It is my great privilege to share the messages of the Brainwave Trust with a variety of people across many settings – often families. Many adults attending Brainwave presentations want to talk about child behaviour challenges – “what quick solution can you offer to undo the inappropriate behaviour of my offspring?”
So far, nobody has poked me in the eye with frustration at the news that changing a child’s behaviour usually starts with altering parental behaviour. If families are finding themselves in a challenging pattern, it is always easier to alter the adult’s contribution than it is to expect a child to change (while the adults continue doing the same things!).
Often, an examination of our language with children is a smart place to start. Too frequently, adults address children’s behaviour with an emphasis on the undesired behaviour.
Consider:
“Stop climbing on the couch” vs. “please keep your feet on the floor”
“no more hitting!” vs. “please use gentle hands”
“you never listen to me!” vs. “look at my eyes while I’m talking, please”
In all these examples, the first thing only describes what it is we don’t want from our children, it does nothing to describe what to do instead. The Latin root for the word “discipline” is “to teach”, so it is fitting that working to alter behaviour should emphasise teaching the appropriate skill as a replacement for the inappropriate. This is teaching children how to succeed. (“Next time, try this instead”)
There is a neurological twist to this story, and it resides in the parietal lobe. One of the primary functions of the parietal lobe seems to be in supporting the process of visualisation. This is the bit of our brains that fires when we imagine something. At its most powerful, it can do a fairly remarkable job of convincing the rest of the brain that the imaginings are true: for example, Olympic gymnasts who focus hard on a mental run-through of their routines have been proven to fire their motor neurons in the same way that they fire when they actually do their routines.
What?
Yes. Imagining something can create the neuronal activity required to strengthen synaptic pathways.
So when we implore a child to “stop climbing on the couch”, the image that is created, the synapses that are strengthened are in response to the language used: climbing on the couch. Putting a ‘Stop’ or a ‘Don’t’ around something is a more sophisticated cognitive function than most children are able to rapidly adapt to. For that matter, it’s more than most adults can handle. For example …
Right now: do NOT think of George Clooney.
What just happened?
So that “don’t” really didn’t stop your brain from charging ahead with a visual image, did it? That cheeky parietal lobe – it will not be switched off. So we might as well harness its power to imagine the things we want strengthened, rather than random movie star images or – worse – the behaviours we want to remove from our family’s repertoire.
Same goes with our children. If we want to give them a chance at performing the behaviours we desire, we need to explicitly describe what that desired behaviour looks like (and “be nice” is not explicit enough!).
From the day they’re born, we can talk to children with respectful tones, we can ensure that they only ever encounter gentle hands, and we can monitor our own language, telling them clearly how to succeed.
It’s a great place to start.
Originally published in the newsletter of the Brainwave Trust, October
2008