HOW TO teach Brain in the Palm of Hand to kids

Teaching kids emotional regulation or how to calm down when they are upset takes time and practice. One great way to teach this idea is through Dr. Daniel Siegel’s Brain in the Palm of Hand model. This hand model of the brain empowers kids to be aware of the part of the brain that takes over when they are upset, and the important part that is accessible when they are calm. It teaches them to talk about where their brain is at and how they are feeling in the moment, as a first step to getting regulated and back in control. With practice, this grows more of the neurological loops that are needed to strengthen executive functioning and self-control.

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Transcription

Today I am going to share with you the Brain and the Palm of the Hand model so that you can teach your kids. This is a model used by Dr. Dan Siegel - he's a psychiatrist down at UCLA and he talks about the brain in terms of the hand. So if you tuck in your thumb and fold over your fingers the finger part becomes the prefrontal cortex and he uses the acronym FACES. When we are accessing this part of our brain we are flexible, adaptable, coherent, energize, and stable.And iif we are not in this part of the brain when we feel stressed or triggered or vulnerable then we flip into our brainstem which is our fight or flight response. Our thumb represents the amygdala which is the really the radar of “am I safe” “am I not safe”. If the amygdala gets the sense that “I'm not safe” then boom we go into that fight or flight response. But if the amygdala does feel safe, then we can access that prefrontal cortex again and we can be more integrated.

So this is that's the grown-up version but how we can teach our kids? I start this with my little ones as early as two. We can say that when our brain is here then we're happy we're cozy we can be really creative we can think of really good solutions and the Mind-up Curriculum when they talk about the brain they use the the example of being a wise leader. So when we talk about it with our kids when we're here we're able to have our wise leader be in charge but when our security guard takes over and doesn't feel like the wise leader is safe then they say oop - the wise leader has to go out. The security guard kind of takes over and we access that fight or flight response.

So what I say to kids is when we are here, we are in the green zone. We're happy; we're safe; we're cozy; we can think of great ideas. When we get mad or sad or scared, the security guard protects the wise leader and boom we're mad we are iin the red zone, we are crying. And i really just describe the situation. Do you remember when you sister took all those raspberries yesterday and you were crying? You were here. So you can call this the security guard. You can call this part the wise leader. And that when we are here, we are in the red zone, we are super made and super scared.

And that's really all kids need to know is how we feel when we're here and how we feel when we're here. And then the question that I always ask is, “where's your brain right now”? And kids will be super honest. They'll be like oh it's like here. And then I'll just say okay what do we need to do to get our brain back to here? And that's where the teaching comes in for the emotional regulation of what's going to help soothe them? What's going to help get their brain back to here. Because I say we can't solve problems we can't come up with any good solutions until our brain is here.