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On our journey in life, the most profound thing that we can offer others--partners,
children, parents, friends, co-workers, bosses, neighbors--
is our own healing and
​growth towards being a more loving person.
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Flipping Your Lid!

5/17/2022

 
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Imagine that your brain is a two-story house with an upstairs and downstairs brain. The downstairs brain is considered the more primitive part as it is responsible for basic functions like breathing and blinking your eyes, for reactions and impulses (including fight, flight, or freeze) and strong emotions such as anger or fear.

The upstairs brain is more evolved and gives us a greater perspective on life. The upstairs brain, which includes the cerebral cortex and the prefrontal cortex, is our thinking brain. It is where we use our imagination, make plans and good decisions, have self-understanding, develop empathy and morality and gain control over our emotions and our body. And it is constantly learning and developing.

Dr. Daniel Siegel, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and author of several books, has spent years studying and researching how our brain works. He says that when a child's upstairs brain is functioning properly, they can regulate their emotions, consider the consequence of choices and how others feel as well as thinking before acting. 

Our brains work best when the upstairs brain and downstairs brain work together and are integrated. Our goal as a parent is to help build and reinforce the stairway that connects the two brains. This takes time, practice, and support. We now know that most people's brains are fully developed until the age of twenty-five. This explains a lot about! 

Young children, teenagers and even young adults make poor decisions because their upstairs brain is still developing. In addition, the downstairs brain--the amygdala--is always scanning the environment for safety. The amygdala's job is to quickly process and express emotions, especially anger and fear. Teaching our children and youth about how the two parts of the brain work together can help them understand what is happening with them and their emotions.

Dr. Siegel has developed something he calls the Hand Model of the Brain. In this YouTube video, he demonstrates how the thumb folded in is the downstairs brain--the amygdala. And when the four fingers are folded over the thumb, the upstairs brain is integrating both parts. But when the downstairs brain reacts, the child is Flipping Their Lid. Learning to recognize when they are starting to get upset can allow the child to move away from a stressful situation, take a break, do some breathing, or go somewhere quick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm9CIJ74Oxw 

A great book to help kids understand how to be handling their emotions is, Some Days I Flip My Lid--Learning to be a Calm, Cool Kid. https://www.amazon.com/Some-Days-Flip-My-Lid/dp/1683732510  All this brain knowledge is good for us adults as well.
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Our Brain in Relationships

5/10/2022

 
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Did you know that having healthy relationships helps us to have a healthy brain? Relationship is essential to our development and helps us learn to connect and regulate our emotions and our brain. To better understand our brain in relationships, let's look at the three important parts of the brain involved:
  • Amygala--The lower part of our brain that has helped us survive as a species. It is always scanning our surroundings to see if we are safe. It is also the part of the brain from which we go into fight, flight or freeze. 
  • Hippocampus--The middle part of our brain stores our feelings and memories and is asking if we feel safe or if this memory is triggering something to be afraid of.
  • Prefrontal cortex—The higher brain is what allows all three parts of our brain to work together. It is here that we can think, observe, remember past good experiences and find win-win solutions. It is the portal through which interpersonal relationships are established.

The diagram above of the Brain in Relationships is one I use during the Safe Conversations workshops that I facilitate.  Safe Conversations  Connecting is our deepest desire and losing connection is our greatest fear. Learning how to connect and communicate with each other without getting triggered is essential. The fact of the matter is that connection cannot occur when Fight, Flight or Freeze is engaged.

Learning how to speak to each other calmly and taking a break when we get too upset are important steps in creating connection. One way to do this for ourselves and to model this to others, especially our children, is learning to recognize when we are getting upset or triggered. Recognizing the clues--body tensing up, butterflies in our stomach, heat rising in our face or head--means I can make a choice before I explode. We might say something like, "I am feeling really upset right now. I need to take a break but can we talk about this later?" Getting up and walking away takes us away from the situation and moving our bodies helps ground us and lessen the tension inside.

Breathing is a wonderful way to calm down. Mindful breathing is a great way to calm our heart, body and mind. Basically, it means to breathe with intention. You can do it for yourself as well as with your children or your partner. Consider beginning the day with a moment of mindful breathing or before going to sleep at night as a helpful way to unwind. Make this a ritual with your family. Doing breathing practice helps us to tune into ourselves and practice a skill when we calm that we can use when the situation arises.

One tool that I have discovered for myself is using the app Insight Timer. Having it on my phone means I can find a quiet place to restore calmness and connection with myself anytime of the day. A resource for teaching mindful breathing to children is: annakaharris.com/mindfulness-for-children/

Expressing our appreciation to those we love strengthens our relationship. It is one thing to feel grateful for our child, spouse or friend. But when we express it to them, it enhances our connection. It says, "I notice you, you are important to me." 

If you would want to 
strengthen your relationships with your spouse, children and friends, I invite you to join my 7-week series, Building Connection in Relationship, beginning on Monday, June 20. 

​Do you want to learn to love more unconditionally and to have more fulfilling relationships? The truth is that this journey begins by learning to love and accept ourselves. 
Combining tools from Real Love, Safe Conversations, Inner Child and more, I will be facilitating a new small group by zoom that creates a safe, supportive environment for you to discover greater connection, belonging and unconditional love in your relationships. For more info: Build Connection Webinar​

Parenting and the Brain

5/5/2022

 
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Being a parent gives us the chance to re-parent ourselves--we have the opportunity to continue to learn about ourselves in relationship with our child. This relationship can encourage us to deepen our connection with ourselves and with others.

One way this shows up is dealing with them when they are sad, upset or frustration. Suppose your child comes home from school or playing with friends and says that they did not let them play or excluded them from a game. For you as the parent to respond with the understanding and empathy, you will need to connect to them with your right brain. That means stopping what you are doing, being present, getting down to their level and touching or holding them, if they are open.

You will also need to connect to the pain within of being rejected or excluded yourself. This gives you the opportunity to remember something from the past, to really understand the pain your child is experiencing. Of course, the focus still needs to be on our child—we need to be careful to not make it about us. We can start with something like, “Being a kid is hard, isn’t it?”

If we respond first with our left brain, we want to fix the problem and get them to stop crying. We all know that this is not a wise move and usually will not solve the issue. Think for a minute how that worked out when someone (your spouse, a friend, or a co-worker) tried to give you advice about how to solve a problem that you were having! Once the child has calmed down, then we can move to talking about what to do.

In the last ten years, there has been an incredible amount of research and discovery about how the brain works. Dr. Daniel J. Siegel is a neuropsychiatrist and has done years of research on the brain and authored numerous books including The Whole-Brain Child and Parenting from the Inside Out. He says that we can help our kids learn to use both the logical left brain and emotional right brain together. It starts with our modeling it for ourselves and for them.
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Two tools that he recommends are:
  • Connect and redirect:  When your child is upset, connect first emotionally, right brain to right brain. Then, once your child is more in control and receptive, bring in the left-brain lessons and discipline.
  • Name it to tame it: When big, right-brain emotions are raging out of control, help your kids tell the story about what is upsetting them, so their left brains can help make sense of their experience and they can move towards feeling more in control.

Stay tuned for more about the brain functions in relationship. Discover how we can grow and expand our prefrontal cortex (the upper brain) through relationship. The prefrontal cortex is where our thinking brain lives which helps us to make good choices, calm down and tune into others.

The Best Way to Nurture Your Child’s Brain

8/30/2019

 
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There is a secret hidden in plain sight for all parents of young children:  the most important—and astoundingly simple—thing you can do for your children’s future success in life is to talk to them. The way you talk with your growing child literally builds his or her brain. Parent talk can drastically improve school readiness and lifelong learning in everything from math to art. Indeed, parent–child talk is a fundamental, critical factor in building grit, self-control, leadership skills, and generosity.  
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​Dr. Dana Suskind, surgeon, pediatrician, professor and author, wrote her groundbreaking book “Thirty Million Words: Building A Child’s Brain” in 2015. Dr. Suskind says, "Every parent has the words, the language, the nurturance necessary to build their baby's brain. It's really about families understanding that they matter in their children's education and that they matter from the first day that their children are born." For more on her research and her book, link
     
Just how do you talk with a baby or toddler? Try the three T’s (from Thirty Million Words: Building A Child’s Brain):
  • Tune In: Notice what the child is focused on and talk about that. Respond when a child communicates – including when a baby cries or coos.
  • Talk More: Narrate day to day routines, such as diaper changes and tooth brushing. Use details: "Let Mommy take off your diaper. Oh, so wet. And smell it. So stinky!"
  • Take Turns: Keep the conversation going. Respond to your child's sounds, gestures and, eventually, words – and give them time to respond to you. Ask lots of questions that require more than yes or no answers.

Other tips for supporting your child’s developing language are:
  • Talk with your children and encourage them to talk with one another. Keep the conversation going by asking questions, making comments, and inviting them to think and share their ideas.
  • Read every day, taking time to go over new words. Look for books with illustrations that provide clues to word meanings.
  •  Think about new vocabulary words that might come up when visiting a new place. A trip to an art exhibit could introduce the word landscape, while going to a pizza restaurant might introduce kneading dough.
  •  Give children ample time to learn the meaning and uses of new words before moving onto other words.

Finally, let me encourage all young parents out there:  to the exhausted mom who is reading The Cat in the Hat or Goodnight Moon for the fourteenth time after a long work day, to the dad who gets up early on Saturday morning and heads with his kids to the library instead of playing golf, I salute you. Keep up the good work! Because someday, after many years of reading to them, they might start reading to you.

Reading--The Perfect Brain Food

6/6/2019

 
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 According to the most recent market research to sharpen your brain, we should be taking fish oil supplements, use turmeric, do exercise and puzzle books and invest in a language course. But SURPRISE—the easiest, cheapest and most time-tested method is…READING!

It’s summer and any teacher will tell you that summer reading is critical for students to retain knowledge and skills learned in the previous school year. Students who don't read are at risk of falling behind their classmates. Parents and teachers can avoid this by making sure kids take time to read.  Suggestions on how to help this to happen in your home to follow.

The very nature of reading encourages the brain to work harder and better. “Typically, when you read, you have more time to think,” says Maryanne Wolf, EDD, director of the UCLA Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice. “Reading gives you a unique pause button for comprehension and insight. By and large, with oral language— when you watch a film or listen to a tape—you don’t press pause.”

What if you are (or someone you know is) a poor, or even a dyslexic, reader who feels as if you’ll never be able to read enough to reap these benefits? A book can fix that problem too! Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University studied children ages eight to ten who were below-average readers. One hundred hours of remedial reading classes significantly improved the quality of their brains’ white matter—the tissue that carries signals between areas of gray matter, where information is processed. The researchers’ conclusion: The brains of these children had begun to rewire themselves in ways that could benefit the entire brain, not only the reading-centric temporal cortex. (Reader’s Digest, March 2019)

So, what can you do as a parent to encourage reading in your home?
  • Get your children/youth their own library card and make weekly trips to the library. Build in the habit of connecting with books.  Combine the weekly trip with doing something else special like playing at a nearby park or getting a treat together afterwards.
  • Signup for summer reading programs at your local library.
  • Model reading-the newspaper, a good novel, travel books for places that you want to visit, etc.  Have a basket for books in your living room or put them on a coffee table.
  • Have a “Drop Everything and Read” time in your home. It could be a special occasion once a week or every evening after dinner. Gather together in the living room and everyone reads their own books for 30 minutes.  For those who don’t yet read, parents or older siblings can read to them or they can listen to an audio book with headphones.
  • For children and youth who struggle with reading, listening to audio books while following along in the book helps to support their developing skills.  One of my sons loved “Boomerang,” the monthly audio magazine for kids ages 6-12.
  • Reading, being read to and listening to audio books broadens our imagination by stimulating the right side of our brain. Neuroscientists at Emory University discovered that becoming engrossed in a novel enhances connectivity in the brain and improves brain function. It is important to recognize that watching these same stories on a device (tablet, phone, computer, etc.) does not allow the imagination and the brain to be activated in the same manner.
  • My children used to love to listen to an audio story as they drifted off to sleep. There are many stories available now that are downloadable. One of our favorite storytellers was Jim Weiss.   www.jimweiss.com/storytelling-recordings-by-jim-weiss/
  • If you are taking a family vacation that involves driving together in a car/van, I highly recommend downloading stories or checking out the audio books on CD at your library.  Listening to books/stories together keeps everyone engaged and helps the miles roll by more quickly.
  • For both young and older children, I love the books:  Children Just Like Me (UNICEF) tinyurl.com/y28z727t and Material World: A Global Family Portrait  tinyurl.com/y23nkdeu. The photography is beautiful, it creates opportunities to be exposed to people from varied cultures and provides opportunities for numerous discussions.
         
           “Reading fiction not only develops our imagination and creativity, it gives us the skills
            to be alone. It gives us the ability to feel empathy for people we've never met, living
           lives we couldn't possibly experience for ourselves, because the book puts us inside
           the character's skin.”   
Ann Patchett

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  • Home
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