Recently I was speaking with a friend of mine who is the mom of two children with another one on the way. We were discussing how her children can sometimes feel very anxious. I shared some ideas with her for helping her children better understand how their brains may be functioning in those moments when anxiety is overwhelming them to give them better control over that anxiety. I decided that my readers might appreciate this information to help the children in their lives.
Of course, adults need to consider how capable each child is to understand this information and to adjust what they share to match these capabilities.
This certainly is a very basic explanation about how the brain operates. Please know that there is a plethora of ideas, charts, and videos meant to teach children brain basics. Just Google “Teaching children about their brains.”
Several years ago, I had the privilege of teaching brain basics in my granddaughter’s kindergarten class. Her teacher and I were invited to bring several of these children to an audience of kindergarten teachers to demonstrate to them how children can understand complex information about the brain. I used information I learned from Dr. Bruce Perry, a world-renowned child psychiatrist, creator of The Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics and co-author, along with Oprah, of the book What Happened to You? My experience of presenting this information to the kindergarten teachers by having the children share the information with these teachers, showed me that even very young children are capable of understanding brain basics.
In this and my next blog I will offer you suggestions on what I found children can learn about the brain and then apply that information to the children in their lives.
The first step is to teach children about neurons, the cells that make up a brain. Share that these neurons are about the size of a grain of sand and yet they can do amazing things. There are more neurons in the human brain than there are stars in the sky, somewhere between 80 and 100 billion of them. You can even take children outside to look at the night sky and invite them to start counting the stars to get a sense of all the billions of neurons in their brains.
Invite children to appreciate all the amazing things a computer or cell phone can do and tell them that the human brain is 1000 times smarter than any of these devices.
Share that we know that devices only work if they are plugged in. From before the baby is born until someone is about 30 years old, all of these neurons need to make connections to other neurons so they can “talk” to each other, in other words be plugged into each other. Tell them that right now as they are learning about the brain, their neurons are actively making connections and are figuring out how to save the information and where to save it in the brain.
You can share that a very smart brain expert, Dr. Bruce Perry, teaches people about the brain in ways they can understand. He describes the brain as having four levels. Invite the children to think about a house that has several levels, like a basement followed by another level that has the kitchen and living room, the next level with bedrooms and another one on top of that with the master bedroom. The brainstem which controls all the basic functions that sustain life – like heartbeat, breathing, body temperature – is like the basement. The next level on top of that is called the midbrain (also called the diencephalon). It is a bit more sophisticated than the brainstem and controls things like appetite and sleep patterns. It is like the kitchen and living room in our image of a house.
Over these two levels is a large part of the brain called the limbic system, which is the part that is activated when we are experiencing feelings. This is like the first set of bedrooms. You can share that at any time when you are having feelings, that is happening in your limbic system.
On the very top part of the brain is the cortex, which is our “thinking cap.” It has more neurons – brain cells – than the other three parts and yet it is extremely thin, only about the depth of six business cards stacked on top of each other. When you are thinking about something, this is the part that is active. This is like the topmost part of the house.
The amygdala and the hippocampus are two other important parts of the brain. The amygdala is two almond shaped structures on either side of the head (you can point to two sides of your head right around your ears). This is a very primitive part responsible primarily for keeping an individual safe by recognizing those people or things that pose a threat. The amygdala gets its signals through the brainstem and can react in 1/12 of a second to cause a person to do what is necessary for self-protection. Invite them to think about a time when they touched something hot. Remind them that they didn’t have to think “Gee, better move my hand away from this.” You did that instantly. That was your amygdala letting you know that something was dangerous.
The hippocampus is the place where information comes in and is stored either briefly or long-term based on what the cortex decides. It is sort of like a bank but instead of storing money, it stores memories. These two brain parts – the amygdala and the hippocampus – communicate with each other. Together they decide which memories are important to store and which ones can be forgotten.
Another brain expert, Dr. Dan Seigel, uses the image of a hand to explain these brain parts.
Share that when we think about someone, including children, feeling anxious or scared, we can imagine what is happening in the brain. Share that this information tells us that the amygdala and the hippocampus are remembering something and are communicating that to the limbic system where emotions like fear and anxiety come from. Let children know that sometimes just imagining what’s going on in your brain can be a way to decide to change some of what is happening there – to decide, using your cortex, to help you realize that you really are safe and do not have to feel anxious or afraid.
This is the beginning of the lessons you can share with children to empower them and explain what is going on inside of them.
I will share more information about the brain in my next blog that you can share with the children in your life. And I am imagining that for many of you this information can be helpful to explain what is going on in your brain.
Invitation for Reflection
- How familiar are you with some of this basic brain information? If you are familiar with it, how has it helped you understand what might be going on in your brain and the brains of others?
- If this is new information, how do you predict you might use this information to better understand yourself?
- How might you share this information with any children in your life? How do you predict it might be helpful to them?
Diane Wagenhals
Director Emeritus, Lakeside Global Institute