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Key points
- It's a common parenting pitfall to start from logic when dealing with a child's near-meltdown.
- Tapping into feelings first and logic second cultivate a more integrated approach that's more effective.
- We can help our children reclaim and reconnect their hearts and minds.
The heart has reasons of which reason knows nothing.—Blaise Pascal
Some days, I’m one heartbeat away from losing my mind. What made sense a moment ago with my child suddenly holds no sway. What gives?
That’s the thing about being an adult: it’s a virtue that constantly backfires.
Our children need us to keep them safe. Their enthusiasm regularly outweighs their reason, and those good ideas—throwing baseballs in the house, drenching the floor with a play mop, cutting the drawstrings on the window blinds to retrieve a tangled necklace—seem great, but we know better.
Unfortunately, they know better too. They’re more dialed into the heart.
Forgive them for getting so frustrated with you. Here’s the narrator from The Little Prince to explain why they do: “Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it’s tiresome for children to always and forever explaining things to them.”
Authors Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson have a wonderful concept called the Yes Brain. This brain is receptive, curious, flexible, and eager to find novel solutions. It draws on the prefrontal cortex to integrate the reactive downstairs brain with the reflective and reasonable upstairs brain. Ironically enough, it teaches you how to parent from the heart.
When everyone is about to lose it next time, try these yes-brain tips to get back to good together.
Step 1: Notice Your Mind, Now Lose It
Our first trap is using logic. Take a typical toddler scenario. My five-year-old son wants to go outside with Mama but she’s not showered or ready to join him.
The logical adult (Me) thinks: “Well, buddy, you can either wait patiently for Mama to get ready or Dada can go with you right now if you like.”
Easy, sensible, fantastic! Don’t I feel like the greatest parent in the world right now? I even gave the kid an empowering choice!
He’s not interested, it’s a totally crazy idea, and he’s one heartbeat away from a meltdown.
I try again with that whole logic thing since clearly he didn’t get just how smart and generous that offer was.
“No, I can go with you right now, come on, it’ll be fun!”
He runs to his room and slams the door in my face. He has a teenage tantrum upgrade: You don’t just get it.
This is when I come to my senses. “Oh yeah, silly grown-up, your logic means nothing in this moment. He knows the answer in his heart, and you’re not yet privy to it.”
Instead of humiliating defeat, I intentionally lose my mind here.
Step 2: Find the Heart’s Reasons
If reason is wrong, the heart is gonna be right. I go into his bedroom and kneel down next to him, and I summon my best defense attorney position for his heart’s grievances.
“Hey buddy, I see how frustrating and disappointing it is not to be able to go out right now with Mama. It’s really difficult waiting sometimes when we’re so excited.”
It surprises me how much I take on his own point of view. Just a moment before, I was so far away and now I’m full-throttle leaning into the poignant drama of his feeling like a method actor.
The reasonable part of me says this is totally going to fail. I’m letting him off the hook for being sensible himself. What am I teaching him? Have I totally lost it?
If Step 1 is about losing your mind, Step 2 is all about retrieving your heart and theirs!
If you can stay through this middle ground of trusting that you don’t yet know the full story, Step 3 is going to emerge and it’s going to knock your socks off.
Step 3: Let Them Surprise You With Their Creative Response
While allowing for a space to let the heart’s reasons sink in, your child is going to use it to self-regulate and make the connection between that downstairs and upstairs brain. The pre-frontal cortex might start saying:
“Wow, this person really gets me and how much of a threat this feels like but they also seem calm enough to show me the way back to other options on my own terms. I’m curious.”
And as my son took it all in, his eyes fell on a novel solution: a scavenger hunt game he had yet to play right there next to his bed. “Shall we try it together?”
I thought he was kidding me, but soon enough we were knee-deep in taking turns spinning the wheel to set up timed scavenger races for each of us. Not only was he patiently and sequentially working on the game, his whole demeanor shifted. He was calm, curious, and creative.
And he had done it! He had found the new game that would bring him and us back, and I had followed along. My yes brain had inspired his yes brain.
I figured out his heart’s reasons so we could both reclaim a heart connection.
Student Becomes Teacher
We regain our sanity together, one creative twist and turn at a time. Not only do we help our children reclaim and reconnect their hearts and minds, they remind us again of the heart’s reasons we so easily forget.
