A few months back, I had the luxury of attending an event for childhood development. The main speaker was a local child psychologist, Julie Kurtz, who specializes in childhood trauma. While your child may not have experienced trauma (though 26% of children in the US will experience a traumatic event prior to age 4), she had wonderful information to share on the ability to build the CEO brain.
Now, you may be wondering what the CEO brain is, and that’s great! I’ve got answers for you. Basically, we like to think of the brain as being divided into three components: the reptile brain, the mammalian brain and the CEO brain. Below, you will find explanations of each, but due to the misunderstandings that occur with our youngest scientists, I have included a few more examples of the reptile brain.
As you might expect, the reptile brain includes such parts of the brain as the brain stem and cerebellum. These are parts of the brain that are responsible for the body’s vital functions, like your heart rate. This part of the brain is where the fight or flight urge comes from, where you see impulsivity and aggression and it is where our youngest children tend to live. Ever have your child walk up and hit another person? Have them throw a toy across the room? Have them respond with a push or a shove even though you’ve explained 100,000 times to use your words? Their actions are not necessarily because they truly meant to hurt their friend or sibling, the more likely situation is that they lack the self-control that you, as an adult with a much more developed brain, have. You can yell at them, put them on time out or send them to their rooms but you would be punishing them for something that is outside of their control (for the record, I do not believe those forms of discipline are effective). Their brain is not developed enough to realize the impact of their actions. They are not thinking three steps ahead as you and your well-developed brain might.
Enter the next part of the brain, the mammalian brain. This is where we find brain parts such as the hippocampus and amygdala. This part of the brain is where we find our memory, where we learn about making judgements and where we add in emotion. We refer to it as the mammalian part of the brain due to the commonalities between mammals. Lastly, we have the CEO brain, where we have the development of human language, abstract thought, imagination and decision making! While every part of the brain is fascinating, this piece is particularly cool and you’ll see why as your child ages.
As parents and educators, one of our duties is to help the youngest members of our society to build their CEO brain and one of the most influential ways to do it, is through the act of recall. Psychologist Julie Kurtz, gave an example in her speech of checking out at Target…
Have you ever had that moment, when you’re getting ready to pay at target and you’re going through the line when suddenly, your three-year-old child spots candy? Your little one looks at you and says, “Can I have a candy?” to which, you respond, “No, we just bought everything we need for dinner and we’re going to go home and get some good food in your belly.” Your child says, “BUT I want a candy!” You again respond saying no, which turns into yelling and screaming from your little one. This is where a divide occurs: some parents here will give the candy to their child as an attempt to immediately end the tantrum and get all of the attention off of you and your child, some will yell at their child telling them to stop or else ___ will happen, some will just leave the cart and abandon ship and still yet, some will try to talk their child through their emotions and back to a place of calm. Once the child is calm, most parents think, “Phew! Glad that’s over!” and go about their day, but this moment of leaving Target with a child who is calm is where you have an incredible opportunity to build a child’s CEO brain. You see, once you’re out in the parking lot, you have the ability to talk to your child about the situation that just occurred. Praise them for having the ability to come back to a place of calm, talk to them about what created the problem and try to create a plan for next time. This small talk, probably less than five minutes, can be instrumental in building the CEO brain.
The act of recall is something I do regularly with my children, but is also something I do with my Lunar Landers. Having the ability to retrace our steps, talk about something that happened and formulate a new solution is an important part of our day. It works on forming neural pathways that will pave the way for them making different choices in the future. It builds on their understanding of the world and helps put into context how your child may have been feeling. Taking the time to have these conversations is not only important for the development of the CEO brain, but is an important part of you opening the doorway to a lifetime of conversations with your child.