“How can we use connection to change behavior?”
“What is wrong with kids these days? What can we do to change their behavior?”
Those are questions that are being asked by teachers, schools, and parents all over the country. This issue of kids being out of control is making it into news headlines, with many commenters pointing to video games, social media, and lax parenting as the causes. There is a general call for stricter rules and bigger consequences. We grasp for control thinking, “If we just punished them more, they would behave better.”
But these solutions don’t follow the neuroscience. They don’t get to the root of the problem.
The root of the dysregulated behavior we are seeing in kids is a lack of connection.
The science of connection, simplified:
As a species, we have a need for connection built into us. Researcher Stephen Porges calls it a “biological imperative”; a must have. When we feel connected we can use all the parts of our brain, including the part that is responsible for reasoning, logic, language, and caring about the needs of others (the cortex). When we don’t feel connected and don’t have a sense of felt safety we have a disconnect in our brain and move into functioning from the protection part of our brain. It is like we have a tipping point mechanism in our brain and at any moment we can be tipped towards safety or protection.
Dr. Daniel Seigel describes this phenomenon as “flipping your lid”. If you hold your hand up in front of you, you can imagine that your arm is your spinal cord and the bottom of your palm is your brainstem. Now tuck your thumb into your palm and close your fingers over it. Your thumb, tucked inside, represents your amygdala and your emotional brain, and your fingers, curled over the top, represent your cortex.
When your fingers (your cortex, which is responsible for thinking, reasoning, and language) are wrapped around your thumb (your amygdala which is primarily responsible for your emotions) your whole brain is connected and working together.
When we get triggered, or activated, by something happening around us or inside of us we “flip our lid”. The fingers open up and show how we no longer have access to the smartest parts of our brain because we have lost the connection with the cortex. Brain scans show less activity in our prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain the perform the function of responsible decision making, when we are tipped towards protection.
Making good decisions depends on having access to the cortex, the smartest part of our brain, which happens when our whole brain is connected and feeling safe. When we have flipped our lid, that part of our brain isn’t available for function.
It is important to know that “safety” is in the eye of the beholder. We call it “felt safety” because it is a perception of safety that determines whether we have access to our whole brain in a way that all of the parts are connected and working together; or whether we perceive that we are not safe and the protection parts of our brain take over.
Our brain and body are really smart and their main job is to survive.
To support this survival instinct, we have built in ways of responding to keep ourselves safe. They are automatic and happen any time we are tipped away from safety, towards protection.
When we don’t feel safe our emotional brain and our stress response system (the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system) can respond with automatic reactions that allow us to “fight or flight”. When our sympathetic nervous system is in control “flight” might look like angry words or aggressive actions; or it might show up as thoughts that are blaming. This state of protection keeps us safe by moving energy. But in this state our brain is not well connected and we do not have access to our cortex for reasoning, problem solving, or taking care of the needs of others.
If we don’t perceive that we can fight back or get away from a situation we have second system of protection. This highest level of protection utilizes the other branch of our autonomic nervous system, the parasympathetic system. The parasympathetic branch of our autonomic nervous system is known for being the “rest and digest” part of our nervous system because it moves our energy away from mobilizing muscles or activating our body to be responsive. It moves us towards stillness and immobility, which is something we all need for health. But when we perceive threat and can’t use fight or flight to get away or fight back, we can use this system that shuts down our motor system and our emotional brain to help us feel safe. This protective response is a shut down or dissociated state, and in this state we are disconnected from our emotional brain and our cortex. It could look like spacing out, disconnecting emotionally, and is typically associated with low motor activity. This response is the state that occurs when animals (including humans) go into shock, allowing them to stay alive without feeling the pain of what is happening to them.
In states of sympathetic activation (fight/flight) and parasympathetic with fear (shutdown) we have decreased awareness of our body and less ability to feel our feelings.
The ability to feel our body sensations is called interoception. Interoception includes feelings from our organs: like our stomach feeling full or empty, our heart beating, and our bladder and intestines storing and digesting. It also includes sensations from our fascia, which is a web of connective tissue that is everywhere in our body. These sensations give our brain a lot of information about whether our body feels safe or unsafe, pleasant or unpleasant.
Those body sensations contribute to our emotions. Our brain interprets the feelings from our body, along with predictions from our brain, and information about what is going on around us, to form our experience of an emotion. Increased interoceptive awareness has been shown in research to positively corelate with increased emotional regulation.
If we want our kids to behave better, we have to help them find connection.
Disconnection, in a nutshell:
Disconnection from the body is a normal, protective response, but it isn’t meant to be activated for long periods of time. Stress disconnects us from our body as a protection, but when it is ongoing we lose our connection to ourselves.
Kids need movement to be connected to their bodies. We teach children at an early age to ignore their body’s need to move by teaching them to sit in desks for far too long or follow social “rules” that don’t honor their unique nervous system. Their natural ability to listen to their body and be connected to themselves diminishes as they work to fit in and meet expectations.
Disconnection from our emotions happens when only certain emotions are acceptable. We teach children that our approval is conditional when we punish or move away from them when they have strong emotions that make us feel uncomfortable. They learn to ignore their emotions, and in the process they disconnect from themselves.
Disconnection happens between us in this world of technology, where we can sit in the same room and feel worlds apart. Our society values the individual, encourages us all to be special, and degrades our sense of connection in that quest. When we see ourselves as separate from everyone else, we feel alone and disconnected.
Disconnection from the world happens when we see ourselves as fundamentally different than others, rather than connected by the things that make us all human. Disconnection from nature robs us of naturally grounding experiences and a sense of connection to the natural world that is our home.
What can we do to reconnect?
We must help children find connection to their bodies, to their emotions, to the people around them, and to the rest of the world.
This might seem overwhelming since systems and societies have shaped so much of how we experience disconnection. It’s true that we might not be able to change the system right away, but thankfully there are simple things we can do that have an almost miraculous effect of reconnection.
Dr. Bruce Perry, a psychiatrist and expert on trauma, recommends simple rhythmic, repetitive, relational activities to reconnect our brain. It might seem unlikely that these activities, along with time spent in nature, would be enough to shift behavior, but they do. For thousands of years many cultures have used these tools of connection and current science can prove that they work.
Here are some ideas. Try a few every day and see how you can create connection with the people in your life.
Connection to our body:
· Moving our body and making regular physical activity a habit, especially in nature
· Noticing body sensations using a body scan 2-3 times a day for 10-20 seconds
· Sensory play
· Play with rhythm
· Listen to music
· Dance!
Connection to emotions:
· Validate the emotion your child is feeling, even if the behavior isn’t desirable
· Validate your own emotions and give yourself compassion
· Notice when you are feeling an emotion and say out loud how it feels in your body
· Regulate yourself so that you are available to co regulate the child
· Practice compassion and curiosity for others
Connection to others:
· Play mirroring games
· Dance together, sing together, drum together
· Play cooperative games
· Engage in parallel activities (coloring, reading, cooking) in a way that feels warm and inviting
· Engage in acts of kindness
Connection to the world:
· Notice that the negative feelings you have are feelings that everyone in the world feels sometimes
· Spend time in nature
· Learn/teach your child about another culture
· Find opportunities to experience awe