When I was a teacher my face was my most powerful tool – despite the sticker charts displayed on the bulletin board (see my post about why I should have chucked those), despite the “prize box” pulled out weekly for students who had earned classroom “bucks” –  despite any school wide incentive program designed to reward good behavior or gain compliance.

More accurately, it was my ability to regulate my emotions – and thereby control my facial expressions and tone of voice – that was one of my greatest assets in terms of connecting with at risk kids and helping them learn. Smiles, laughter, looks of empathy, attentive silences – these could often curtail the rudest comments and soothe unruly outbursts.  Conversely, if I was feeling stressed, frustrated, angry, or otherwise dysregulated, I often had far more confrontational interactions with my students.  No matter how hard I tried to hide my own emotions, they would inevitably show up on my face, in my tone of voice, and through my posture. Kids would pick up on this and feel defensive, even if the content of my words was neutral or positive.

Our ability to regulate our emotions – and, as a result, our facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language –  has the same power with our own kids.

Mirror neurons play a major role in this phenomenon, and understanding how they work and how to harness their power can increase your ability to connect with your kids and parent more mindfully.

What Are Mirror Neurons?

Mirror neurons are a set of neurons in the brain that fire not only when you perform an action, but also when you observe someone performing an action. When we watch someone ride a bike, for example, the same mirror neurons fire in our brain as if we were riding a bike ourselves.

This occurs with facial expressions and tone of voice, as well. When we are confronted with someone who is angry – furrowed brow, tightened eyes –  the mirror neurons associated with anger fire in us. This happens when we observe someone crying or laughing, as well.  In a very literal sense, mirror neurons allow us to feel what others are feeling.

Mirror Neurons Foster Empathy

The existence of motor neurons in humans has been used to explain, in part, how we develop empathy – watching someone get hurt sets off the same neurons in our brain as if we were getting hurt.

Mirror neurons aren’t the only factor involved in human empathy (look for an upcoming blog post about the vagus nerve), but they are a good place to start when thinking about how we, as parents and educators, can facilitate and model this faculty for our kids.

Mirror Neurons Help us Attune to Our Children

Mirror neurons play an important role, then, in our ability to attune to our kids. If we are experiencing stress, negative emotions, or unresolved traumas from our own histories, these can play across our face and conflict with the message in our words. The brain picks up and registers the emotional signals on our face faster than it can process what we’re saying, so if our kids read emotions in our facial expressions that put them on alert it can lead them to respond to those facial expressions (and the emotions they’re conveying) rather than the content of our words.

If we are calm, however, we can help our kids regulate their own emotions, and we can ensure that we’re parenting from our values rather than simply reacting to a stressful situation. Here’s an explanation of what this kind of mindful parenting might look like:

7 Ways to Harness the Power of Mirror Neurons

The key to harnessing the power of your mirror neurons is to learn how to calm and soothe yourself when you are stressed or angry.  Here are seven practices that will help you regulate your emotions and cultivate feelings that will help you attune to your kids.

1.     Take time to experience emotions like gratitude, awe, and wonder, which have been linked to positive physical and emotional outcomes.

2.     Increase your body awareness, particularly the muscles of your face. Check in with your body – what’s tense?  Focus on your eyes and jaw. Practices that can help you do this include yoga, meditation, and progressive muscle relaxation. Recognize when you need to take a time out in order to relax.

3.      Get a massage or a hug – find a way to incorporate more touch into your life. Touch, particularly from a loved one, releases oxytocin, a hormone responsible for lessening stress and cortisol and increasing trust and feelings of safety.
4.     See with the eyes of a child.

5.     Let go of unrealistic expectations to reduce your stress levels.

6.     Be vulnerable.

7.     Practice loving kindness meditation.  Read why here.

Resources

Bernhardt, Boris C. & Singer, Tania. (2012). The Neural Basis of Empathy. The Annual Review of Neuroscience, 35, 1-23. Doi: 10.1146/annurev-neuro-062111-150536. http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/application_uploads/The_Neural_Basis_of_Empathy.pdf

Hughes, D.A. & Baylin, J. (2012). Brain-based parenting: the neuroscience of caregiving for healthy attachment. W.W.Norton & Company, Inc.: New York, NY.

Marsh, Jason. (2012). Do Mirror Neurons Give Us Empathy? Greater Good Science Center. Retrieved from http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/do_mirror_neurons_give_empathy.

Winerman, Lea. (2005). The mind’s mirror. American Psychological Association, 36(9). Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct05/mirror.aspx

In my recent blog post “Why Every Parent Should Ditch the Sticker Chart” I talked about how switching from a behavioral focus to a relational focus as parents helps foster healthy brain development in our kids. There are two other important reasons for making this shift: intrinsic motivation and the creation of an egalitarian society.

Intrinsic motivation

A major problem with the behavioral focus, according to parent educator Jane Nelsen, is that it creates kids who operate from an external locus of control – who need consequences in order to follow rules or just do the right thing. How do kids learn to be responsible, she argues, when parents are doing all the work rewarding and punishing (Nelsen, 2006)?

Nelsen, who is the founder of the program Positive Discipline, says the way to foster intrinsic motivation is to involve kids in rule setting and decision-making. In order to do this, she argues, we need to focus on communication rather than coercion.

Take an issue like homework. Often, we decide when kids should complete their homework and then expend ridiculous amounts of energy trying to get them to do it with lectures, rewards, and other forms of control that lead to power struggles and fights.

Kids end up either doing (or not doing) their homework in order to please us, avoid a punishment, get a reward, or rebel– not because they intrinsically understand why doing homework is important (Nelsen, 2006).

They behave (or don’t) in response to an external locus of control – us! (Or the sticker chart hanging on the refrigerator.) This extrinsic motivational style tends to stick around as we get older, and can hinder our ability to engage in meaningful work and activities. Research shows that intrinsic motivation, on the other hand, is linked to increased self-esteem, creativity and overall well-being.

A relational alternative is to have a conversation with our kids. To ask questions like:

• What’s your plan for getting homework done this quarter/semester/year?
• How much time do you think you need each night?
• Do you need breaks?
• Why do you think it’s important to do homework?

Be genuinely curious and open to what your kids suggest. The key to this approach is to avoid lecturing or punishing when a rule is broken. Instead, ask questions like:

• Why do you think this happened?
• What can you do differently next time?
• What ideas do you have about how to solve the problem?

In the short-term, they may end up with some late assignments or a few poor grades.

The long-term results of this relational approach, however, are kids who will do the right thing even when no one is looking.  It doesn’t happen overnight and it requires us to let go of our need to control, but connecting with our kids now will help them learn to think for themselves in the future.

An egalitarian society

There is another faction of parents out there who would agree that we should get rid of sticker charts and other behavioral incentives.  But their argument goes something like this – I remember when kids did what they were told without getting a reward.  When an adult said to do something, kids would obey.

I’m going to come back to Jane Nelsen here, because she makes a compelling argument that changes in society have, indeed, led to changes in the way our children behave. But these changes have NOT been caused by the usual suspects – broken homes, single parents, or too much TV or video games (Nelsen, 2006).

Here’s what she says:

The first major change is that adults no longer give children an example or model of submissiveness and obedience. Adults forget that they no longer act the way they used to in the good old days…In those days there were many models of submission. Dad obeyed the boss (who was not interested in his opinions) so he wouldn’t lose his job. Minority groups accepted submissive roles at great loss to their personal dignity. Today all minority groups are actively claiming their rights to full equality and dignity. It is difficult to find anyone who is willing to accept an inferior, submissive role in life. Children are simply following the examples all around them. They also want to be treated with dignity and respect.” (Nelsen, 2006, p.4, emphasis added)

The authoritarian style of parenting that used to work is no longer effective because it often relied on shame and blame to get children to obey.  Children, like everyone else in society, want to be treated with dignity and respect.

A second change, Nelsen suggests, is that children have fewer opportunities to learn responsibility and motivation because adults need them less.

Think back to rural communities when kids were critical to the success of the family farm or business. While we certainly don’t want our children to feel overburdened the way they may have in the past, many of us go too far in the other direction.  By not asking kids to help out more with household chores or meal preparation, for example, we are eliminating opportunities for them to make a meaningful contribution to the family – to feel significant and needed.

A relational style of parenting gives us an opportunity to both treat kids with mutual respect and dignity and also help them feel genuinely needed.

When we involve our kids in problem-solving and decision-making we are fostering a society in which everyone is treated with dignity and respect, and we are providing our children with the feeling that they belong and have something valuable to contribute to this world.

Cop an attitude, ditch the sticker chart

I want to end by saying I know this is not an easy shift to make. We all arrive at parenthood with a set of ingrained beliefs and knee-jerk reactions to certain behaviors. What pushes our buttons as adults often has deep roots in our families of origin and the way our parents raised us. Couple that with messages from the media and pressure from society about how children should act, and you have a powerful force to reckon with.

Choosing to focus on how we relate to our children, rather than on these messages, requires courage and even a little attitude. Attitude to parent from our values and a long-term vision for our children rather than from social pressure or family expectations. So, I encourage you to cop an attitude, ditch the sticker chart, and take some time to just be with your kids.

Hughes, D.A. & Baylin, J. (2012). Brain-based parenting: the neuroscience of caregiving for healthy attachment. W.W.Norton & Company, Inc.: New York, NY.

Nelsen, J. (2006). Positive Discipline. Ballantine Books: New York, NY.

This past August I read a blog post entitled Six Things Parents Need for Back to School (That We Can’t Buy) by KJ Dell’Antonio. While homework routines, job charts, and other behavior-based tools made up the majority of her wish list, it was clear that Dell’Antonio desired more than just compliance from her kids.

She described wanting to help her children develop qualities like self-sufficiency and independence. And she ended her piece with a wistful longing for more time to just be with her kids – whether hanging out at home or watching the stars.  Be as in being with.

I want to take Dell’Antonio’s sentiment one step further and suggest that what we need most as parents is to shift from a behavioral focus to what researchers like Daniel Hughes and Jonathan Baylin refer to as a relational focus.

In their book Brain Based Parenting (2012), Hughes and Baylin define a relational focus to parenting as one in which we are primarily interested in understanding our kids  – how they feel and what they’re thinking.

Contrast this with a behavioral focus, in which parents pay more attention to what kids are doing. This usually results in doling out rewards and punishments or trying to craft age appropriate logical consequences. Rarely does it require wondering about the inner life of our children.

Why is this important? Why should we ditch the authority and comfort of reinforcements like sticker charts, which are, admittedly, highly effective at shaping the behavior of our children?

There are three reasons. A relational style of parenting focused on understanding and connecting with our kids fosters healthy brain development, instills intrinsic motivation, and supports the creation of an egalitarian society. In this post I’ll cover the first of these reasons – healthy brain development. Upcoming posts will cover the role of relational parenting in developing intrinsic motivation and fostering social equality.

1. Healthy Brain Development

The problem with the behavioral approach, argues Hughes and Baylin, is that it ignores the relational dynamic between parents and kids.  Think of this as a kind of dance between you and your child that involves facial expressions, tone of voice, body posture, and other non-verbal forms of communication.

For example, imagine that 9-year-old Sam comes home from school feeling tired and grumpy and pushes 4-year-old Anna when she runs up to greet him. A behaviorally oriented parent would naturally focus on the push and promptly deliver a consequence. This is precisely what our imaginary mom does – instructing Sam to apologize to his sister and, perhaps, take a time-out.

What is lost in a behavioral translation of that interaction is the look on mom’s face as she communicates the consequence.  She will likely furrow her brow, raise her voice, narrow her eyes and press her lips together – all unconsciously as she delivers her rational message.

Mom is trying to teach Sam to be a kind and respectful person.

Sam, however, is taking in mom’s angry face.

Neuroscience is showing that this relational dance has the potential to shape our children’s brains. Thanks, in large part, to a structure called the amygdala.

The amygdala, located deep in the temporal lobe of the brain, operates as our threat detection system, somewhat like a bodyguard.  It takes in information from our senses, as well as our heart and gut, and determines whether things are safe or whether to send us into fight, flight, or freeze mode (Hughes & Baylin, 2012).

The amygdala is particularly sensitive to facial expressions, including eye contact and changes around the eye (Hughes & Baylin, 2012). Friendly, welcoming faces, smiling eyes, and calm voices send the message to our amygdala that we are safe. Angry faces, raised voices, and narrowed or averted eyes (remember mom?) can signal threat, sending the message to attack, flee, or shut down (Hughes & Baylin, 2012).

In that heightened state of alert, the parts of our brain responsible for rational thinking, problem-solving, and relating to other people go offline.  When Sam sees mom’s angry face, he can’t hear the message in her words.  His amygdala will not let him.

Only when Sam feels safe again will he be able to process the meaning of what mom is saying.

Does this mean mom is not allowed to feel angry? Or that Sam should be allowed to become a little tyrant, pushing Anna around as his mood dictates?  Certainly not.

It does mean that mom will be more effective when she has calmed herself down (this could be as simple as counting to 10).  By regulating her own emotions, she’s also modeling how to appropriately manage stress.

On the flip side, if mom is angry or stressed a lot, Sam may have a hard time learning to regulate his emotions. Living in a chronically threatening environment can sensitize the amygdala to angry or fearful faces – resulting in quicker defensive reactions to people (Hughes & Baylin, 2012).

The bottom line is this – what we know about the brain supports a style of parenting focused on how we relate to our children, not just to what they do.

Look for Part 2 of this blog post next week, or sign up below to get notifications about this and other upcoming blogs as soon as they’re posted. Thanks for reading!

Dell’Antonio, KJ. (2015, August 13). Six Things Parents Need For Back to School (That We Can’t Buy) [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/six-things-parents-need-for-back-to-school-that-we-cant-buy/

Hughes, D.A. & Baylin, J. (2012). Brain-based parenting: the neuroscience of caregiving for healthy attachment. W.W.Norton & Company, Inc.: New York, NY.

Solve hassles around chores and homework, teach your children problem-solving and respect, and improve family relationships all while saving the world? This is not hyperbole. At least not according to Jane Nelsen, psychologist, educator, author of Positive Discipline (and mother of seven), who writes:

It is still my dream to create peace in the world through peace in homes and classrooms.  When we treat children with dignity and respect, and teach them valuable life skills for good character, they will spread peace in the world. (Nelson, 2006, p.xxiii, emphasis added).

Positive Discipline is based on the work of psychologist Alfred Adler and psychiatrist and educator Rudolf Dreikurs.  Adler and Dreikurs believed all people, including children, want to feel that they belong and are special.  Children who “misbehave”, they argued, are simply trying to achieve these goals.

A misbehaving child, Dreikurs contended, is a discouraged child (Dreikurs & Soltz, 1964).

Jane Nelsen adapted and expanded these ideas in her book Positive Discipline, and later created a parent education program by the same name with fellow educator Lynn Lott.

The focus of Positive Discipline is on developing mutual respect and problem solving in the family and creating relationships where everyone feels they both belong and are unique.  In this and future blog posts I’ll introduce some of the key tools and strategies described in the book and taught in Positive Discipline group classes.

Positive Discipline tools foster the development of children who can think for themselves, who can handle mistakes and adversity (are resilient), and who are intrinsically motivated.

The Positive Discipline family meeting is one such tool.  Its purpose is to foster responsibility and problem solving by working together to find solutions for everyday problems.  There’s also a focus on fun and gratitude – two positive emotions that are proving to have significant impacts on our physical health in addition to just feeling good.

So, here we go. Ten steps to a Positive Discipline family meeting, adapted from Jane Nelsen’s book Positive Discipline (2006) – and world peace, while you’re at it.

1. Meet every week, no exceptions – model commitment

Choose a day and a time and commit to it.  Everyone will be there, as present as developmentally appropriate (i.e. toddlers will need to play and move around), and it will not be an addendum to dinner, doing homework, or driving to and from soccer practice. Turn the TV and the phones off. Make it something sacred.

2. Everyone has a job – everyone is important

Chairperson, secretary, timekeeper, snack distributor – even toddlers can be assigned a role and teens will already be watching the clock.

Be flexible with teens. Keep meetings short. Ask for their input and communicate your desire for their presence, but respect their need for independence and privacy.

The point is that everyone is needed, truly and genuinely.

3. Open with compliments or gratitude – model authenticity

Begin each meeting with everyone sharing one thing they’re thankful for or giving another person in the family a compliment. Nelsen recommends alternating back and forth between compliments one week and gratitude the following week. The key is to model being authentic, particularly if this is an unfamiliar practice for you or your kids. Avoid sarcasm and speak from the heart.

4. Go over the week’s agenda (e.g. chores, issues, meal planning) – model problem-solving

During the week, keep a running agenda on a white board or piece of paper hung on the refrigerator. All family members can add concerns or issues as the week goes along. Some tasks, like meal planning, can be permanent items on the agenda.

Going over the agenda offers kids and parents an opportunity to voice concerns about chores and other family matters.  It’s not a time to blame or complain. Use problem-solving to come up with solutions that will work for everyone.  Ask your children for ideas and be genuinely open and curious about the solutions they come up with. Jane Nelsen (2006) recommends asking the following types of questions:

• How can we solve this?
• What can we do about this?
• What’s worked for you/us in the past?
• What would it look like if this problem were solved?
• What’s one thing you/we can do differently?

5. Make decisions by consensus – model cooperation

Nelsen suggests that families make decisions by coming to a consensus, instead of using a majority vote. This facilitates a feeling of cooperation. If you can’t come to a mutually agreed on solution, table the issue until the next family meeting.

6. Problem-solving with a focus on solutions (not consequences) – model not needing to be “right”

I touched on this above, but it can’t be emphasized enough.  Problem-solving can be a struggle if people are feeling angry or hurt about something that happened during the week.  Try to model using “I” statements to express emotions that need to be communicated (e.g. “I feel really angry that you borrowed my shirt without asking”), but then allow the focus to be on solutions for the future. If someone is experiencing intense emotions, suggest coming back to the issue later, after they’ve had a chance to cool off.

An important idea in Positive Discipline is that mistakes are wonderful opportunities to learn.  Model this attitude for your kids by sharing mistakes you made during the week.

7. End by doing something fun together

Play Scrabble or Monopoly, go for a walk, make sundaes, or watch a movie. Give everyone a chance to choose.  Or, let chance decide – brainstorm a list of fun things to do, assign each a number, and roll a dice to determine the activity.

What You and Your Kids Learn from Family Meetings

Here is just a partial list, adapted from Jane Nelsen’s book Positive Discipline (Nelsen, 2006):

• How to listen
• Mutual respect
• Cooperation
• Problem-solving and creating solutions
• Responsibility
• Empathy
• A sense of belonging and being needed
• Feeling capable
• The value of emotion regulation
• That mistakes are opportunities for learning

And How this Could Change the World

It may seem like a drop in the bucket, but our kids will soon be going out in the world creating waves of their own – how they have learned to communicate and relate will have profound impacts on how they love, how they learn, how they do their job, and how they parent their own children.

Dreikurs, R. & Soltz, V. (1964). Children: The Challenge.  Hawthorn Books: New York, NY.

Nelsen, J. (2006). Positive Discipline. Ballantine Books: New York, NY.