Let's Talk Tuesday: The Science of Parenting
The Science of Parenting
Welcome and welcome back. Today is Tuesday July 23, 2024. It's another amazing day in paradise 🤩. Thank you so much for being here. I'm on day 8 of my 13 day challenge.
I'm excited about the direction today is taking. I want… I need to start off with this quote by Neil deGrasse Tyson. It has taken me some time to find it written out. I saw the video of the occasion where he said it. But to find it in written form has been challenging, until the day I started writing this post👏🏾. Look at God’s providence.
Dr. Tyson once said, “... Children are born scientists. They're curious about everything around them. What happens? We spend the first years of their lives teaching them to walk and talk. And we spend the rest of their lives telling them to shut up and sit down. Imagine what kind of kids we'd have if we had scientifically literate adults.”
This quote hits so close to home. One of my main memories from high school is when I started chemistry 6 weeks into my senior year of high school. I aced it 🎊🎉👏🏾. I got straight A's throughout the year even though I started half way into the first semester ✊🏾.
Part of it was the teacher, RIP Skip Griffin. But this quote now resonates that it was my natural curiosity fueled in a new and freeing way. Sadly I thought I should go into accounting, which I never did. And here we are DECADES later… and science is my jam once again.
I had no clue when I signed up to become a parent coach I was going to learn science, and not just any science, neuroscience. My life will never be the same because I'm a scientist. According to Dr. Tyson, I always have been. I specialize in being an amateur neuroscientist. And now I'm here to share the science of parenting with you.
If you have no clue what I'm talking about and are totally lost when I say the science of parenting, I’m going to give you the short version. This is stuff people get their advanced college degrees about. I'm trying to keep it simple. Let's see how I do! Here we go!
There's a part of our brain called the prefrontal cortex. It doesn't start developing until we're about 7. It's responsible for what's called executive functions. From the site Good Therapy, here's a pretty good summary:
The prefrontal cortex is a part of the brain located at the front of the frontal lobe. It is implicated in a variety of complex behaviors, including planning, and greatly contributes to personality development.
ROLE OF THE PREFRONTAL CORTEX
The prefrontal cortex helps people set and achieve goals. It receives input from multiple regions of the brain to process information and adapts accordingly. The prefrontal cortex contributes to a wide variety of executive functions, including:
Focusing one’s attention
Predicting the consequences of one’s actions; anticipating events in the environment
Impulse control; managing emotional reactions
Planning for the future
Coordinating and adjusting complex behaviors (“I can’t do a until b happens”)
https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/prefrontal-cortex
Did you happen to notice how many of those “executive functions” we expect children, especially young children, to do? Yet the POTENTIAL to do so doesn't exist until the prefrontal cortex BEGINS to develop… after 7 years of life.
And then it takes 18-20 YEARS to develop. If the capacity develops at all because you can only do what you know. Let me explain that. This is too important to miss.
People, no matter their age, can only do what they know. No one can do what YOU think they know or think they should know. The elements of courage and self-worth are the other factors that contribute to an individual's ability to achieve. I'm going to leave that there for now.
Since I only learned neuroscience in the last 2 years it's like my life is… new. I am an amateur neuroscience nerd. I can't use all the technical terms but the basics I got down. And it all comes down to… Wait ✋🏾… WE all come down to regulated and unregulated nervous systems.
The whole truth is if we were all stripped of our cultural heritages and our gender identities, and could see the brain development and nervous system regulation of one another, we'd see we all are more alike than different.
And if we would take one more step to honestly admit that, we'd treat each other more kindly, more gently with more respect realizing we've all been through some things. For all of us, the vast majority of those things started in our early childhood years under the stewardship of our parents, guardians and/or primary caregivers.
Now… I need to pause for a moment here. Someone needs to take a deep breath. We have no idea what people have been through regarding their relationship with their parents, guardians and/or primary caregivers. To prepare for what might come up for some, I’m inserting this notification here.
What follows could be sensitive to some and will activate your sense of fight, flight freeze or please. I suggest taking inventory to move through this. It could be as simple as saying “I’m safe. There’s no threat here.” That needs to be true for it to calm you. Taking deep breaths as you say it will help as well. These are accessible things to do in an attempt to calm your nervous system. I’ll continue.
I also need to insert here that I'm coming from a no shame, no blame point of view. I truly believe that our parents did the very best they could with the information they had, in the circumstances they were living under. Those all matter. It doesn't excuse their behavior, their choices. But they all matter.
Because the sad truth is many of us were treated violently in our childhoods. Some might throw back their heads in disgust at my choice of words because they don’t see being spanked or popped as a violent act. But from a state of innocence, where the data shows that some children start being hit in their infancy...
Let me say it this way, if it’s considered violent against an adult, it certainly should be considered violent against an unsuspecting, unaware, uneducated child with no ability to defend themselves. A child who is doing what is developmentally appropriate for them in that moment considering their education and circumstances.
That violence resonates in every aspect of our personal lives and affects our nation as a whole. I would find it hard to believe that no one is affected when they hear about the latest school shooting. Even to write that is heartbreaking, it used to be solely high school shootings. We all know that’s no longer the case. We see the violence children experienced reflected in many of our interactions with others today.
Before I get myself triggered by this I’m going to hop down off of my soap box. I’m going to leave this for now but I’m coming back to it. Hopefully it’s the start of some serious, action promoting conversations.
Thank you again for being here. Thank you in advance for your continued engagement. This is the beginning of the most important conversation I could ever have. I hope you’ll eventually agree, if we don’t already. Because in my mind (considering my own life experiences, what I’ve lived, what I’ve learned, etc.), parenting is the problem but parenting is also the solution. See you tomorrow. Enjoy the amazing day you're creating 🪄✨. ☮️…
#DoYouKnowMommaKai
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