Dan Siegel - "Being" Versus "Doing" With Your Child

[Music] so all the problems is great but not when it's done to the exclusion of just being with someone's inner subjective experience and this is the key point you're raising and this is about this is really getting into the right left brain stuff the right brain really likes to just be with what is and that attunement between two people is one of the most important experiences of joining any of us can have ever so you can say you're not doing anything but actually you're doing something by just being together right and and that is something a lot of people miss because they feel so anxious inside they want to solve a problem solve a problem they don't realize the fundamental connection that needs to be set up is not about looking for ways of solving a problem it's just about be with a reality now what does that mean on a deep deep level and this is a right hemisphere left hemisphere an example if I don't take the time to align myself with your right hemisphere all I'm gonna do is do what the entire rest of the world does which is in the left brain it's always looking outward so for example this is gonna get a little complicated than that' me but for a baby a baby searches the world with the right hand which goes straight to the left brain but the baby sues herself with the left hand which is going right to the right brain so the way that if you want to just get a gist of the differences besides the idea that the left is looking at the text and the right is looking at the context and the left is like the letter over the law whereas the right is the spirit of the law the the right hemisphere is really about interior tea it really looks at the interior of the self and the interior of other people it looks for the subjective side of the mind is a right brain dominant thing the left is really all about looking outward solving problems sending language out figuring out what am I supposed to display to the outside world there are things called social display rules what am I supposed to really do to be accepted by other people that's all left brain stuff so in these ways parents are so busy managing their children's doings and calendars and everything that that they missed this opportunity for being with their child and it's very very sad thing I'm really concerned about is when you add busy parenting that are focused on doing and calendars and managing behavior where they're not actually being with the mind of the child then you launch kids into schools which are unbelievably pressured to get kids ready for this incredibly competitive me-me-me-me to do better better better better better then they're on the internet which is constantly an externally focused set of stimuli we're raising a generation that actually isn't developing the skills of looking inward which is where kindness comes from and it's where resilience comes from its where the permission to know there's a vulnerable part of myself that is a longing that's not met like you just told me there the way we really allow that vulnerability to be present so for kindness to be there is to actually be able to look inward at ourselves and look inward at others so at a very very basic level this is how we see the mind I called mine site and there's a way of living where you don't see the mind and there's a way of living where you do and everything in modern culture is pushing us to not look at the mind but you're offering such a simple solution it doesn't cost any money zero and and for all kinds of reasons that you just described we're not doing it the cultural pressure is not to sit quietly and draw with each other and look into each other's faces and right yet in that scenario that you talked about where the child is upset and you attend to the right side of the brain by by touching them connecting with them emotionally and then at some point you're able shortly after that to start to problem-solve is that because something's actually happening in their brain sure let me give you an example let's go should we go back to the example you're feel rejected sure so so there are studies that everybody should know about that I summarized with the phrase name it to tame it so if you're really agitated you're frightened to be rejected again or you're really upset with what happened or you're angry or whatever in maria's right brain I can tell you this in addition to right and left there's now please excuse these incredibly simplistic statements but there's an upstairs brain and a downstairs brain now I'm fine with that for this parenting book but believe me my son you know my other foot is in science and the scientists would see that and go what but the fact is there's a cortical rim where a lot of this higher stuff goes on and there's everything below the cortex so if you take your thumb and put it in the middle of your fingers and put your hands over the top give us a try this would be in my brain like this see and so this would be the cortex where you do all your thinking and planning and all that kind of stuff if you lift up your cortex you have everything below the cortex which we call the downstairs brain that's reasonable downstairs is just a substitute for the word subcortical which freaks parents out so downstairs and it's the the upstairs brain is the cortex okay so you lift up your upstairs brain you go to the your downstairs brain that's the sub cortex it's the limbic area and it's the brainstem these are very ancient circuits responsible for things like emotion and motivation and fight flight freeze reaction and your arousal states with your wake or sleep stuff like that so what happens at that moment is if we did a scan on your brain we would say that your right amygdala in your limbic area and your downstairs downstairs play the downstairs brain is super active I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared and studies show that if you have this kind of presence and of mine I can get Maria's left brain to name the feeling from the downstairs brain and you can show that she will squirt soothing Wow neurotransmitters down to her right limbic area right downstairs brain and calm it down okay so you know we've quickly summarized that entire set of studies with named entertainment I mean so that's all parents need to know and the book we didn't put any of this stuff but everything is backed up by science believe me so what does that look like I come to you I have a problem with you so here's what it looks like so let's say you're agitated about being rejected by your friends so I give you the hug all I'm doing at that moment not naming anything hmm you don't jump to that first it's connect and redirect so that's you know these strategies connect to redirect so the idea is first I connect with my right hemisphere that helps soothe your whole system but you're still nervous about going back to school so and I say well let's talk about it and you say well this happened then she was there and she was gonna go to the party but she didn't want to go and then they turned away from you they wouldn't have lunch with me and I said sounds like you're really feeling a big feeling of fear that when you go to school tomorrow no one's gonna want to have lunch with you so we're naming fear but I thought I was angry and maybe maybe you were angry too it helps to have this right but you have that it's an actually namely the accurate emotion right because we could say well you're feeling excited to go for popsicles but that's wrong so it's not just naming anything and when you name it it registers it's true that's what I'm getting at is sometimes we think we're angry but in fact we're sad or were right fearful so by you saying fear it might in fact stack would come here you're downstairs brain yeah right so at that moment then we're using first connecting with the right hemisphere it helps the system get stabilized you don't feel alone the next step is to name it detainment so I'm gonna now help you with my left brain because I'm gonna use both my hemispheres together and go gosh I wonder what my daughter's really feeling here and I'm not going to tell you what you're feeling but I would say something like I wonder if you're feeling scared and then in Murray's brain the whole system comes down

Channel: Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education

Views: 146,181

Keywords: Siegel, Chapter, 4, HD, 1080p, Video, Sharing

Id: PGUEDtGSwW4

Length: 8min 30sec (510 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 28 2012