Category: dad group

 

Mark Brady, Ph.D., is a dad, an award-winning author, a teacher and trainer. He has taught Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP) courses for the last 12 years. Mark has also written numerous articles for journals and magazines.

In Part 1 & Part 2 of our interview, Mark and I discussed emotional abuse, the impact of yelling at our kids, hitting and parental exhaustion/stress.

And now, Part 3…

DB: I do not hit my children. I think it is wrong. Do you have any insight as to why some parents think it is OK? Is it upbringing? The need for control?

MB: It’s difficult to generalize, but research suggests that parents who hit children were themselves hit by their parents.

From their perspective, they were hit and “they turned out all right.” My response to this assertion is: “Compared to what?”  How might you have turned out had your fear circuits not been intermittently triggered in ways that make the world look like a dangerous and difficult place?

Up until they acquire language — between age two and three — children are “citizens of the world.” By that, I mean, they don’t discriminate in any way. Once the fear circuitry gets overly activated, the world begins to become rigidly separated into “us and them.”

Out of this separation all wars are born.

Interestingly, in The Mindful Brain, Siegel points to research showing how fear of people different than us subsides when EF (Executive Function) improves. Improved EF allows us to “use words, not war.”

DB: How do we begin to change their opinion to help future generations become more civilized? Or is that an impossible task?

MB: It’s not an impossible task.

Essentially, Step One is realizing it’s possible for them to gain greater neural integration, and thus, greater ability to regulate their own emotions.

Step Two is then actually doing that work, which can often be painful and difficult. Joseph Campbell called such work, The Hero(ine)’s Journey. And he called it that for good reason. It’s rarely a cakewalk for those who take it on.

Step Three is reaping the benefits that come from greater neural connectivity and integration. And they are considerable (again, see Siegel’s, Mindful Brain book or Parenting From the Inside Out, or my book, A Little Book of Parenting Skills).

DB: In your opinion, if we could only get one thing right as parents, what would be at the top of the list of importance?

MB: Secure attachment. All things good stem from that.

But if we don’t have it ourselves, it’s not something that we co-create with our children as a matter of course. If we didn’t have it, it takes reading, learning and real work to earn it for ourselves, and then to be able to recreate it for our kids.

In A Little Book of Parenting Skills, you’ll notice that I have three different pieces in there on “relationship repair.” (The brain learns best with repetition and practice).

First knowing that a relationship even needs repair, then knowing the importance of repairing it, and then actually doing the WORK of repair — understanding and accepting our role in any breaks or damage, sincerely apologizing for them, and then finding out how things can be patched up — is an important part of creating secure attachment. It’s part and parcel of answering The Big Brain Question … YES!

DB: Can you elaborate a bit more on the meaning of secure attachment?

MB: Attachment is actually a formal field of study. This intro on Wikipedia will help, I think:

wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory

If I was to explain it simply it would be that a child finds comfort and ease of emotional regulation with a primary caretaker. It’s this relationship that works most powerfully and most easily to reduce adrenaline and cortisol levels in the body and brain, which results in calming and soothing.

Eventually, this ease of neurochemical regulation gets transferred from caretaker to self — thus allowing a child to begin to regulate their own emotional states, which allows for greater social and emotional growth and ease.

(Check out the story on my Web site: The Kindness of Children to read about a kid with disorganized attachment who can’t self-regulate, and what was done to help.)

Well, we’ve reached the end of the interview. I’d like to thank Mark for taking the time to share with us. I hope you have found his words as helpful and insightful as I have.

And remember, you are not alone…

You can find many of Mark’s books, including the one pictured above, on Amazon.com, Paideia Press (414-828-6275, paideia@gmail.com), or many fine online book retailers.


Related links:
– How to Retrain the Reactive Brain, Part 1
– Stop Yelling Daddy, Part 1
– Stop Yelling Daddy, Part 2

Mark Brady, Ph.D., is a dad, an award-winning author, a teacher and trainer. He has taught Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP) courses for the last 12 years. Mark has also written numerous articles for journals and magazines. His latest book, A Father’s Book of Listening, is an insightful, relevant guide for the modern-day dad.

In Part 1 of our interview, Mark and I discussed emotional abuse, the impact of yelling at our kids and parental exhaustion/stress.

And now, Part 2…

Daddy Brain: Many of my readers are concerned with lack of time with kids & exhaustion. What are your thoughts on those subjects?

Mark Brady: This is a serious problem in modern life. Much more serious than people realize, particularly in the first three years of children’s lives. I’ll explain a bit about why that is below, but essentially the airline instruction for parents to put on their own oxygen mask first applies to parents on or off an airplane — both literally and figuratively! Oxygen is the fuel of brain function.

DB: What are the long-term effects of exhaustion on the brain?

MB: I find it VERY useful to think of the brain simply as an organ that processes energy and information, kind of like a computer. It’s obviously much more, and much more complex than this, but this metaphor is useful, particularly in terms of understanding where the difficulties lay that parents encounter, and then empowering them to do something about them.

So, how do we know when our computer’s malfunctioning and needs to be rebooted? Simple: we don’t feel good. We’re tired, emotionally upset or frightened in some way. A brain that’s processing energy and information effectively across all its neural network, feels good in what I call the heart-brain-mind-body.

It’s not that our kids are misbehaving, usually. It’s that our brains can’t adequately process the energy and information it’s receiving in the moment. If this condition persists long enough, we can get seriously ill. Two books that explain how this happens in great detail are Gabor Mate’s, When the Body Says No, and Bob Scaer’s, The Body Bears the Burden.

DB: What kind of damage is caused to parents when our kids are yelling at us!

MB: Parents have much greater neural connectivity in their brains than most children do, and generally can effectively handle large bursts of “energy and information” that come from children.

But not always. I’m sure many of your readers may have experienced or witnessed kids yelling at their parents and getting a rapid, reactive slap in response — a perfect example of a parent’s brain receiving more energy and information than it could handle, having their limbic system hijacked, and reacting impulsively.

In such a situation, it is the parents who have the work to do. Which is mostly the case whenever our limbic systems are hijacked — and this happens way more than many of us probably even realize. Here’s a Web site that uses LeDoux’s work to explain limbic hijacking briefly: timlebon.com/neuroscience. Google “limbic hijacking” for further explanation.

DB: Why have you chosen this niche to focus on? Why do you want to help kids and parents so badly?

MB: Much of the work in developmental neuroscience in recent years indicates that the period from five weeks in utero, through roughly age three when language is fully developed, is CRITICAL in human development. Things that happen during this period profoundly shape children’s world views.

Here’s what Bob Scaer, an MD who’s an expert in the effects of trauma, has to say about it: “The cumulative experiences of ‘life’s little traumas’ shape virtually every single aspect of existence. This accumulation of negative life experiences molds one’s personality, choices of mate, profession, clothes, appetite, pet peeves, social behaviors, posture, and most specifically, our state of physical and mental health.” 

Whether Scaer’s correct or not, doesn’t really matter. I’ve decided that if I can bring this awareness to parents — that what they do during the first three years REALLY matters, and not just for the first three years, but for all of their children’s lives — perhaps greater “energy and information” can be devoted to making those years the absolute best they can be for kids AND parents. For more information, check out: zerotothree.org.

Click here for Part 3 of  the interview.

And remember, you are not alone…

Related Links:
– How to Retrain the Reactive Brain, Part 1
– Stop Yelling Daddy, Part 1
– Stop Yelling Daddy, Part 2

You can find many of Mark’s books, including this one, through Amazon.com, Paideia Press (414-828-6275, paideia@gmail.com), or many fine online book retailers.