Build The Staircase of Your Child’s Mind

Over the past 4 years, I’ve read a lot of books on parenting. There’s one that has shaped the way I parent more than almost any other:

The Whole-Brain Child by Dr Daniel Siegel and Dr Tina Payne Bryson.

Isn’t it interesting how we come home from the hospital and quickly become experts on our children’s bodies; yet so many of us, even when we’re well-informed, often lack basic knowledge when it comes to the workings of our children’s minds?

There is one visual metaphor in the book that has become etched in my own mind every time I enter the battlefield of the great parenting equaliser: The Meltdown.

It looks something like this.

A Two-Storey House

Imagine your child’s brain is a house. There is an upstairs and a downstairs.

The downstairs part of the brain contains the brainstem and limbic region.

It is instinctual, protective and reactive. It is responsible for:

• Basic bodily functions (breathing & blinking)
• Innate impulses (fight or flight)
• Strong emotions (anger & fear)

Think of it like the ground floor of a house where basic needs are met. There is a kitchen, living room and WC. It keeps our children alive.

The upstairs part of the brain is very different. It contains the cerebral cortex.

It is thoughtful, deliberate and reflective.

It is responsible for:

• Decision-making
• Self-understanding
• Morality
• Empathy

Think of it like a first floor study with beautiful bay windows flooded with sunlight, allowing our children to see more clearly. It helps them live well.

So when our kids become overwhelmed with fear at the top of a new climbing frame, when they erupt with fury when another child takes their favourite toy or when they become distraught when we say goodbye at drop-off, that’s usually their instinctual downstairs brain kicking in.

By contrast, when our kids consider consequences before acting, regulate their emotions or think about how others feel, that’s their thoughtful upstairs brain in action.

The Metaphorical Staircase

Whilst it might be tempting to conclude that the thoughtful upstairs brain is superior to the instinctual downstairs brain, that would not do justice to the brilliant intelligence that lives in our bodies.

Ideally we want our children to be in touch with the emotions and instincts that originate in their downstairs brains, use them as information, and then leverage the faculties of their upstairs brain to act from a place of reflection.

In other words, we want them to be able to climb up and down the stairs, enjoying the full fruits of their two-storey house. They need a staircase.

Now, there are two curveballs to this blissful vision of having such a well-integrated and virtuous child:

1. Whilst the downstairs (instinctual) brain is largely operational from birth, the upstairs (thoughtful) brain is under construction for a very long time — into our mid-twenties.
2. Even the parts of our kid’s upstairs brain that are functional often become temporarily inaccessible, thanks to the amygdala, the watchdog of the downstairs brain. In moments of high stress or emotion, it can fire up and block the staircase. It’s as if a baby gate has been latched at the base of the stairs and our child becomes temporarily “trapped downstairs”.

The downstream implications of this:

• We must reset our expectations. It is unrealistic to expect our kids to be rational all of the time (perhaps until their mid-twenties!). We must match our expectations to our child’s stage of development and level of experience.
• Next time you think your kid has “lost their mind”, you might not be neurologically wrong. Maybe, at least in that moment, it’s not that they won’t listen, but that they can’t.

Just knowing this can sometimes take the edge off the hard moments and help us respond better. It can help defuse those unspoken thoughts that sometimes trigger our own amygdalas mid-meltdown — that we have bad kids, or worse, that maybe we are bad parents.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t have high expectations of our children’s potential and ourselves as their sherpas through life. As parents, we play a powerful role in building the metaphorical staircase of our children’s minds.

There are two ways that we can do this:

1. Proactive strategies: in moments of calm, we can help them construct their upstairs brain.
2. Reactive strategies: in moments of chaos, we can help them not get trapped downstairs.

Let’s look at each in turn.

I. Proactive strategies: in moments of calm, build the upstairs brain

The upstairs brain is like a muscle. The more it gets used, the better it performs under pressure. Here are a few ways we can strengthen some of the key faculties of the upstairs brain: decision-making, self-understanding, empathy and morality.

Decision-making

Give our children regular opportunities to weigh alternatives and their associated outcomes. The magic lies in them wrestling with the decision and living with the consequences, even when they are suboptimal. Avoid solving and resist rescuing.

• Would you like to wear your trainers or sandals to the park today?
• Football has been moved to the same time as swimming this week, which shall we go to?
• Would you prefer to buy that game now, or save up for a bike?

Self-understanding

Help our children pay attention to and understand their inner world.

• You were a little tearful at drop-off this morning. What made it feel hard today?
• You chose to sit next to Maya at lunch today. What do you like about being with her?
• You changed your mind halfway through. What made you decide differently?

Empathy

Give our children practice in thinking about others.

• Why do you think that baby is crying?
• How do you think Stefan is feeling ahead of his move back to America?
• That man wasn’t very kind to us, was he? Do you think something might have happened to make him feel sad today?

Morality

Help our children develop a sense of right and wrong, and consider the greater good beyond themselves.

• There’s only one muffin left and your sister wants one too. What shall we do?
• If there was a bully at school and no teacher was around, what would you do?
• If your friend forgot their homework and asked to copy yours, what would you say?

OK, so that’s when things are calm. Now let’s add a screaming child into the mix. Welcome to the moments of chaos.

II. Reactive strategies: in moments of chaos, unlatch the downstairs brain

We’ve all been there. Your child hurls themselves onto the floor of the department store in a fit of rage because you said they can’t have the bright pink remote-controlled walking dog.

If you default to some of these responses, you are not alone:

• Philosophical Lecture: Money doesn’t grow on trees!
• Threat: If you don’t get off the floor now, we’re going straight home.
• Scold: You’re behaving like a spoilt brat!
• Compare: Look at your sister, she’s not making a fuss.
• Question: Why are you crying?
• Deny: But you don’t even like dogs!

You are likely also not alone in your experience of their ineffectiveness.

“You’re right, money does not grow on trees, thank you for pointing that out. I don’t want to be a spoilt brat, I want to be calm and considered like my older sister. And yes, it’s true, I prefer cats. Let’s go!” — said no kid ever.

As Siegel and Bryson explain, these responses often have the opposite of the intended consequence and enrage our little ones further. In moments of meltdown, it’s likely that their upstairs brain has been hijacked by the amygdala in their downstairs brain. The baby gate is latched and they cannot climb the stairs.

Put another way, our efforts to reason in this moment are wasted. It’s like trying to have a calm conversation with someone standing in front of a fire alarm. They will be deaf to even our finest reasoning and most impassioned pleas.

Based on the model of our two-storey house, here’s an alternative approach:

1. Meet them downstairs: accept and acknowledge their feelings.
2. Unlatch the baby gate: try touch, movement, humour or play.
3. Lead them upstairs: hold the boundary, engage the upstairs brain, teach the skill.

Here’s an example of what this could look like in practice. Always borrow the ideas, not the script. The most important thing is that it sounds like you.

1. Meet them downstairs: accept and acknowledge their feelings.

“It’s a pretty unusual toy, isn’t it, I don’t think you’ve ever seen anything like it. I guess you feel disappointed that you can’t take it home to meet all your other toys. I get it.”

2. Unlatch the baby gate: try touch, movement, humour or play.

“Come here for a cuddle. Uh oh, I think it’s chasing us — quick, we better run!”

Think about this as the moment of reconnection. We know the gate has unlatched when we see their body soften and their crying or anger subside. Now they are more receptive to what comes next.

3. Lead them upstairs: hold the boundary, engage the upstairs brain, teach the skill.

“We’re not going to take the dog home because remember we said we’re going to wait until your birthday before we add to your toy collection. But perhaps we can be problem-solvers and think of another idea together. I’ve got one. Maybe we could ask Frances if we could pop round this evening to play with her real dog Bertie? What about you — do you have any ideas?”

You know their upstairs brain is engaged if they start contributing ideas. Victory.

Maybe later that evening…

“Hey, do you remember when you hurled yourself on the floor this afternoon because you wanted that pink dog? What were you feeling? Next time you really, really want something but can’t have it, any ideas what you could do instead?”

Pause — children as young as 2 can come up with surprisingly sensible solutions.

“Maybe we could write it down on your birthday wish list?”

In my experience, the first step — meeting them downstairs — is by far the hardest. Particularly when their behaviour appears irrational and ridiculous, or worse, petulant and ungrateful.

Two ideas have helped me respond with genuine empathy in these moments:

• Remembering that all feelings are valid, all behaviours are not. We can validate their feelings without validating their behaviour. I think sometimes we worry that we’ll slip into the territory of permissive parenting. In this case, I think permissive parenting would be finding yourself walking home with the bright pink remote-controlled dog sauntering beside you!
• Reframing the outburst for what it is: almost always a skill, knowledge or experience gap. Your child doesn’t (yet) know how to want something deeply, tolerate disappointment, and move on. (Or that bright pink remote-controlled walking dogs are ridiculous.)

An important note: not all tantrums are meltdowns. Sometimes our children are indeed protesting, testing a boundary or trying to change the outcome — while still having access to their upstairs brain. It’s a judgement call. In those moments, we can still empathise with how they feel but move more quickly to step 3: hold the boundary, engage the upstairs brain and teach the skill.

The Ordinary Moments

There is a danger that the more we learn as parents, the more pressure we feel to fill every moment with meaning and significance.

Hopefully the opposite becomes true: the more we learn, the more meaning we find in the ordinary moments.

And when things don't quite go to plan, which will be often, we remember our good fortune that parenthood is generous with opportunities to practise. There will almost always be another ordinary moment tomorrow.

I hope this two-storey house metaphor proves as useful to you as it has to me and that you have great fun building the staircase of your little one’s mind.

Remember, in the calm we build capacity. In the chaos, we help restore access to it.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Riya