Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome everybody. Today we are getting into the last of our books and that is no Drama Discipline by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson. This book feels like it is the culmination of the books that we've discussed before. It seems to wrap in bits of everything that we've already talked about, plus add some. So if you're going to read just one of the books, it's maybe the one for you. So in this book they're also focusing on using the brain's role and behavior, so understanding how your child's brain is working, and then coming up with strategies that can help kids develop self-discipline, emotional regulation and problem-solving skills. So we're going to break down this book, give some examples, some detail, and then I encourage you further to go get this book and read it, or listen to it and see how you can apply it to your kids.

Speaker 1: 0:51

The first key in this book is the concept of discipline and what discipline is supposed to be about. So on one hand, you can think of discipline as punishing, and that's what a lot of folks do, and that is contrary to what we're hoping for in terms of good discipline. Instead, discipline should be about teaching. I mean, that's where the word comes from from a Latin word that means to teach them. Don't punish them. Teach them, don't make them afraid. Don't make them comply to fear. Help them understand why and how to develop internal control. Part of this relies on understanding the difference between what they refer to in this book as the upstairs brain and the downstairs brain. So for them, the downstairs brain, that term refers to the lower parts of the brain that are responsible for our basic survival functions, also our emotional responses and instinctive reactions. So this, if you want to know, this part of the brain includes the brainstem right, that's the most primitive part of the brain, located at the base, responsible for things like breathing, heart rate, sleep, automatic responses that are necessary for life. It also involves the limbic system that's just above the brainstem, and it includes things like the amygdala and the hippocampus. This is where we process emotions, memory. That's where a fight or flight response comes from. So if we want to put a summary on the downstairs brain, quote unquote we're talking about basic survival mechanisms like fight, flight, freeze, faint as responses, emotional reactivity and instinctual behavior.

Speaker 1: 2:31

Now let's talk about upstairs brain. So the upstairs brain is the more involved part. It's higher parts of the brain, it's prefrontal cortex is what we're talking about. So this is located behind the forehead and this is where things like decision making, planning, impulse control, empathy, self-awareness, moral reasoning is where that all comes from. It gives you the opportunity to understand your own thoughts, but also to understand the other person's thoughts as well, to have theory of mind. So a summary of the upstairs brain logical thinking, emotional regulation, empathy and morality, planning and foresight. So how do these work together? The upper and lower, the upstairs and downstairs brain, as they use it in the book.

Speaker 1: 3:14

The upstairs brain can regulate our impulses and our emotional reactions generated by the downstairs brain. But when a person gets overwhelmed you know an adult or a kid by stress or strong emotions, then the down-sourced brain can just take over, leading to impulsive or emotionally driven reactions. In parenting we have to take this interaction between the upstairs and the downstairs brain into consideration and if we do that it can help us respond to our kids' behaviors with empathy rather than punishment. I mean, when a kid is emotionally overwhelmed, the downstairs brain is in charge and that can make it difficult for them to think rationally. If you can calm down your child and connect with them emotionally, then you can somewhat disengage the overwhelmed downstairs brain and re-engage the upstairs brain, which makes room for teaching and problem solving. All right, with that background in place about the upstairs and the downstairs brain, let's get into some of their material.

Speaker 1: 4:14

One concept in no drama discipline is that of shark music and shark music it comes from Jaws and it refers to the emotional reactions and biases that parents can bring into their interactions with their kids. So we all as adults, as parents, have our own past experiences or fears, emotions that we haven't yet dealt with and that can get in the way, it can cloud our perceptions of our kids' behavior and that can cause us to sometimes overreact or misinterpret what we're saying. And so the term shark music came from Jaws soundtrack and hopefully you've seen that. If you haven't, you got to go check that out. And that's where you have this music, this really ominous music that lets you know that the shark is coming. You know the dun dun. I'm not going to try to sing it, that would be bad for all of us, but anyway, shark music in parenting is this inner monologue of scary music that signals a threat, and so we want to avoid, we don't want to be triggered by that shark music. We don't want to be triggered by that inner soundtrack to get ourselves amped up in the situation.

Speaker 1: 5:21

So when we hear kind of this shark music in our own brains or in our monologue, it may be the case that we'll overreact and treat our child's behavior as a really serious problem or threat. When it's not so, even though your kid's actions could be typical, could be age-appropriate, but it may remind you of your own past issues or fears and the result is that you overreact due to your own heightened emotional state. So an example may be you know, if you were bullied as a kid and then your child comes home and says that another kid was bullying them, that might trigger your own shark music and cause you to overreact. Now you're going to feel overly protective and maybe the situation isn't that serious. So how do you manage the shark music?

Speaker 1: 6:07

Well, the first thing is to be aware, recognize that that shark music is always there, it's always playing in the background, and have some self-awareness, have some reflection. Ask yourself questions like why am I so upset about this? Or what is it about the situation that reminds me of something else? Take a moment to pause and reflect. So, before you respond to your child, take a moment to calm yourself down. You know, even if it's some deep breathing, if it's, you know, counting, whatever it is. Take a break, regain your composure and then reframe the situation. Try to stop listening to your shark music and see the situation from your kid's perspective. You know, don't impose on them your lens of your own past experiences. Think about what is your child feeling, what is it that they need in this moment, and then, once you've reframed that from your child's perspective, then try to respond with empathy to your child. Again, this involves curiosity, a desire to understand, instead of just immediately trying to fix the problem, trying to correct it, trying to control it. Responding with empathy and some curiosity will help you build a connection and then will help you guide your child more effectively.

Speaker 1: 7:17

All right, with that background in place about the upstairs and the downstairs brain, let's get into some of their material. So they talk about the three brain C's and the three brain C's, for them, are calm, connect and communicate. Their theory is that before you should address misbehavior, what you should do is stay calm yourself and avoid escalating the situation. This helps your child stay calm, or calm down, and helps keep their downstairs brain from taking over. Helps keep their downstairs brain from taking over. If you think about it, if you're upset, if you're angry, if your tone of voice sounds angry, if your body language is aggressive, that's only going to further trigger your child's downstairs brain, making it harder for you to do the things that you want to do. To help educate your child about how to behave the way you want them to behave, you may force them or scare them into compliance, but you haven't really done anything except stop that current situation. You're not building any foundation to get consistently the behavior that you want.

Speaker 1: 8:24

So first you calm yourself and your child down. Then, once that's happened, then you can connect so you can establish emotional connection with your child down. Then, once that's happened, then you can connect so you can establish emotional connection with your child to help them feel understood and safe, and this process helps engage their upstairs brain which, remember, is responsible for reasoning and decision making. Once you've calmed yourself and your child down, once you've connected, then you can communicate. You can communicate to your child the lesson that you want them to learn, and when you do that, you have to use developmentally appropriate language that's going to be simple and clear. So here's an example.

Speaker 1: 8:58

Let's say you have a child who has hit another child out of frustration and you're angry about it. First thing you have to do is calm yourself down, right, you take a deep breath, you get composed, you do whatever you need to do to be calm. Then you connect. You describe what you're seeing. You're not judging, you're not attacking, you're describing what you're seeing. So you say something like I see you're really upset, it's okay to be angry, it's not okay to hit. Then you communicate to them the lesson, something like next time, use your words to tell us how you're feeling or come to us for help. So before you can communicate what you want them to learn from the situation, first you have to calm yourself and them down. Then you have to connect. You have to first emotionally connect with your child to make them feel understood. Only then can you redirect their behavior to a response that you would find more appropriate. So if your child's throwing a tantrum, then you can say I see you really want whatever it is. You know I see you really want that toy. I know it's hard not to get what you want and then redirect. You know we're not buying toys today, but can you help me pick out what we need for dinner? Or you could say something like you know, we're not buying toys today, but your birthday's coming up. Can you help show me what you might like for your birthday or Christmas or whatever it is? Connect and then redirect.

Speaker 1: 10:22

Their next concept is engage, don't enrage. So the idea here is to engage your child in a way that avoids triggering that dancer's brain, triggering their defensive reactions. You know, discipline is not something that should make your child feel scared or angry. That's not going to build a connection, it's not going to help them with their understanding. So engage with them, don't enrage them. Engage them emotionally. Don't make them engage their downstairs brain by being triggered.

Speaker 1: 10:56

Next is to teach what they call mind sight. So for them, the term mind sight is teaching children to understand their own minds and the minds of others. It involves helping them recognize their own feelings and their own perspectives and consider their feelings and the perspectives of other people. Here's an example of that If a child takes a toy from another child, then that parent may say I see, you wanted the toy, but how do you think your friend feels now? So you're describing what you see, right. This is another example of you're not accusing, you're not being mean, you're not putting down your child. You're just describing what you see. I see you wanted that toy. The other part of it is to help them understand how their friend feels. But how do you think your friend feels now? The first part I see you wanted the toy helps you with the connection. It makes the child understand that you understand them and that connection can help calm them down. And then the second part of it, once they've been calm and you've made a connection, the second part of that sentence is designed to work on their ability to understand the feelings of others. How do you think your friend feels now?

Speaker 1: 12:19

That question forces it back into your child's court to use their upstairs brain, to engage their logic and their reasoning, engage their empathy. So when you have an issue that's come up and you want to work on it with your child and to provide some educational discipline, then you can use these tools that they have in their book that they describe as time. This is their framework for implementing no drama discipline. So time is an acronym and it stands for T. Take a break. I insight. M. Make a choice E empathy. So for the T. Make a choice E empathy. So for the T, take a break. Take a break to give both yourself and your kid some time to calm down. And this is a moment for a connection. It doesn't mean that you go to separate corners to try to calm down. You know, ideally you may sit down next to them, you may rub their back, you may just be in their space in a loving, kind, gentle way, not standing above them, maybe sitting on the floor with them, you know, not above their eyesight, maybe below their line of sight.

Speaker 1: 13:28

I is insight. Help your child understand their feelings and their behaviors and ideally, maybe some of the feelings and behaviors of the others involved in the situation as well. M make a choice. Offer your child choices that are acceptable to you and then allow them some control E empathy. Show that you understand your child and validate your child's feelings. So here's an example. Let's say that you have a child who's just refusing to clean up their toys, like they're in it to win it and they don't want to stop playing. So let's say the? T take a break. You could just sit down with them and say I'm just going to sit down for a minute. Will you sit down with me? I insight. You could say something like I know you don't like cleaning up and it definitely feels like a lot of work and make a choice. Give them an option either which you're okay with. You can either pick up the blocks or the books first. Which one do you want to pick up first? E empathy I know cleaning up is not fun, but it is part of playing here. We can clean up together that last part, saying hey, you know we can clean up together.

Speaker 1: 14:29

That outward physical expression of empathy is also involved in the next process, which is repairing and reconnecting after you've had this interaction. So if you've had some level of conflict, it's important to repair that relationship. As soon as you can you want to repair and reconnect. This reinforces the parent-child bond that you have and helps your child understand that you can get past conflict. You can get past mistakes and the mistakes are just a part of learning what's really important for kids and what's healthy.

Speaker 1: 15:03

When you have, you know, parents who are in conflict or co-parenting situations, what's helpful for kids is to understand that you can not like someone for a minute. You can have a disagreement with someone, but it doesn't mean that you have to hate that person and it doesn't mean you can't have a good relationship with them. We can have conflict and disagreements and sometimes be frustrated with each other and still maintain close relationships. That's a great example for your child and this is one way to help your child understand that that's the case. That will provide them additional self-esteem because they know that they're lovable even when they may not be likable at the moment, and it helps them feel safe and secure because they know that, no matter what happens, you're always going to be there for them. Even if they get in trouble, you're going to love them and be there for them and comfort them anyway, as we're dealing with the consequences of that.

Speaker 1: 15:48

Next is handling big emotions. Kids often misbehave because they just feel overwhelmed. They're just completely overwhelmed by their emotions. Their upstairs brain is taking a vacation. Their downstairs brain is in full control. Helping your kid to understand and manage these feelings is really important. So if your child is throwing a fit because they can't go to a friend's house, you know you could say something like oh I see that you're really disappointed. It's okay to feel sad and mad. Let's find a way to calm down together. It's okay for them to have big emotions. It's okay for them to understand that they can learn some self-control. You know it's, it's it sounds new, agey, but you can sit down with your child. You can help your child learn to meditate. You can help your child learn good breathing practices. All of these things can help your child learn to self-regulate and calm down. And if they can see that you do that too, they're going to want to emulate that.

Speaker 1: 16:40

Then they wrap up with this iceberg metaphor. So they say that behavior is like an iceberg and what you see on the surface is just a small part of what's happening Underneath that behavior is a whole universe of stuff. There can be unmet needs, emotions, stressors I mean there clearly are of stuff there could be unmet needs, emotions, stressors. I mean there clearly are, because the behavior is just the outward manifestation of those inside feelings and thoughts. So if your child's acting out, instead of reacting to the behavior, which is actually the least important thing for their development, you should be considering the underlying issues. Sometimes it's just very practical stuff. Is your child just completely overwhelmed? Are they hungry? Are they just tired? Did they get enough sleep? Is there something that you know they're anxious about? Take a moment to try to consider what's beneath the surface level of that behavior.

Speaker 1: 17:33

Reacting to the behavior is unhelpful. Using the behavior as an indication that there's an unmet need or some other situation boiling under the surface is the proper way to use that behavior. You don't want to stamp out your indication of how your child is feeling. You want to take that outward manifestation of their feelings, calm both you and them down, consider where that feeling came from, connect with them and then help to redirect with them while you're repairing whatever the conflict was.

Speaker 1: 18:08

This is kind of like Ted Lasso. I don't know if you've ever seen that show. I kind of like it. It's kind of hokey but it's fun. And there's this climactic scene where he is shooting darts with this really rich guy who is a jerk. And Lasso gives this whole speech about being curious and not judgmental. And that really is an important life lesson and it's important here too. Parents should be curious and not judgmental about what their child is feeling. You know the feelings are okay. The behavior's not. Use the behavior as an indication that there's feelings that need to be dealt with. Be curious about why your child is feeling that way instead of judgmental about the fact that they are feeling that way. If you're curious, you'll be asking the questions, taking the time with your child to figure out how you can help them and how you can help avoid that kind of behavior in the future.

Speaker 1: 19:09

Another acronym used in the book is HALT, h-a-l-t and this stands for hungry, angry, lonely and tired. So the purpose of this acronym is to help you understand where your children are coming from. So HALT reminds you to check for basic needs having been met first. So if your child is hungry, angry, lonely, tired, that can all contribute to your child's misbehavior. So if you can address these needs, you can sometimes prevent or even de-escalate the behavior that you are seeing from your child's misbehavior. So if you can address these needs, you can sometimes prevent or even de-escalate the behavior that you are seeing from your child. That's part of that concept of being curious, not being judgmental. So when you see your child misbehaving, maybe stop for a second and do a quick checklist of your own. You know, are they hungry, are they angry, are they lonely, are they tired? And then ask yourself how could any of those things be related to the behavior that you're seeing right now? That you wish you weren't seeing you a summary.

Speaker 1: 20:19

I would be reading you the book. So I encourage you to go get this book no Drama Discipline. I found it to be very useful. It was a very easy read or listen in my case and I found a lot of the tools to be sort of the culmination of the various things that we had read before. If you just read this book no Drama Discipline, you may not get the amount of detail regarding some of these individual topics that you would get if you read all the books, but I think in this book you will see them all brought together well, with some nods to the neurological background of where these behaviors come from.

Speaker 1: 20:49

So that's it for us this week. Thank you so much for joining me. Next week we're going to start putting all of this together. How does this all work together for us to think about parenting, but also, more importantly for our particular context, co-parenting, especially after separation. So we'll be getting into this next week. I don't know that we will finish it all in one episode, but we'll get started next week on it. Thank you so much and I'll see you next week.