From the protection of children when they were young, to the life experience of letting go and being parents when they grow up now, they have actually made our children and ourselves.
Daniel Siegel, an internationally renowned educator, psychologist and "whole brain education" expert, believes that in his best-selling book "Education from the Inside Out", it is mentioned that:
I was a left-behind child in my childhood, and this experience made me particularly eager for the integrity of my family. But even if I stay at home, my parents are very attentive to my companionship and upbringing. I can feel their intentions, and I am constantly encouraged by their efforts, which finally makes me a positive person.
The son entered adolescence and gradually formed himself. The agitation of adolescence and heavy academic pressure made him lose control of his emotions frequently. I began to look for more advanced theories and scientific methods to help him better complete his self-shaping. I hope he can grow into a healthy, optimistic, confident, open and powerful teenager as I wish.
I remember attending a speech by Siegel before, and he had an interactive exercise with the audience:
The audience was asked to close their eyes. Siegel repeatedly said "yes" and "no" seven times, and asked the audience to pay attention to their physical and emotional reactions while listening.
The first seven times, Siegel said "no" in a stern tone.
The second seven times, Siegel said "yes" in a gentle tone.
Then Siegel began to ask the audience how they felt.
When hearing "no" repeatedly, the audience obviously feels depressed, uneasy, nervous and resistant; When hearing "yes" repeatedly, the audience obviously felt open, calm, relaxed and happy.
Two different words and two different tones create two different emotional states. The first state of nervousness, depression and resistance is called "defensive brain" by Siegel, and the second state of openness, calmness and happiness is called "open brain" by Cirgue. These two different brain states inevitably lead to different external states.
In Siegel's new book How to Make Children Take the Initiative, the open brain and defensive brain are explained in detail:
An open brain is the opposite of a defensive brain, which is open and receptive. An open brain helps us to actively communicate with others and even our own inner experience, to cope with challenges, to be receptive, to be stronger, sober and flexible.
Obviously, we should strive to cultivate children to develop an open mind and actively deal with problems in the process of growth. Try to prevent children from developing defensive brains and resist and avoid problems encountered in their growth.
Who is Daniel Siegel?
He is a world-famous brain scientist and child positive psychologist.
He is also a pioneer in the integration of psychology, brain science and network science, the founder of interpersonal biology, the co-director of Mindsight Research Center, the founder of Mindsight Research Institute, an educator and psychologist, the proponent of the concepts of "seventh sense", "whole brain education" and "open brain", the clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, and the doctor of medicine at Harvard University.
How to Make Children Conscious and Active is the latest masterpiece co-authored by Siegel and Tina Payne Bridson. Tina Payne Bridson is a doctor of child and adolescent psychotherapist at the University of Southern California, a well-known parenting expert and a practicing clinical social worker, with rich experience in child psychotherapy and parental counseling.
In How to Make Children Conscious and Active, Siegel proposed that an "open brain" comes from a special neural circuit in the brain, which can make children have four key characteristics: stable emotional balance, resilience to challenges, examining their own insight and understanding others' empathy.
An open mind doesn't always say "yes" to children, accommodate or give in to avoid their disappointment or solve their troubles. On the contrary, an open mind is to help children realize who they are, what kind of person they will become, and their ability to overcome disappointment and frustration, so as to consciously choose a relevant and meaningful life.
The way to cultivate children's open mind is that parents consciously cultivate and influence their balance, adaptability, insight and empathy in daily family education.
Siegel advocates attaching importance to the daily interaction with children, without preaching or serious conversations. By spending time with their children, parents can influence their children's reaction to the situation and the way they interact with others, give them an internal guidance and help them meet the challenges of life with a sense of security and enthusiasm.
Such as balance, which is exactly what my son needs now. When he is out of balance, it is actually a good time to train him to balance.
Siegel compared the unbalanced reaction to the two banks of the river: one side is chaotic, the other is rigid, and the middle is a balanced river of integration. Balance means learning to swim along the middle, being flexible, adaptable, dynamic, stable and consistent.
When children's emotions are out of control, that is, when chaos and rigidity are contradictory, parents can provide their children with soothing love companionship in time to help them learn to balance better and find a balance point.
For younger children, parents can hold their children, appease ta, listen carefully, empathize with them, give ta a sense of security, let children know that you love ta, and their emotions will gradually balance.
For an adolescent like my son, I can use the three-color communication mode mentioned by Siegel in How to Make Children Conscious and Active.
The three-color communication mode is that emotions are divided into stable green areas, agitated red areas and silent and evasive blue areas.
Green, red and blue are normal emotional expressions that each of us has. Under normal circumstances, we are all in a stable green zone, and everyone will have a red zone of uncontrolled violence and a blue zone of suppressed silence. The stability of the green zone, whether it can quickly return to the green zone in the red and blue zone when something happens, is also one of the important conditions to judge whether a person's emotional control is stable.
For example, when children's emotions are out of control and the red zone is dominant, teaching children to understand the three-color zone model, teaching ta some children psychological hints and practicing movements when they have red zones, helping ta to quickly return to the green zone and broaden their children's green zones are all worth learning.
For example, the breathing relaxation method mentioned in How to Make Children Take the Initiative is a good suggestive action.
When the brain begins to remember this action, take a deep breath and the mood will naturally ease. This is the brain hole!
Let children be children again, arrange a balanced schedule for children and cultivate a balanced brain, which is a brand-new concept put forward by Siegel after the "seventh sense" theory and "whole brain education method" which are popular all over the world.
In this book How to Make Children Take the Initiative, Siegel uses nine practical strategies to illustrate several application scenarios of parenting problems, and combines several sets of inspiring self-test questions and interesting parent-child cartoons to help parents and children easily cultivate an open brain together, so that children can consciously and actively cope with present life and meet future challenges.
If you don't understand the whole brain education and the seventh sense, then you must not miss the book "How to make children take the initiative"! Behind other people's children are other people's parents. In this ever-changing era, behind parents who don't study, there must be children who don't study. To make children better, parents must first learn!
This book "How to Make Children Conscious and Active" is not only a book for parents to learn, but also an excellent and practical parenting method book, which can easily test the various types of your children and make corresponding adjustments strategically according to different types. It is worth recommending!