Book SummaryThe Whole-Brain Child, by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Whole-Brain Child

From sibling arguments to temper tantrums, parents constantly have to manage conflict. Amidst the chaos, parents sometimes feel like the best they can do is to survive these challenges and restore peace. However, moments of conflict are the most pivotal opportunities to promote your child’s psychological development. With some basic understanding of your child’s developing brain, you can approach challenging situations with the tools to turn them into teachable moments.

Different regions of the brain manage different functions—for example, the right side of the brain is associated with creativity and big-picture thinking, while the left side of the brain is logic-oriented. These different regions work both individually and in collaboration. However, when one part of your brain starts to take control, then you lose mental and emotional equilibrium. This lack of integration causes you to act out, and, in children, it leads to tantrums, irrational anxiety, and general misbehavior. In contrast, when the different parts of your brain are integrated, you function at your best—socially, mentally, and emotionally.

Through the whole-brain approach, you’ll learn to recognize when your child’s mind is off-balance, and how to guide her back to integration. In the process, your child will learn about her own mind and emotions, which leads to long-term benefits, including:

• Increased self-awareness and emotional self-control in your child, which makes parenting easier overall
• A solid foundation for a lifetime of mental and emotional stability
• A stronger relationship with you, as well as a blueprint for healthy relationships for the rest of her life

Additionally, you’ll gain insight into your own emotions. You can apply many of the same strategies yourself, so that you’re not just teaching your child about integration, but also modeling it.

Integrating the Left and Right Brains

The first two regions of the brain we’ll talk about are the left and right hemispheres—or, as they’re commonly referred to, the left brain and right brain.

The right brain manages:

• Emotions and intuition
• Physical sensations
• Nonverbal communication (such as eye contact, gestures, tone of voice, and facial expressions)

The left brain manages:

• Logic
• Language
• Order and sequences

On one hand, if you rely too heavily on your right brain, you face an emotional flood, bombarded with feelings and physical sensations, unable to make sense of it all. On the other hand, if you rely too heavily on your left brain, you end up in an emotional desert in which you lose compassion, empathy, and big-picture perspective.

The whole-brain approach fosters horizontal integration between the left and right brains, helping you use both your logic and your emotions to understand your experiences, your thoughts, your behaviors, and those of the people around you. Let’s explore two strategies for helping children integrate their left and right brains.

Horizontal Integration Strategy #1: Connect With Emotions, Redirect to Logic

If your child is in the midst of a right-brain takeover and you try to cut through her emotions with logic, she won’t be able to process your reasoning. Instead, take this two-step approach:

1. Connect with the right brain. Show your child that you understand how she’s feeling. Use nonverbal cues, such as hugging her and speaking in a nurturing voice.
2. Redirect to the left brain: Once your child is calm, integrate her left brain using reasoning. Address your child’s concerns with logical explanations, or brainstorm solutions together. If your child has been acting inappropriately, explain why her behavior was unacceptable and what the consequences will be, if necessary. She’ll be better able to learn the lesson when she’s in an integrated state.

Horizontal Integration Strategy #2: Help Your Child Tell the Stories of Difficult Memories

Painful and scary experiences can overwhelm your child with emotion, even long after the experience ends. For example, 9-year-old Bella developed anxiety about flushing toilets after she flushed once and watched the water overflow.

Help your child integrate her left brain by telling the story of what happened (order and sequence) and how it made her feel (language). While the right brain processes your personal memories and emotions, the left brain makes sense of them, which is what allows you to attain closure so that the memory doesn’t haunt you.

When you help your child tell her story:

• Emphasize how the situation was resolved, which reassures your child that there’s a solution if the situation were to come up again.
• Talk about strategies to avoid a similar incident in the future (if applicable).
• Help your child create more positive associations with the thing or the place that has become scary. For example, if your child got sick at school and now is afraid to go back, help her focus on her friends and favorite activities.
• Don’t force your child to retell the story if she’s not ready or not in the mood. Children often find it easier to talk while doing some other activity, such as playing a game or driving in the car. If your child still resists talking, encourage her to write about the memory, draw a picture of it, or talk to someone else about it.

Integrating the Upstairs and Downstairs Brains

Imagine your brain is a two-story house.

Your downstairs brain controls primitive functions, such as:

• Automatic actions (such as breathing and blinking)
• Strong emotions (such as fear and anger)
• Fight-or-flight impulse, enabling you to act before you think

Your upstairs brain controls high-level thinking, such as:

• Planning and decision-making
• Self-understanding
• Empathy

A mind that’s vertically integrated is like a house with an accessible stairway connecting the upstairs and downstairs brains. **The upstairs...

The Whole-Brain Child Summary Introduction

When your child throws a tantrum or refuses to share a toy with her brother, your challenge, as a parent, is not only to manage the conflict, but also—ideally—to teach your child a valuable life lesson. You may try reasoning with her and explaining why it’s important to share, but your logic doesn’t get through to her. It may feel like the best you can do is to find a way to end the argument. However, with some basic understanding of your child’s developing brain, you can approach challenging situations with the tools to turn them into teachable moments.

Different regions of the brain manage different functions. For example, the right side of the brain is associated with creativity and big-picture thinking, while the left side of the brain is logic-oriented. Keeping a balance between complementary parts of the brain helps you navigate life with even-mindedness. In contrast, when one part of the brain dominates, you lose mental and emotional equilibrium. In children, this lack of integration leads to tantrums, irrational...

The Whole-Brain Child Summary Chapter 1: The Importance of Integration

The different parts of your brain work individually and in collaboration, similarly to employees within a company. Each job is distinctly different, but they all work together in order to make the company successful; if the company were missing any one of these employees, the organization would either be extremely dysfunctional or fail altogether.

The same is true for your brain. Each region of your brain is responsible for a distinct set of tasks, which we’ll explore in the coming chapters. You function optimally—socially, mentally, and emotionally—when the different parts of your brain are integrated. Maintaining integration is the basis of the whole-brain child parenting method.

Think of integration like navigating a boat down a river: The ride is smoothest when you’re floating right down the middle, in a balanced, integrated way. If you become dis-integrated and veer too much to one side, you risk getting tangled in the chaos of one riverbank—where you feel like you don’t have control—or...

Shortform Exercise: How Do You Keep Your Mind at Peace?

Before we discuss the whole-brain strategies for integration, reflect on the techniques you already use.

Think of a time recently when you were feeling upset or agitated. What caused you to feel that way?

The Whole-Brain Child Summary Chapter 2: Integrating the Left and Right Brains

The first two complementary regions of the brain we’ll talk about are the left and right hemispheres—or, as they’re commonly referred to, the left brain and right brain.

The left brain:

• Operates in logic
• Manages language
• Interprets things literally
• Sorts things into a linear order or sequence

The right brain:

• Operates in emotions and intuition
• Manages physical sensations and nonverbal communication (such as eye contact, gestures, tone of voice, and facial expressions)
• Interprets things in the context of the big picture
• Processes autobiographical memories (Shortform note: Autobiographical memories are memories of personal experiences, as opposed to memories of information, such as a grocery list.)

If you rely too heavily on your left brain, you end up in an emotional desert. You operate only with cold, calculating logic, neglecting your and others’ emotions. In an emotional desert, you lose compassion, empathy, and big-picture perspective. Teens often retreat to emotional deserts, because it gives them a feeling of control when they become overwhelmed by the emotional overload of adolescence.

In...

Shortform Exercise: Reflect on an Incident of Left-Right Dis-Integration

Reflect on a recent example of left-right dis-integration and how you could have handled it so that you can quickly recognize and resolve it next time.

Describe a recent incident when your child experienced a right- or left-brain takeover.

The Whole-Brain Child Summary Chapter 3: Integrating the Upstairs and Downstairs Brains

In addition to horizontal integration between your child’s left and right brains, it’s important to facilitate vertical integration between the lower and upper regions of the brain—we’ll call them the downstairs and upstairs brains.

The downstairs brain encompasses the brainstem and limbic region, which are located between the top of your neck and the bridge of your nose. The downstairs brain controls basic functions, as well as knee-jerk reactions, enabling you to act before you think, which can be crucial for survival and safety. These functions include:

• Automatic actions, such as breathing and blinking
• Strong emotions, such as fear and anger
• Impulses, such as fight or flight

The upstairs brain comprises the various parts of the cerebral cortex, which sits behind your forehead and right under the top of your head. The upstairs brain is responsible for high-level thinking, allowing you to think through context, consequences, and the impact your actions may have on others. These processes include:

• Analytical thinking
• Planning and decision-making
• Emotional and physical control
• Self-understanding
• Morality
• Empathy

A mind...

Shortform Exercise: Exercise Your Child’s Upstairs Brain

Brainstorm ways to develop your child’s upstairs-brain abilities.

To help your child practice decision-making, list two to three examples of decisions you could have her make for herself.

The Whole-Brain Child Summary Chapter 4: Integrating Implicit and Explicit Memories

Downstairs-brain and right-brain takeovers are usually triggered by something in the present—but, sometimes, your child may have a strong and unexpected reaction to something because of something in the past. For example, if your child normally loves swimming, but she’s refusing to take swimming lessons, it’s possible that a past experience is haunting your child and making her act irrationally without her realizing why.

In order to explain this, first we’ll explore two myths about memory, and the truth about how memory actually works. Then, we’ll explain how subconscious memories affect your child’s behavior, and how you can help.

How Memory Works

There are a few common myths about memory that hinder people’s ability to understand and manage their memories. Just like the other brain functions we’ve discussed, when you know how your brain stores and processes memories, you can prevent them from controlling you.

Myth #1: Your Memory Is an Organized Record of Your Experiences

The first myth is that your memory is like a filing cabinet that holds an organized record of all your life experiences. In reality, **memory is a network of associations you...

Shortform Exercise: Recognize the Influence of Implicit Memories

Your child’s implicit memories may be impacting her behavior more often than you realize.

Describe one recent incident in which your child acted irrationally, and which you suspect could be due to an unintegrated implicit memory.

The Whole-Brain Child Summary Chapter 5: Integrating All the Parts of Yourself

In addition to integrating memories and different regions of your brain, integrating the various parts of who you are helps you remain calm and in control of your thoughts and emotions. There are many parts of you—including parent, employee, and mentor. There are probably parts of you that are insecure, and other parts that are self-assured.

Think of all your parts as spokes on a wheel, and your self-awareness of your various parts is the hub in the center. On the rim of this wheel of awareness are all the things that can grab your attention—such as feelings, thoughts, memories, physical sensations, goals, dreams, and perceptions of the world around you.

When you’re in your hub, you can acknowledge all the different aspects of yourself and all the various things that you can give your attention to in any given moment—such as the mild ache in your back, your lunch options, the memory of last weekend’s camping trip, and anxiety about your upcoming work presentation. If you put all of your attention on one thing, you can become stuck on that rim point, and that one thing...

Shortform Exercise: Orient Your Child to Her Hub

Your child’s age and developmental level will affect how well she grasps the concept of a wheel of awareness. Brainstorm ways to introduce your child to the principles of self-integration and to direct her to the hub.

Describe one recent incident in which your child got stuck on a rim point.

The Whole-Brain Child Summary Chapter 6: Integrating Yourself With People Around You

In the last chapter, we explored the first aspect of mindsight: understanding your own mind. Now, let’s talk about the other aspect: understanding other people’s minds, or, simply, empathy. Empathy involves reading nonverbal cues to recognize how others are feeling, and seeing other people’s perspectives. Empathy also improves your child’s ability to communicate effectively and compromise, all of which helps her to connect with others.

Research shows that people experience a stronger sense of personal meaning and deeper happiness through helping and connecting with others, rather than solely taking care of their own concerns. In other words, your “me” greatly benefits from being part of a “we.” To this end, it’s important to help your child develop skills for interpersonal integration—maintaining a strong sense of self while integrating into a community, with consideration for other people’s needs, feelings, and perspectives. As your child develops an increasingly integrated mind, she’ll be better able to connect with others and nurture healthy relationships without compromising her sense of self.

Humans Are Wired to Connect With Others

The human brain is...

Shortform Exercise: Develop Your Child’s Empathy

Empathy is a skill, not a trait. Brainstorm how to help your child develop it.

Describe one or two ways that you could have fun as a family.

The Whole-Brain Child Summary Appendix: Explaining the Whole-Brain Approach to Your Child

Giving your child a kid-friendly explanation of the brain science behind the strategies we’ve discussed will help her to understand what’s going on in her mind and why these strategies are helpful. Use the suggestions below to help your child grasp the concepts.

Left and Right Brains

In order to illustrate the concepts of the left and right brains, explain that:

1. The brain has many different parts that do different jobs. Sometimes different parts of the brain act on their own, but the brain works best when all the parts work together.
2. The right side of the brain pays attention to your emotions. When your emotions get really big, it feels like they’re taking over your whole brain and body, which can make you do and say things that you normally wouldn’t. This can feel like a big wave that’s crashing over you.
3. When you notice your emotions getting big, the left side of your brain uses words to help you describe how you’re feeling. When you get the two sides of your brain to team up like this, it helps you to calm down. This lets you surf the wave of emotion safely and calmly back to shore.

Upstairs and Downstairs Brains

In order to illustrate...