Three things your child needs right now for Optimal Brain Growth, Part 3: Connection.

A couple of months into isolation, some of us are noticing a paradoxical experience with respect to our needs for personal connection. On the one hand, the prolonged separation from friends and loved ones has created a kind of loneliness that some have never felt before. On the other hand, our nuclear family is cooped up with maybe too much time together, and possibly, with fewer healthy boundaries than before.

In the third part of our series, we’re going to examine this challenge through the lens of Optimal Brain Growth and consider: 1) why connection is so important for the human brain, and 2) how we can support our brains’ need for healthy connection during this unusual time of being isolated at home. 

It seems that for many of us, this paradoxical combination of “too much time at home together” and “too much time away from others” is taking a toll on people’s ability to maintain a healthy sense of connection. 

For me, two factors have really challenged my feelings of connection. First is that my family and I rely on a solid social network for support and inspiration. When things are good, we celebrate together, and when things are not so good, we find ways to grieve. The point is that our brains not only thrive but also cope in bursts of bonding hormones and neurotransmitters that modulate our behavior (oxytocin allows parents and infants to bond, and dopamine affects our emotions and body movements). As we ride the ups and downs of life closely surrounded by loved ones, our voices, faces, scents and touch stimulate cascades of biochemical responses in one another. Our brains source the deep well of connection for cellular fuel as we interact in real time. But these daily interactions have implications for our long-term health, too: for example, oxytocin and dopamine affect the immune system. 

In the absence of important sensory inputs that identify our loved ones and signal close connection, we can experience a high degree of stress (resulting in a cascade of stress hormones which affect our moods--and also our immunity). Approaching eight weeks of isolation, I observed in myself a significant drop in my sense of connection--especially physical connection--outside of my nuclear family, and the experience has been intense enough to remind me of postpartum depression. Although I have a very strongly cultivated emotional connection to my larger network, my brain requires close physical connection, in the form of hugs, eye gaze, the harmonics of the voice, and whatever energetic sensations we typically describe in our loved ones as “warmth”. My well of connection is deep, but the prolonged deprivation of this type of closeness is wearing on me. 

The second reason that this period of isolation is taking a toll on healthy connection, for me, is that my family relies on quality time together… and quality time apart. Since isolating at home, we have much more time together than we used to, and I am grateful for that degree of safety and predictability. But not only does being confined at home together place unprecedented burdens on work and learning for the family, it also creates an enormous stress on our sense of personal boundaries, both physical and emotional. 

What once was my home office is now my husband’s full-time office, and I’m on nearly full-time child care (a role that I relished for the first three years of my firstborn’s life, but wasn’t prepared to relish right now). The gentle but dedicated work that I was doing to nurture my younger child’s sense of autonomy and independence, and thus gradually relieve his intense dependence on me, came to a halt when he could no longer walk proudly down the school hallway to his classroom. Now he has 24-hour access to me, and the single hardest aspect of this constant presence for me is not that I can’t get my work done, nor that he’s too young for almost any kind of online activity; it’s that I can’t get a break from the relentless physical and emotional connection with my family.

The result of this bizarre combination of being separated from so many loved ones, while being cooped up and boundary-less with the family at home, can be a breakdown in our sense of healthy connection. The fact that this is not sustainable is evidenced by the wealth of articles on the long-term effects of the pandemic on people’s mental health, sometimes with special attention to parents and children.

So, what do we do to preserve healthy forms of connection? I want to offer two suggestions based on the framework of Optimal Brain Growth. 

The first suggestion is to remember that the brain relies on sensory input from our loved ones, and to get that sensory input in ways that are possible without overwhelming the nervous system. There is currently a heavy reliance on video calls, which are a wonderful technology (especially for grandparents to interact with the grandchildren!) But many people have also noticed the strain of so many video or conference calls, especially if they are also used for work or distance learning. 

What I have done to mediate this effect is return to some traditional habits of communication and connection: phone calls, and mail. On a phone call, my visual brain is not taxed by the demands of the screen, and my attention is not distracted by other aspects of the virtual environment; I’m simply present with the sound of the voice that I needed to hear. So while we regularly have video calls with the grandparents, I need regular phone calls with my family and friends to give my brain the message that it can relax, because we are, indeed, connected. Phone calls might be very helpful for some older children and adolescents (I for one can recall endless hours on the phone with my good friends as a teenager. Those hours served me well). 

Mail is largely for the children--they create hand-written letters for their grandparents, friends, and even their teachers (yes, we are mailing postal letters to the school teachers). This is of course an exercise in written communication, but the letters they receive are also a very personal and tangible reminder of their love and connection. (Upon receiving a package from my mother, both kids screamed with delight, and my daughter immediately exclaimed as she hugged her gift happily, “It smells like Grammy’s house!”)

My second suggestion is to take small actions to protect your own personal boundaries--and to respect your children’s. I may not have an office currently, but I have designated a tiny space where I routinely go to work undisturbed. (We live in a small row home, so this space is literally a corner of my children’s room). The boundary that I needed to set is the understanding that when I’m in that room working, I’m not to be disturbed. Everyone is clear on this, and no one has trouble respecting it. 

What I’ve noticed about my children’s boundaries is that they both require time apart from each other, and moments of time alone with each parent. Despite the many ways we have adapted our routine, we have preserved our habit of spending some weekend or evening time in parent-child pairs, to support each child’s own needs for connection with us. In addition, we try to meet the challenge of nurturing their individual needs and struggles with boundaries. Our older child needs time to herself and so she goes on walks on her own twice per day. In contrast, our younger child struggles with separation from us, even inside the home, and so we must work each and every day to help him build the necessary skills of autonomy to engage in his own meaningful activity, and promote his long-term growth. 

The paradox of connection is not new, but never in our generation’s lifetime has it been more exposed or heightened than it is now. We can think about healthy connection as a skill set. The skills include the ability to seek out the sensory signals that let the brain know we are connected to loved ones without overloading the nervous system, and the ability to take actions, however small, to protect personal boundaries. Our success at maintaining healthy forms of connection will affect our family’s wellbeing during the pandemic, and support long-term Optimal Brain Growth.

Three things your child needs right now for Optimal Brain Growth, Part 2: Courage in Vulnerability

In Part 1 of this series, we explored how supporting your child’s autonomy paves the way for them to engage in meaningful work for sustained periods of time, which is necessary right now as we attempt to accomplish our own work (in whatever form), while promoting their brain growth. Autonomy was the first of three major pillars of Optimal Brain Growth that are being exposed by the current state of the world, and for many of us, by the current state of our own family. (Remember: our goal here is to observe the pillars of Optimal Brain Growth that are being highlighted by the current situation, and then use our increased awareness not only to cope better as a family right now, but to then do our part to better support Optimal Brain Growth for all children).

It’s important to know that even when we successfully support the development of autonomy in our children, we will naturally experience lapses, new challenges, and feelings of overwhelm. Even under typical circumstances, this is normal... and as we are very much not in typical circumstances right now, many of us--our children included--are experiencing heightened emotional overwhelm. This can lead to feelings of helplessness, and hopelessness, and I propose here that the antidote to those (very normal, very human) feelings is this pillar of Optimal Brain Growth: courage in vulnerability. 

This brings us to Part 2 of the series, in which we view the problem of emotion overwhelm through the lens of Optimal Brain Growth. When we ask what the brain really needs for managing emotion, what do we see? We see that the current situation exposes our need for stronger skills in managing intense emotions like fear, anger and grief--and skills in helping our children manage those same emotions. In other words, we need not to be consumed by our intense emotions, but to use them to find courage in our vulnerability now… and to build long-term strength and resilience.

I’m going to teach you a three-step process that I use to manage emotion overwhelm for myself and my family, and to build our strength and resilience. As always, this is an integrative approach based on evidence from brain science, and wisdom from the arts and healing--because for me, that is what works. This process is simple and has one specific, concrete result: to integrate the brain in order to avoid knee-jerk reactions and emotional explosions, and instead, act from a place of calm and intelligence. The three-step process is:

1) Observe a feeling,

2) Observe a breath, and

3) Take intelligent action.

The whole process will often take about one minute--you can do this.

I like to say that a truly integrated, optimally functioning brain, always starts with feeling. Why? Because the most intelligent actions we take, the greatest successes in our lives, integrate our emotional intelligence rather than suppressing or avoiding it. Also, you can’t “ignore” or “push” your way out of the heightened feelings you have right now. This is the courage I mentioned: we don’t push our feelings away, but we have the courage to work with them, and become stronger (and more compassionate) because of them. 

However, you also can’t feel ALL of your feelings at once--that’s clearly overwhelming, and definitely not productive. Vulnerability is a state in which we are open to feeling--not a quest for more overwhelm. The courage is in the open state of vulnerability. So, instead of ignoring feeling or succumbing to overwhelm-

Do Step One: focus on one feeling. Don’t think too hard--just ask yourself, what am I feeling right now? (Or observe your child, without comment, and notice: what feeling seems to be driving their behavior right now? If you can’t tell, then ask them simply: what are you feeling right now? Resist the urge to try to “fix” their feeling, just observe and listen, and give them the grace and permission to JUST FEEL).

In order to observe YOUR feeling, I’m going to suggest two options: either notice an emotion (like fear or sadness), or, notice a sensation in your physical body (like tightness, or burning, or heaviness). Once you’ve noticed one, describe it, either silently or out loud. “I feel sad”. “I feel tightness in my chest”. This step serves to give permission for what you’re feeling, and it’s critical (remember, we’re not working on pushing feelings away… we’re working on integrating our brain to feel better now, and to build long-term strength and resilience). 

Next, do Step Two: observe one breath. When I say “observe”, what I mean is, use your sensory systems to become aware of that breath: feel the air fill into your lungs, see your own chest expand and contract, hear the sound of the inhale and exhale. This step is sometimes called the “sacred pause”. It invokes your sensory brain to guide your awareness, which enables the third and final step in the process. If your child is flooded with emotion, I propose two options: either ask them if they can take a breath or, if that doesn’t work, SIMPLY TAKE ONE YOURSELF. Invoke YOUR sensory brain: feel, see, and hear that breath. Let them simply observe you doing that step. That’s enough. 

Step Three: Take intelligent action. Here’s what I mean by that: if I’m emotionally triggered (say, my child shouts at me), and I don’t practice these steps, I’m likely to just “react” (I shout back). Am I wrong if I do that? NO: my own feelings and the enormous burden on me right now are valid, and it is normal to sometimes react strongly (that’s what fear, anger and grief will do to us). However, what I WANT--for my own wellbeing as well as for my child’s--is not to “react” like that, but to “respond” with intelligent action (for example, when my child shouts at me, I respond by stating--calmly and lovingly, but firmly-- “I need to be spoken to more respectfully”). 

So in that example, intelligent action means two things: what NOT to do (shout back), and what to DO (state my need). 

Does this sound like a skill you want your child to build? 

Yes, yes, YES.

As your child works on this, how can you support them in the third step: taking intelligent action? After you (and they) observe one feeling, and observe one breath, you can ask them this question: what’s needed right now? That simple question gives them the chance to reflect, and come up with an immediate solution to their problem. Resist the (very common) temptation to tell them what the solution is: this doesn’t allow them to build their own brain’s strength and resilience. Instead, let them answer the question… with autonomy. Let their answer be enough for now. 

What results can you expect from this simple (roughly one minute) process? First, you can expect a decrease in your overwhelming emotions--not just a decrease in that moment but, if you practice this consistently, a decrease in your overall level of emotion overwhelm in the long-term). Second, you can expect an increased ability to respond, rather than react, and to take intelligent action. This means making choices from a place of calm and intelligence, so that you can not just cope during this time, but you can build strength and resilience. This is courage in vulnerability. 

These results apply to your child as well--so consider this a double return on your investment! The whole family benefits from this process. For those who want to up-level this assignment: make this 3-step process the subject of a family meeting or special activity. Practice by taking turns role-playing: you get to be the shouting child, and your child gets to be you! Play. Let it be funny--it IS. 

Next up: the brain evolved for connection. So how do we as families find even STRONGER connection now, in a time of social isolation?

Three things your child needs right now for Optimal Brain Growth (a 3-part series). Part 1: Autonomy.

Part 1 : The way to focused attention for your child (and more time for you) is through autonomy 

We are experiencing a significant life paradox right now: we must be alone, to be together. The coronavirus pandemic is forcing families into isolation, in order to protect one another--to find connectedness as a society. 

This situation is placing demands on us as parents that we did not previously expect to have: spending hours and days on end with our children, feeling pressured to ‘provide’ an education to them, a near-complete disruption of our normal work and activities, social interaction and routine. 

Certainly, this is a challenging, unsettling time for us. And yet, as someone who studies and educates about children’s brain development, I find that the current situation is highlighting some of the pillars of optimal brain growth… if we are able and willing to observe. (And those of us who are in a position of enough relative privilege to be able, have not just the luxury, but the responsibility, to be willing to observe the pillars of children’s optimal brain growth. This is one process by which we will turn what is a privilege for our own children--to have attention and resources directed to the development of their whole brain and body--into a priority for all children).

The pillars of optimal brain growth that I see exposed right now are often typically hidden under our expectations, our busyness, and our habits that prevent clear observation. We expect that our children’s schools and activities are meeting their needs for learning and creativity, that their relationships are contributing to a sense of community and connection. We’re busy providing-- each parent in our own way--based on those expectations. We practice the habits of our daily routines, in the constant hope that the way we are living is really what’s best for us, and our children. 

And now, here we are, stripped of those expectations, that busyness, and those routine habits. And what do we see? How does our family respond to being “alone together”? 

I’ve heard from many parents (and experienced myself) a number of challenges that, when viewed through a lens which focuses on what growing brains need for optimal development, reveal major opportunities for growth. Growth that is necessary to meet the demands on us as a family right now, and that will serve our children’s long-term wellbeing and success in life.

Here’s three big challenges right now--see if any of these feel familiar to you.

Challenge #1: “I’m not a homeschooler, and I’m not my child’s teacher. I don’t know how to get my child to keep engaged in activities and continue learning, and I can’t get anything done with them needing my constant attention”. 

Challenge #2: “I’m feeling anxious and overwhelmed. Not only that, but my child is picking up on the anxiety around us, and knows there’s a major pandemic that’s threatening lives. How can I handle their fear and anxiety if I can’t even manage my own?

Challenge #3: “Our family depends on our social network. Now, we can’t have visits or playdates with family and friends, and we’re feeling isolated and disconnected. Being cooped up together is driving us crazy, and the frustration is making us fight a lot”. 

We’re going to walk through these challenges, and view them through the framework of Optimal Brain Growth. From this framework, we will discuss ways to alleviate the challenges in order to better survive this time, and support our children’s long-term wellbeing and success. Doing this together--with support and guidance--we can predict two outcomes: 1) less pressure on us now, because of a shift in mindset about what our children really do need from us (and what they don’t) at this moment, and 2) more confidence and calm about the future, because the approaches we take now will shape our children’s abilities to cope with hardship, and still thrive in their own optimal functioning. 

Since this will be a series of articles, and I want you to commit to reading them, I’ll give you a spoiler alert: the antidotes that I’ll propose to these challenges we face, which we will break down one by one, are 1) autonomy, 2) courage in vulnerability, and 3) connection. And yes, each of those depends on an optimally functioning brain. This first article in the series addresses the first challenge.

So, how do we keep our children engaged and learning (and out of our hair)? This very real challenge speaks to one of the major pillars of Optimal Brain Growth: autonomy. The idea of autonomy is that the child is operating out of self-direction: they are choosing their activity (on their own if they’re capable, or for younger children, from a limited set), they are engaging in it of their own volition (not because they are being directed to), and they are not asking for much input from adults (they’re doing the activity for its own inherent reward; not for our approval). When the child has autonomy, they have enough independence to be able to engage in meaningful work, with the minimum supervision necessary. (The form this “work” takes will also be very different depending on the child’s age, but one sign you can count on to know that they’re doing work is that they’re in a state of quiet, deep concentration--and not needing you). 

Why does the growing brain need autonomy? Because from the moment children are born, they are on a journey towards independence--that is, a long, slow separation from YOU, the adult caretaker. (Painful? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely). Children need to develop their OWN brains and bodies, and build the skills that will sustain them for their entire lives. This is of course true of all animals, not just the human animal. Yet never in human evolution have children had less opportunity to develop autonomy--due to such an abundance of attention and direction (read: interference) by parents and other adults--than they do now. So in some ways, our life and culture of abundance have posed a limitation on one of the major needs for Optimal Brain Growth.

Now, here we are in a situation that demands of our children an increased ability for autonomy, and demands of us as adults that we resist the temptations to interfere with the development of that ability. 

Take advantage of this. To the degree possible (and I know there are constraints), help your child to set up activities that they can then carry out on their own. For this, I highly recommend manual activities--things that require them to use their hands. This can be drawing or painting, knitting or sewing, cutting paper with safe scissors or making elaborate collage art with magazines and glue, building with clay or legos, beading or weaving, cooking or baking, sanding or oiling pieces of wood. Make it something with a high degree of repetition (hence the cutting and gluing, sanding and oiling). 

How do these activities engage the brain optimally? In several ways, but there are two main aspects that I want to emphasize for now. First, because of the refined use of the hands, which is extremely important for giving input to the brain, these activities quickly facilitate a state of deep concentration. The state of concentration activates the brain’s ‘attention network’, which is a set of regions including the prefrontal cortex that is responsible for directing and managing our attention--including orienting and sustaining attention, filtering out unimportant or distracting information, inhibiting impulses, and following through to completion of a task. This is part of a huge set of skills that are called executive functioning skills, and the practice of these skills is known to be one of the greatest predictors not only of academic and artistic success, but of life success. 

Second, by focusing on an activity that is chosen and carried out by the child alone, for the reward inherent in the work, they engage the brain’s reward system, which is a network of brain regions responsible for the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine and subsequent feelings of pleasure, joy and pride. It is the internal experience of reward that makes us desire to work (as many adults know who are passionate about their work, whether professional or child rearing), and that makes us persist in our work despite obstacles. The feeling of satisfaction from challenging work well done--of nourishment for the brain--is not only rewarding; it is as vital to our wellbeing as nourishment from food. 

The experiences of healthy attention management, and of internal reward, are among the most natural, and most crucial experiences for the growing brain (ours included). And, they are arguably among the abilities that are most threatened due to the abundance of control and interference from adults in children’s lives. These experiences must be lived in order for children to practice and strengthen the cognitive abilities necessary to develop autonomy. 

Building autonomy in brain and behavior is certainly a long-term process, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a process to be put off until “later” in the child’s development (a notion I frequently hear from or observe in parents who, with the best of intentions, interpret their main role as providing things for their children rather than supporting the children’s desire and ability to provide for themselves). 

Autonomy develops when we put its underlying skills (via the brain) into practice now, in every little way possible. And here we are, many of us with a huge opportunity to support our children daily by working on these skills, so that we can start to see the effects of them right now. If we embrace this opportunity, we will help our children learn to effectively engage in meaningful work activities for longer bouts of time (so that we can accomplish more, too), and we will be setting them up for greater success in the future. 

Next up: how the brain processes anxiety, and what we can do now to soothe our children’s fears, and our own.

Dr. Jessica Phillips-Silver is a cognitive neuroscientist, musician, and mother, and the founder and CEO of Growing Brains: A brain-based approach to raising children and communities (follow @Growing_Brains). She is an associate researcher in music neuroscience at Georgetown University, and holds research collaborations in the US and Europe. Jessica’s work has examined how music shapes the brain, and why brain-body integration is the key to learning and wellbeing. Jessica consults with professional organizations in the arts, education and healthcare in Washington DC, and serves as a brain development expert and private coach for families that dream big. She is the creator and director of the upcoming theater production, Finding Rhythm: A Journey Through the Musical Brain, to be presented at Dance Place in DC.