveloping. Oh, yeah.
How old are your kids?
My kids are almost 911, andalmost 14. Oh, wow.
(10:07):
Okay, what a beautiful age.
Yeah, Iwas really helped when you
described the difference betweenthe left brain and the right
brain and the upstairs brain andthe downstairs brain. Just
knowing that there's there'smaturity that is yet to happen,
that will happen. I found it tobe a very helpful reminder,
yeah, well, I mean, one thingjust to think about is, you
know, the brain has differentparts to it. And the cool thing
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about having different parts isthey communicate with each
other. And in all the wonderfulcomplexity that can come up when
different parts can be differentand then link, you get more
functions. So one way to thinkabout the overall goal of brain
development is to balance thisdifferentiation things being
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different and then becominglinked. So you know, in the
womb, the deepest parts of thebrain that we call the
downstairs brain, sometimesknown as the limbic area and the
brain stem, they are forming ina big way during gestation, and
then when you're born,essentially the highest part of
the brain. So if you do the handmodel, your fingers on top is
(11:13):
the cortex. It's going to grow alot, and it grows a lot in
response to experience, but it'sjust, it's just sending out a
lot of connections. So the firstthings to alleviate the pressure
for parents is that,fundamentally, these neurons are
going to grow in the cortex, andthey're going to set up
connections getting ready tohear sound or see light. That
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are going to happen anyway. Youjust need to make sure you have
light and sound for your kid.
You know now certain things yourchild will learn are not just
going to happen, like riding atricycle. They may have the
ability to ride a trike, but youneed to get them a tricycle to
learn to ride that tricycle. Sothose are two different kinds of
development, but the cortex ishaving both these go on
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throughout the lifespan now witha sense of trust that comes with
secure attachment, children areopen to learning, learning,
learning. So basically, it'sgood to think about the brain in
the first 12 years of life islike a sponge. It's just going
to learn, learn, learn, learn,learn, learn. And you know, it's
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going to be differentiating andlinking, sure, but it's mostly
just learning and accumulatingmore and more knowledge. And
knowledge and skills get set upin the brain in the form of
connections in the brain, right?
So a kid who learns to write atricycle has learned that skill,
they know the word tricycle.
That's a connection in the brainthat allows them to know
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tricycle is a word, right? Sothat growth in the first 12
years is all about learning newthings. And they don't have the
social sophistication to knowexactly how everything is
fitting together in this complexof the web of humanity and the
web of all of life, but they'reeager just to soak it in. Is
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this why skills like learning alanguage, learning an
instrument, are much easier ifyou start them when the child's
younger,exactly right. That's exactly
right, and ideally, beforeadolescence begins. You know,
which is what we that was thekind of I won't say it's a lie,
but we made up a family law thatour son was very resistant to
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taking music lessons, but weknew he loved music, and so we
said in our family, everyonebefore they're a teenager, must
choose an instrument. Now he'sthis big, you know, guitarist,
guitarist and keyboardist. Butanyway, so yeah, he was exposed
to that, and then that justbecame his language. And you
know, our daughter was very intoarts, and she would be doing art
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stuff early on, and also learnother languages too.
I find it fascinating, just as apediatrician, watching what kids
can learn from such a young age,watching them pick up French, if
their parent speaks French tothem. Watching them pick up
skiing, I've seen kids do suchgymnastics tricks that blow my
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mind, or they're diving anddoing, you know, doing mind
boggling twists and turns offthe diving board. It's really
amazing what kids are capableof doing. And, you know, having
the balance of them doing whatthey love, and not because you
want them to do it, but alsoencouraging them to try things
that maybe are out of theircomfort zone, but something that
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they love. I mean, you know, soSo, so their brains are sponges,
which is amazing. They'resoaking everything up. But why
do they still tantrum for solong? How can what's happening
in the brain? Yeah,the subcortical areas have some
big drives that I talk about inthis this personality business.
But basically it's you have adrive for competency and agency
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that can lead to anger in atantrum. You have a drive. For
relational connection, you know,and acceptance, which can lead
to separation, distress andsadness as a part of a tantrum.
Or you have a sense of a needfor predictability and certainty
so that you can have a sense ofsafety that can lead to anxiety
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and fear. So, you know, when wetake the work, when your
question about tantrums, you canhave three ways where these
subcortical networks may beparticularly sensitive in a kid,
and when you're doing the scene,part of the 3s seen soothe and
say, you know you're tuning intowhat was the motivation that was
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frustrated beneath this tantrum.
Because what that's going to dois empower you as a parent to
figure out, why are they soangry, why are they so sad, why
are they so scared, right? Andthose are the
big three to show to show upwith empathy, to show
up with empathy like, wow. Youknow you really wanted a
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connection with your friends,and they didn't show up to your
birthday party. No wonder you'reso
distressed. So I have, if it'sokay with you, I have a real
life example. Actually, the lastpatient that I saw this morning,
a mother came in very frustratedbecause she has two kids, one's
in middle school, one's inelementary school, and the kids
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have a lot of behavioral issues.
At home, they do well. Atschool, they have friends, but
at home, they act out a lot.
There's a lot of frustration, alot of anxiety, and the mom can
feel that she herself isresponding negatively to it.
She's also frustrated andanxious because of how her kids
are acting at home. And as youthe term you use, she flips her
lid a lot. And so she came tome, and she was asking for
(16:40):
advice and guidance on how tohelp herself and how to help her
kids. How would you have talkedto that mother? And I'll tell
you what I said. I'll chime in.
But what would you say to thismother? And by the way, I was, I
was incredibly grateful that Ijust read the whole brain child
before talking to her. So thankyou so much.
What did you say to her? AndI'll come up. I'll tell you in a
moment.
So the first thing I said, forthe piece that we can do, I
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really feel like as parents, themore that we stay calm, the
better it is for everybody. Thesaying is our power is our calm.
So if we can stay calm, thatwill really help set the tone
for better energy at home, whichcan be hard to do in the moment.
I mean, I struggle with thatmyself sometimes when my kids
are really pushing my buttons,but just trying to stay calm,
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stay cool, stay collected. Beingempathetic to our kids, I think,
is really, really important,trying to see where they're
coming from. And one piece toothat I mentioned to her was
trying to add some fun at home.
I think it's really easy to getinto it with our kids, to let
their frustration affect ourmoods, affect the mood of the
family home, and adding somesilliness, adding some laughter,
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putting on some music, whateveryou can do to lighten the mood,
I think is a real advantage,because ultimately, who wants to
live in a home that's reallystressful, right? So that's some
things that I said to start,yeah, well,
I love that. I love that I wouldjust build on that. And first of
all, say, in general, for aparent who has kids come home
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and they're very emotionallyexpressive and distressing and
stuff like that, what can youdo? So there's a book I wrote
called aware, which hasexamples, and one of the
examples in it is about how tocultivate the calm. You're
talking about is it talks abouta parent that's exactly in this
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situation where she is likelosing her mind. Her kids are so
emotionally distressed when theyget home at school, they're
fine, all that kind of stuff.
And so you'll see in that case,example, what I talk about is
this practice called the wheelof awareness is like the secret
weapon of every parrot that Iwork with. And you can go to my
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website, dr, Dan siegel.com, forfree. You can learn to do the
wheel. We have a three dayworkshop you can do. You know,
it's recorded. It's in theredwoods. It's kind of a calming
by itself. There's a book calledaware, and the the workbook
called Becoming aware. So whathappens when parents do that is,
they're able to distinguish inthe hub of this wheel, pure
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awareness, that is theexperience of knowing from the
rim, which are all things youcan be aware of. And when the
kids come home from school andthey start flipping out, and
because of a set of neuronscalled mirror neurons, we which
should have been called spongeneurons, I think we sponge in
their distress. Then we getdistressed our kids mirror or
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sponge neurons, sponge in ourdistress. They're heightened in
their distress. We get moredistressed with their distress,
and pretty soon it's off to theraces and everyone's flipping
their lids. That is like themost common parenting you know,
feedback loop that exists. Sowhat you do is you intervene in
that by going. To the hub ofyour wheel, which you've been
(20:00):
practicing when the kids are atschool. I do it every morning,
and by itself. I mean, forgetwhether you're a parent or not.
It's like an amazing meditativepractice that we've had lots and
lots of people do, but there arereasons to do it for your own
well being. But in terms ofthese, the secret sauce of
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parenting, well, what it does isyour kids start doing that. You
see your reaction to theirflipping out on your rim. You
quickly, because you've learnedto do it even with a breath or
two, go into your hub. The Hub,for many of us, is clear. It's
calm, it is full of joy, love,hope, groundedness. And then
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you're in this hub, they'reflipping out. They see you're
not flipping out, they start tocalm down, just because you're
in the hub. And then prettysoon, the whole thing gets into
this different place becauseyou've used your superpower.
Without the superpower, you're ahuman being. They're flipping
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out. You're flipping out.
They're flipping out. Everyoneblah. And pretty soon it's an
incredibly stressful household.
Everyone's in reactive mode.
They're fighting, they'refleeing, they're freezing up,
they're fainting, they're justtrying to do all this stuff. So
what we say is the brain has twostates, a reactive state or
receptive state. You cannot doeffective parenting from a
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reactive state. You need to doparenting for it to be
effective. In a receptive state,the hub of the wheel gets you
that receptive state, focusingon your breath, get out there,
putting a hand on your chest,hand on your chest, hand or
having, we can get you there.
There's lots of ways of gettingthere. But here's the important
thing, if you try to doparenting moves from a reactive
state of fighting, fleeing,freezing or fainting or even
(21:51):
fawning, that's a fifth Fdiscovered at UCLA in the
psychology department. You know.
You know, you you will not be aneffective parent, and the whole
thing's going to cycle out ofcontrol. So the first thing I
teach parents is, you need toknow, am I? Am I as the parent,
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reactive or receptive? If I'mreactive, I've got to do
something to get myself toreceptivity. Hopefully I'm
learning to do the wheel ofawareness practice every day or
regularly, the hub gets me toreceptivity. Okay, so now,
however I get there, I say I'mreactive, I gotta get back to
receptivity, even if I take sayto my older kids, I gotta take a
(22:33):
quick parenting break, becauseI'm getting reactive right now.
I need to get receptive. I'vesaid that to my kids. They go,
okay, got it. We don't want tosee God reactive. That's not
pretty.
I love that you've taught themthe verbiage they sound like
true children of a psychiatrist.
Oh, my god, yeah, especially ifI pull out the amygdala word,
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and I said, my amygdala is notvery happy right now, I need to
take a break, because I'm aboutto get very reactive, and I
don't want to be reactive. Sohold on, I'll be back in a
minute. I'll go out, I'll getsome fresh air, I'll drink some
water, I'll stretch. And inreactivity, you rationalize your
irrational parenting moves.
(23:14):
I can see that you're notthinking clearly. When you're
reactive, it really is. I reallythink the phrase resonates with
me. I think it's really truewhen they say that your
superpower is your calm.
Totally, yeah, and that's whyget that superpower. Try the
wheel of awareness, practice.
And what about the tip that youoffer, name it, to tame it.
Would that work in thissituation? You
(23:36):
know? Yeah, especially if youstart with name it. I'm
reactive, and I've actuallychanged that now to name it to
frame it. So you're framing itin like a picture frame. So you
say, Oh, now I see what thestory is. So I actually like
name it to frame it. Evenbetter. It also rhymes, but now
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you're framing it with words. Soit's like naming it to frame it.
And now what you do is you seeit. You go, I'm reactive. Yeah,
my kids are reactive. They'rekids. I'm the adult here, and
I'm getting reactive. So I gotto get myself back to
receptivity. You do that. Go tothe hub, if you're practicing
the wheel, take a few deepbreaths. Get some water. Make
(24:19):
sure you know the differencebetween reactivity and
receptivity, and then you'll begood.
And then for Okay, that's reallyhelpful. So just that's what we
can do. That's what's that'swhat's in our control as the
parent, is that we can own ourown behavior and our own and set
set a good tone for our cellsand our and and own our own
(24:40):
behavior, absolutely right. Andthen what reassurance for
parents that are listening, thatmight have kids that tend to
overreact or they have difficultbehavior? Do you find that over
time, as the brain matures, thisall improves? This is a leading
question, but I want to offersome hope for parents that are
listening. Oh,yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I
can't tell you the close I mean,certainly my patience is true,
(25:03):
but I've got close friends withkids who are growing through
this, and so we talk about thisall the time, just as friends
like extended family, basically.
And you know, as the brain goesthrough adolescence, it is going
to go through a process ofpruning down things, and things
can look worse initially, andthen linking them up. So that
(25:26):
balance of pruning down to makethings specialized and then
linking them up allowsintegration to occur. So the
goal of adolescent brainremodeling, which is no longer
like a sponge, it's thisremodeling thing, is to create
more integration, you'reactually going to start losing
connections with the pruningprocess. So some kids freak out
(25:48):
about that, but what I say tothem is, I said, you know, it's
a use it or lose it story whereattention goes, neural firing
flows, neural connection grows.
You're the one who determinesyour attention. You want to just
have your little part of yourbrain that governs this on a on
a mouse, on a computer, then gofor it, or you can develop a
much richer aspect of yourbrain, you know. So
(26:09):
thank you so much. Now, theseare really helpful tips. Are
there any last suggestions tooffer parents in terms of how
they can improve theirconnection with their kids and
how to think about the childbrain? Anything that we've left
out that you think would beworth mentioning for
your own well being. I wouldurge you to do the book becoming
aware it's like a littleworkbook, and it will teach you
(26:30):
to how to access your superpowerso that you know. Not to make a
oversimplification, but I dothink what you said, Jessica, is
absolutely true, if you can holdon to your superpower of calm,
but basically, with the gift ofpresence and becoming aware of
what you get is you get thesuperpower. And it's not just
(26:51):
like a word, oh, I want tobecome No, you actually learn
this skill. We are in this brainchanging game forever, you know.
And these things actuallyoptimize this kind of practice.
The wheel awareness optimizes anenzyme called telomerase that
will maintain and repair theensue chromosomes, so it
actually slows the agingprocess. What Alyssa Epple and
(27:15):
Elizabeth Blackburn have shownand they told me, Alyssa Apple
called me up and said, you'vegot to say that all the stuff in
the wheel of awareness is goingto slow the aging process.
Amazing. It's not just random. Imean, you start doing a practice
that trains your attention to befocused, opens up your awareness
and allows your intention to bekind those three of the three
(27:40):
pillars that lead to thisimprovement, it's a long race.
Reduces inflammation, improvesthe immune response. It actually
makes your cardiovascular systemhealthier, and it reduces the
stress hormone, cortisol, thosefive things including the brain,
process of making your brainmore integrated, which is the
best predictor of well being.
That's what a three pillarpractice that is all built into
(28:02):
the wheel does. So yes, it'sgoing to make your parenting
more fun and more effective, forsure, and it's going to prove
five measures of your medicalhealth, and it's going to
integrate your brain. So thebiggest question is, why aren't
you going to start it?
Well, you had me on lookingyounger. You sold me. There
(28:25):
you go. I'm telling you, this isnot and it's looking but it's
actually being younger. I mean,this is the thing. It's not just
like, oh, it was a surfaceappearance. Your your health
span will be made much longerwhen you do practices like this.
That'samazing. It's amazing. And I I
just have to thank you. You dosuch a good job of taking
complicated, complex medicaltopics. I mean, I can't think of
(28:47):
anything more complicated orhard to understand than
neuroscience. I love how youdescribe the way you describe
it. It becomes so easy tounderstand, easy to follow you.
So many helpful mnemonics, somany helpful examples. I can't
recommend your books enough toeverybody listening. You won't
regret it, especially if you'retrying to figure out the best
way to understand your childrenand parent them from a place
(29:09):
that focuses on connection andunderstanding. So thank you so
much for all that you do.
Thank you. Thank you, Jessica.
Great to see you.
Thank you for listening, and Ihope you enjoyed this week's
episode of Ask Dr Jessica. Also,if you could take a moment and
leave a five star review,wherever it is you listen to
podcasts, I would greatlyappreciate it. It really makes a
difference to help this podcastgrow. You can also follow me on
(29:31):
Instagram at ask Dr Jessica, seeyou next Monday. You.
Hi everybody. I'm Dr Jessica Hochman, pediatrician
(00:02):
and mom of three. On thispodcast, I like to talk about
various pediatric health topics,sharing my knowledge, not only
as a doctor, but also as aparent. Ultimately, my hope is
that when it comes to yourchildren's health, you feel more
confident, worry less and enjoyyour parenting experience as
much as possible. Hi everybody.
Welcome back to part two of myconversation with Dr Dan Siegel.
It's truly an honor to have DrSiegel as a guest, and today
(00:25):
we'll dive deeper into hisincredible book, the whole brain
child, which has now sold over 1million copies in print. Yes,
you heard that right? 1 millioncopies in print. In our last
episode, we talked about howattachment can deepen emotional
connections with our kids.
Today, we will review some of DrSiegel's practical strategies to
help kids manage their bigemotions. I really appreciate
(00:47):
his insights and practical tips.
I find they really help parentsunderstand a child's mind, which
can ultimately help us supportthem as they grow up to be more
empathetic and self aware humanbeings. Thank you so much for
listening. If you have a moment,I would truly appreciate it. If
you could subscribe to ask DrJessica, leave a five star
review and share it with afriend or three or five. Your
support really helps spread theword about the podcast. Now,
(01:07):
back to Dr Siegel. I'd love toask you more about the book the
whole brain child. Yeah, what Ireally liked about this book, to
be honest, is kids act in waysthat can be really difficult for
parents, right? I mean, theyhave tantrums, they can act out,
they can misbehave, they can bewild. And what I enjoyed so much
about the neuroscience behindlearning about children's
(01:31):
brains, I feel like byunderstanding the way their
brains work a little bit more,it's making me forgive those
behaviors and be moresympathetic to how to why
they're behaving the way they'rebehaving. So first, I just want
to say thank you so much forwriting a book with more
neuroscience behind the brain ofthe child, because it helps me a
(01:52):
lot when I think about my ownkids.
Oh, great, great. Well, youknow, you always want to be
careful. You're not just puttingon to you know other people,
readers or students or patientsor whatever you know, just
because you're interested in youknow. So thank you. That's very
helpful. And I you know, I thinkthe fact that knowing about the
(02:16):
brain of your child and knowingabout your own brain actually
can give you very practicalavenues to making parenting
interventions that you wouldn'totherwise think of, you know.
And so what Tina and I did withwhole brain child was basically
(02:36):
take these nine domains ofintegration that I talk about in
the developing mind, and thengive 1000s of scientific
references to support. This iswhat a healthy mind is all
about. This is how it developsfrom birth onward. But what we
wanted to do is say, Okay, whatis a digestible way where a
busy, tired parent can get thesenotions of how an attachment
(03:05):
relationship, a parent, childrelationship, can actually shape
the development of a child'sbrain, because there's something
called neuroplasticity, whichbasically means, how does the
brain grow in response toexperience? And if you learn
that which we teach in all ofour books, if you learn the
(03:25):
basics of your actions as aparent, are going to mold the
development of the child'sbrain, not to make you pressure.
Because some people would say,oh, isn't that a lot of pressure
on a parent that you're you'retelling them what to do, because
they think, well, the brain isgoing to develop whether you do
it in an informed way or not. Soso even if you're totally not
(03:48):
aware of this, your interactionsare still going to shape them.
So sorry, that's just a fact.
Why not actually do like LouisPasteur has this great phrase,
Chance favors the prepared mind.
Why not prepare your mind? It'snot saying, hey, because you're
reading this book, whole brainchild, you're now have the
pressure that you're shapingyour child's brain. No, you were
(04:09):
shaping it anyway. So why notprepare your mind to shape it in
a positive direction?
I do. I think about that a lot,the line that neurons that fire
together, wire together, becauseI think with my kids, okay, do I
want them to spend their timewhen they're kids, spending a
lot of time on the screens,watching TV? Because that's what
their brains are gonna shape andmold to be accustomed to doing.
(04:31):
So I try to with that in mind,thinking that the nerves that
fire together wire together, tryto emphasize what I think would
be more helpful and beneficialto them as they grow older,
exactly,exactly. So now I don't know if
this sits with you well, but,you know, people would ask me,
students of mine, who are, youknow, therapists and stuff, you
(04:52):
know. What does that reallymean? You know this, Carla
Schatz is the neuroscientist whoparaphrased Donald had. To make
that phrase, neurons are fired,either wired together, but what
a parent can use in a littlemore refined way is this
statement, where attention goes,neural firing flows and neural
(05:12):
connection grows. So your realtool, because is about
attention. Because if you justhear Carol Le chat says Hebbian
synapse, paraphrase, you know,neurons that fire to the wire to
it, it's true, but then a parentmight ask, Well, how do I get
(05:32):
those neurons to fire? So that'swhy I created this other phrase
where attention goes neuralfiring flows, and that's the
neural firing piece, and thenneural connection grows. So why
do we want to know aboutattention? Because attention is
that process where you'redirecting energy and information
flow, and if your kids are busyon a screen, like you're saying,
(05:55):
it's that attention that getsthose particular neurons to fire
if they're with friends andthey're paying attention to the
friends, eye contact, facialexpressions, tone of voice,
their gestures, their posture,their timing and intensity
response, the non verbalsignals, research shows they
will actually develop thecircuitry in their own brains,
(06:19):
be able to interpret non verbalsignals and be able to be more
tuned in to other people, sothey'll develop emotional
intelligence and socialintelligence, but if they're
busy just on screens that aren'tteaching them to do that,
attention is going somewhereelse.
I'm curious if you agree withthis, but so many kids now
(06:40):
because of the screens, andthat's where their attention is
going, I feel like they're notspending as much they are not
spending as much time reading. Iworry that that skill is going
to be lost amongst future kids,because it's hard to put
attention into reading when thescreens are so alluring.
Absolutely, that alluringquality is there. It's
(07:03):
intentional. They want to catcheyeballs because that gets them
money. It all comes down tobasically, money grabbing, yeah,
I mean, this is the readingthing. Is interesting because, I
mean, I had an eye problem, Ithink I mentioned that. You
know, no one diagnosed till Iwas 30, so it never became
natural for me to read, and Ireally have to struggle to read
(07:26):
for pleasure. I can read for ifI'm, you know, preparing a
science book, mostly I listen toit, but, you know, I'll read all
my references. Auditorily, I'lllisten to it, but if I need to.
Now, I've taught myself to read,but just for pleasure, I don't
get what friends of mine who areor Caroline, who's my wife,
who's a great reader. You knowthis rich visual imagery by
(07:51):
taking in words from a page, Iunfortunately don't. Don't get
that. I get it if I listen to abook.
Dan, it's amazing that you areso accomplished as an author, as
a speaker. You went to HarvardMedical School. Your resume is
so impressive, and you were ableto do so much of it with your
eye. Situation,I know well, I got my eyes fixed
with prisons. I mean, I'mbasically not to make it a
mystery, but no one picked uptill I was 30 that one of my
(08:14):
eyes looks down here, and onelooks up here, and then you're
in pediatrics, and I'll justtell you, my pediatrician
thought it was the fluorescentlights flickering because
everything was shaking. Theoptometrist missed it when I was
like, 12 and 13, I wouldcomplain, everything shakes.
Anyway. So I was reading by thetime I was 30, and I was a
fellow Research Fellow, and hadall this reading due, and I just
(08:39):
couldn't do it. So I went andgot evaluated. They said, Oh,
you read. You read like a firstgrader reads. You have
comprehension of a first grader,you know. And after the first,
you know, 60 seconds of reading,your comprehension goes from,
you know, 95% to like, 10% Imean, I just, I was so
exhausted. Anyway, the bottomline of all that, for every
(09:00):
pediatrician, every parent, it'sso simple to look for something
called vertical for you, whichmeans one eye looks above the
other eye, an optometrist cancheck, but it's, it's super
easy. You just put basically,you put up you block one eye,
you have the kid look at a line.
You move the block to the othereye, and it'll pop up, and
they'll go, whoa. It jumped. Youknow, literally takes about 30
(09:22):
seconds to screen it. If someonejust had done that for me when I
was like 12, my life would have,I mean, I wouldn't have
developed my auditory ability.
But anyway, so Let's spare othercases.
Absolutely. Yeah, you never knowwho's listening, who this will
help. So thank you. Yeah. So Iwould love to talk about the
differences between a child'sbrain and an adult brain. I find
(09:45):
it so helpful when I hear peopletalk about how the brain doesn't
fully mature until the mid 20s,because I look at my kids if
they're doing something that Ifeel like they should know
better by now, it really helpsme to be reminded that their
brains are still maturing, stilldeveloping. Oh, yeah.
How old are your kids?
My kids are almost 911, andalmost 14. Oh, wow.
(10:07):
Okay, what a beautiful age.
Yeah, Iwas really helped when you
described the difference betweenthe left brain and the right
brain and the upstairs brain andthe downstairs brain. Just
knowing that there's there'smaturity that is yet to happen,
that will happen. I found it tobe a very helpful reminder,
yeah, well, I mean, one thingjust to think about is, you
know, the brain has differentparts to it. And the cool thing
(10:29):
about having different parts isthey communicate with each
other. And in all the wonderfulcomplexity that can come up when
different parts can be differentand then link, you get more
functions. So one way to thinkabout the overall goal of brain
development is to balance thisdifferentiation things being
(10:50):
different and then becominglinked. So you know, in the
womb, the deepest parts of thebrain that we call the
downstairs brain, sometimesknown as the limbic area and the
brain stem, they are forming ina big way during gestation, and
then when you're born,essentially the highest part of
the brain. So if you do the handmodel, your fingers on top is
(11:13):
the cortex. It's going to grow alot, and it grows a lot in
response to experience, but it'sjust, it's just sending out a
lot of connections. So the firstthings to alleviate the pressure
for parents is that,fundamentally, these neurons are
going to grow in the cortex, andthey're going to set up
connections getting ready tohear sound or see light. That
(11:35):
are going to happen anyway. Youjust need to make sure you have
light and sound for your kid.
You know now certain things yourchild will learn are not just
going to happen, like riding atricycle. They may have the
ability to ride a trike, but youneed to get them a tricycle to
learn to ride that tricycle. Sothose are two different kinds of
development, but the cortex ishaving both these go on
(11:57):
throughout the lifespan now witha sense of trust that comes with
secure attachment, children areopen to learning, learning,
learning. So basically, it'sgood to think about the brain in
the first 12 years of life islike a sponge. It's just going
to learn, learn, learn, learn,learn, learn. And you know, it's
(12:17):
going to be differentiating andlinking, sure, but it's mostly
just learning and accumulatingmore and more knowledge. And
knowledge and skills get set upin the brain in the form of
connections in the brain, right?
So a kid who learns to write atricycle has learned that skill,
they know the word tricycle.
That's a connection in the brainthat allows them to know
(12:38):
tricycle is a word, right? Sothat growth in the first 12
years is all about learning newthings. And they don't have the
social sophistication to knowexactly how everything is
fitting together in this complexof the web of humanity and the
web of all of life, but they'reeager just to soak it in. Is
(13:03):
this why skills like learning alanguage, learning an
instrument, are much easier ifyou start them when the child's
younger,exactly right. That's exactly
right, and ideally, beforeadolescence begins. You know,
which is what we that was thekind of I won't say it's a lie,
but we made up a family law thatour son was very resistant to
(13:23):
taking music lessons, but weknew he loved music, and so we
said in our family, everyonebefore they're a teenager, must
choose an instrument. Now he'sthis big, you know, guitarist,
guitarist and keyboardist. Butanyway, so yeah, he was exposed
to that, and then that justbecame his language. And you
know, our daughter was very intoarts, and she would be doing art
(13:46):
stuff early on, and also learnother languages too.
I find it fascinating, just as apediatrician, watching what kids
can learn from such a young age,watching them pick up French, if
their parent speaks French tothem. Watching them pick up
skiing, I've seen kids do suchgymnastics tricks that blow my
(14:07):
mind, or they're diving anddoing, you know, doing mind
boggling twists and turns offthe diving board. It's really
amazing what kids are capableof doing. And, you know, having
the balance of them doing whatthey love, and not because you
want them to do it, but alsoencouraging them to try things
that maybe are out of theircomfort zone, but something that
(14:27):
they love. I mean, you know, soSo, so their brains are sponges,
which is amazing. They'resoaking everything up. But why
do they still tantrum for solong? How can what's happening
in the brain? Yeah,the subcortical areas have some
big drives that I talk about inthis this personality business.
But basically it's you have adrive for competency and agency
(14:52):
that can lead to anger in atantrum. You have a drive. For
relational connection, you know,and acceptance, which can lead
to separation, distress andsadness as a part of a tantrum.
Or you have a sense of a needfor predictability and certainty
so that you can have a sense ofsafety that can lead to anxiety
(15:14):
and fear. So, you know, when wetake the work, when your
question about tantrums, you canhave three ways where these
subcortical networks may beparticularly sensitive in a kid,
and when you're doing the scene,part of the 3s seen soothe and
say, you know you're tuning intowhat was the motivation that was
(15:35):
frustrated beneath this tantrum.
Because what that's going to dois empower you as a parent to
figure out, why are they soangry, why are they so sad, why
are they so scared, right? Andthose are the
big three to show to show upwith empathy, to show
up with empathy like, wow. Youknow you really wanted a
(15:56):
connection with your friends,and they didn't show up to your
birthday party. No wonder you'reso
distressed. So I have, if it'sokay with you, I have a real
life example. Actually, the lastpatient that I saw this morning,
a mother came in very frustratedbecause she has two kids, one's
in middle school, one's inelementary school, and the kids
(16:17):
have a lot of behavioral issues.
At home, they do well. Atschool, they have friends, but
at home, they act out a lot.
There's a lot of frustration, alot of anxiety, and the mom can
feel that she herself isresponding negatively to it.
She's also frustrated andanxious because of how her kids
are acting at home. And as youthe term you use, she flips her
lid a lot. And so she came tome, and she was asking for
(16:40):
advice and guidance on how tohelp herself and how to help her
kids. How would you have talkedto that mother? And I'll tell
you what I said. I'll chime in.
But what would you say to thismother? And by the way, I was, I
was incredibly grateful that Ijust read the whole brain child
before talking to her. So thankyou so much.
What did you say to her? AndI'll come up. I'll tell you in a
moment.
So the first thing I said, forthe piece that we can do, I
(17:02):
really feel like as parents, themore that we stay calm, the
better it is for everybody. Thesaying is our power is our calm.
So if we can stay calm, thatwill really help set the tone
for better energy at home, whichcan be hard to do in the moment.
I mean, I struggle with thatmyself sometimes when my kids
are really pushing my buttons,but just trying to stay calm,
(17:26):
stay cool, stay collected. Beingempathetic to our kids, I think,
is really, really important,trying to see where they're
coming from. And one piece toothat I mentioned to her was
trying to add some fun at home.
I think it's really easy to getinto it with our kids, to let
their frustration affect ourmoods, affect the mood of the
family home, and adding somesilliness, adding some laughter,
(17:48):
putting on some music, whateveryou can do to lighten the mood,
I think is a real advantage,because ultimately, who wants to
live in a home that's reallystressful, right? So that's some
things that I said to start,yeah, well,
I love that. I love that I wouldjust build on that. And first of
all, say, in general, for aparent who has kids come home
(18:11):
and they're very emotionallyexpressive and distressing and
stuff like that, what can youdo? So there's a book I wrote
called aware, which hasexamples, and one of the
examples in it is about how tocultivate the calm. You're
talking about is it talks abouta parent that's exactly in this
(18:32):
situation where she is likelosing her mind. Her kids are so
emotionally distressed when theyget home at school, they're
fine, all that kind of stuff.
And so you'll see in that case,example, what I talk about is
this practice called the wheelof awareness is like the secret
weapon of every parrot that Iwork with. And you can go to my
(18:52):
website, dr, Dan siegel.com, forfree. You can learn to do the
wheel. We have a three dayworkshop you can do. You know,
it's recorded. It's in theredwoods. It's kind of a calming
by itself. There's a book calledaware, and the the workbook
called Becoming aware. So whathappens when parents do that is,
they're able to distinguish inthe hub of this wheel, pure
(19:15):
awareness, that is theexperience of knowing from the
rim, which are all things youcan be aware of. And when the
kids come home from school andthey start flipping out, and
because of a set of neuronscalled mirror neurons, we which
should have been called spongeneurons, I think we sponge in
their distress. Then we getdistressed our kids mirror or
(19:36):
sponge neurons, sponge in ourdistress. They're heightened in
their distress. We get moredistressed with their distress,
and pretty soon it's off to theraces and everyone's flipping
their lids. That is like themost common parenting you know,
feedback loop that exists. Sowhat you do is you intervene in
that by going. To the hub ofyour wheel, which you've been
(20:00):
practicing when the kids are atschool. I do it every morning,
and by itself. I mean, forgetwhether you're a parent or not.
It's like an amazing meditativepractice that we've had lots and
lots of people do, but there arereasons to do it for your own
well being. But in terms ofthese, the secret sauce of
(20:21):
parenting, well, what it does isyour kids start doing that. You
see your reaction to theirflipping out on your rim. You
quickly, because you've learnedto do it even with a breath or
two, go into your hub. The Hub,for many of us, is clear. It's
calm, it is full of joy, love,hope, groundedness. And then
(20:44):
you're in this hub, they'reflipping out. They see you're
not flipping out, they start tocalm down, just because you're
in the hub. And then prettysoon, the whole thing gets into
this different place becauseyou've used your superpower.
Without the superpower, you're ahuman being. They're flipping
(21:05):
out. You're flipping out.
They're flipping out. Everyoneblah. And pretty soon it's an
incredibly stressful household.
Everyone's in reactive mode.
They're fighting, they'refleeing, they're freezing up,
they're fainting, they're justtrying to do all this stuff. So
what we say is the brain has twostates, a reactive state or
receptive state. You cannot doeffective parenting from a
(21:29):
reactive state. You need to doparenting for it to be
effective. In a receptive state,the hub of the wheel gets you
that receptive state, focusingon your breath, get out there,
putting a hand on your chest,hand on your chest, hand or
having, we can get you there.
There's lots of ways of gettingthere. But here's the important
thing, if you try to doparenting moves from a reactive
state of fighting, fleeing,freezing or fainting or even
(21:51):
fawning, that's a fifth Fdiscovered at UCLA in the
psychology department. You know.
You know, you you will not be aneffective parent, and the whole
thing's going to cycle out ofcontrol. So the first thing I
teach parents is, you need toknow, am I? Am I as the parent,
(22:12):
reactive or receptive? If I'mreactive, I've got to do
something to get myself toreceptivity. Hopefully I'm
learning to do the wheel ofawareness practice every day or
regularly, the hub gets me toreceptivity. Okay, so now,
however I get there, I say I'mreactive, I gotta get back to
receptivity, even if I take sayto my older kids, I gotta take a
(22:33):
quick parenting break, becauseI'm getting reactive right now.
I need to get receptive. I'vesaid that to my kids. They go,
okay, got it. We don't want tosee God reactive. That's not
pretty.
I love that you've taught themthe verbiage they sound like
true children of a psychiatrist.
Oh, my god, yeah, especially ifI pull out the amygdala word,
(22:53):
and I said, my amygdala is notvery happy right now, I need to
take a break, because I'm aboutto get very reactive, and I
don't want to be reactive. Sohold on, I'll be back in a
minute. I'll go out, I'll getsome fresh air, I'll drink some
water, I'll stretch. And inreactivity, you rationalize your
irrational parenting moves.
(23:14):
I can see that you're notthinking clearly. When you're
reactive, it really is. I reallythink the phrase resonates with
me. I think it's really truewhen they say that your
superpower is your calm.
Totally, yeah, and that's whyget that superpower. Try the
wheel of awareness, practice.
And what about the tip that youoffer, name it, to tame it.
Would that work in thissituation? You
(23:36):
know? Yeah, especially if youstart with name it. I'm
reactive, and I've actuallychanged that now to name it to
frame it. So you're framing itin like a picture frame. So you
say, Oh, now I see what thestory is. So I actually like
name it to frame it. Evenbetter. It also rhymes, but now
(23:57):
you're framing it with words. Soit's like naming it to frame it.
And now what you do is you seeit. You go, I'm reactive. Yeah,
my kids are reactive. They'rekids. I'm the adult here, and
I'm getting reactive. So I gotto get myself back to
receptivity. You do that. Go tothe hub, if you're practicing
the wheel, take a few deepbreaths. Get some water. Make
(24:19):
sure you know the differencebetween reactivity and
receptivity, and then you'll begood.
And then for Okay, that's reallyhelpful. So just that's what we
can do. That's what's that'swhat's in our control as the
parent, is that we can own ourown behavior and our own and set
set a good tone for our cellsand our and and own our own
(24:40):
behavior, absolutely right. Andthen what reassurance for
parents that are listening, thatmight have kids that tend to
overreact or they have difficultbehavior? Do you find that over
time, as the brain matures, thisall improves? This is a leading
question, but I want to offersome hope for parents that are
listening. Oh,yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I
can't tell you the close I mean,certainly my patience is true,
(25:03):
but I've got close friends withkids who are growing through
this, and so we talk about thisall the time, just as friends
like extended family, basically.
And you know, as the brain goesthrough adolescence, it is going
to go through a process ofpruning down things, and things
can look worse initially, andthen linking them up. So that
(25:26):
balance of pruning down to makethings specialized and then
linking them up allowsintegration to occur. So the
goal of adolescent brainremodeling, which is no longer
like a sponge, it's thisremodeling thing, is to create
more integration, you'reactually going to start losing
connections with the pruningprocess. So some kids freak out
(25:48):
about that, but what I say tothem is, I said, you know, it's
a use it or lose it story whereattention goes, neural firing
flows, neural connection grows.
You're the one who determinesyour attention. You want to just
have your little part of yourbrain that governs this on a on
a mouse, on a computer, then gofor it, or you can develop a
much richer aspect of yourbrain, you know. So
(26:09):
thank you so much. Now, theseare really helpful tips. Are
there any last suggestions tooffer parents in terms of how
they can improve theirconnection with their kids and
how to think about the childbrain? Anything that we've left
out that you think would beworth mentioning for
your own well being. I wouldurge you to do the book becoming
aware it's like a littleworkbook, and it will teach you
(26:30):
to how to access your superpowerso that you know. Not to make a
oversimplification, but I dothink what you said, Jessica, is
absolutely true, if you can holdon to your superpower of calm,
but basically, with the gift ofpresence and becoming aware of
what you get is you get thesuperpower. And it's not just
(26:51):
like a word, oh, I want tobecome No, you actually learn
this skill. We are in this brainchanging game forever, you know.
And these things actuallyoptimize this kind of practice.
The wheel awareness optimizes anenzyme called telomerase that
will maintain and repair theensue chromosomes, so it
actually slows the agingprocess. What Alyssa Epple and
(27:15):
Elizabeth Blackburn have shownand they told me, Alyssa Apple
called me up and said, you'vegot to say that all the stuff in
the wheel of awareness is goingto slow the aging process.
Amazing. It's not just random. Imean, you start doing a practice
that trains your attention to befocused, opens up your awareness
and allows your intention to bekind those three of the three
(27:40):
pillars that lead to thisimprovement, it's a long race.
Reduces inflammation, improvesthe immune response. It actually
makes your cardiovascular systemhealthier, and it reduces the
stress hormone, cortisol, thosefive things including the brain,
process of making your brainmore integrated, which is the
best predictor of well being.
That's what a three pillarpractice that is all built into
(28:02):
the wheel does. So yes, it'sgoing to make your parenting
more fun and more effective, forsure, and it's going to prove
five measures of your medicalhealth, and it's going to
integrate your brain. So thebiggest question is, why aren't
you going to start it?
Well, you had me on lookingyounger. You sold me. There
(28:25):
you go. I'm telling you, this isnot and it's looking but it's
actually being younger. I mean,this is the thing. It's not just
like, oh, it was a surfaceappearance. Your your health
span will be made much longerwhen you do practices like this.
That'samazing. It's amazing. And I I
just have to thank you. You dosuch a good job of taking
complicated, complex medicaltopics. I mean, I can't think of
(28:47):
anything more complicated orhard to understand than
neuroscience. I love how youdescribe the way you describe
it. It becomes so easy tounderstand, easy to follow you.
So many helpful mnemonics, somany helpful examples. I can't
recommend your books enough toeverybody listening. You won't
regret it, especially if you'retrying to figure out the best
way to understand your childrenand parent them from a place
(29:09):
that focuses on connection andunderstanding. So thank you so
much for all that you do.
Thank you. Thank you, Jessica.
Great to see you.
Thank you for listening, and Ihope you enjoyed this week's
episode of Ask Dr Jessica. Also,if you could take a moment and
leave a five star review,wherever it is you listen to
podcasts, I would greatlyappreciate it. It really makes a
difference to help this podcastgrow. You can also follow me on
(29:31):
Instagram at ask Dr Jessica, seeyou next Monday. You.
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