A bit early for Halloween...

It's a bit early for Halloween but what I'm writing about today is a little frankensteinian.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could talk to our kids like we would an adult? Wouldn't that make it all so much easier? We'd explain the problem at hand and they'd say- how right you are Mom/Dad, I'll change course immediately and get right on it!

Ah.

Instead, lots of clever scientists have concluded- the human brain isn't fully developed until we reach age twenty-six! That's a super long time for one of the most helpful parts of our brain, the frontal lobe, to finish developing.

Once it is, skills like judgment, logic, time management, planning, organization and sustained attention help us navigate our daily life much more easily.

But until then, our kiddos simply don't have that neural network in place yet. "What do we do in the meantime?" author and educator Peg Dawson writes, "we lend them our frontal lobes."

Essentially, we let them use our thinking skills while theirs finish developing all the way.

Sounds great right?

Well, I don't know about you but my frontal lobes seem to be a tad temperamental. What good are they going to be for my already downward-spiraling child? Let alone my child accepting help from me!

That's why The Heart People are there for us every time.

We need to help our kids- help them help themselves, find good solutions, figure out the plan. But none of that is going to happen without empathy and compassion first...

...first, compassion for ourselves, always. Anne Lamott says,

"almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes,

including you."

Once we're in working order again, we are compassionate to our child.

Our child feels seen and heard.

Now they're ready to accept and build those important skills.

The power of compassion is in seeing our child as a fully-formed human, their feelings and their thoughts worthy of respect and dignity, even as their frontal lobes develop.

Connection is key when it comes to lending our frontal lobes to our kids...

...and with The Heart People this endeavor doesn't have to be so scary.

With so much love,

Vanessa