Mom, Hard Wired

I was reading a book today about Leadership and the brain that, interestingly, taught me about being a mother. The author talks about his learning about neuroscience and how those insights made him think about fatherhood in a whole new way.

Our brains are complex, dynamic, diverse, and ever changing. Every time we come up against a new experience, our brains draw a map of that experience, using neurons and atoms within the brain to reconstruct the new into the customary. Our brains are like a GPS system, guiding us through the various twists and turns and entrances and exits of each new experience. Once we travel the same distance over and over again, we no longer need to consciously think about how to do something, our brains automatically download a map that instinctively tells us how to react each time the situation is the same or similar to ones we’ve experienced in the past. If the “new” experience is not an exact replicate, our brains compensate by adding new branches for future journeys.

The author talks about how his one year old daughter was learning how to take the stairs. If he didn’t hold her hand, she would tumble down the stairs, and her cries were life knife edges penetrating his heart. So, his brain “learned” him to hold on to her hand as she conquered the stairs, and never again did she fall. His brain gave him a new map to understanding how to be a father with a faltering baby, a neural pattern.

Trinity is his daughter’s name. In a particular poignant conclusion, he states ”When I saw Trinity fall down the stairs, the impact of this experience was strong enough to create what is termed hard wiring in my brain. A specific thought pops up each time I take the stairs with her, and that thought is now a part of my life, a new habit that I live by. This thought is now an automatic function, and in several years’ time, when Trinity is quite adept at taking the stairs, I will probably still feel the urge to take her hand”.

That paragraph brought home a conversation that I had with Kelly this week. I am trying in our conversation to make certain that she is doing okay in California. I keep asking questions about the various areas of her life – apartment, friends, school, Todd, health, money, papers due, teaching, and on and on. She keeps repeating “all’s fine”. I keep asking, probing, penetrating. All’s fine.

Tonight I realized that what I was doing was making sure the baby was going to make it down the stairs okay. Obviously, the stairs she is travelling today are wider, deeper, bumpier, more consequential, and five thousand more miles scarier. And so my brain is ever watchful.

I am happy that my brain is permanently wired so that I will always, always be there for my children. A GPS guiding them home. Whatever staircases life brings them – both on the ups and the downs -- my hand, my heart, and a wired mommy-brain will be at the ready. You may not need that today, baby girl, but if the staircase is ever too daunting, know I will be there with my hand outstretched.

iBrain

Just finished reading a great book by Dr. Gary Small called iBrain. It’s about how “technology’s unstoppable march forward has altered the way young minds develop, function, and interpret information”. Although the “high-tech immersion” of today’s digital generation can “accelerate learning, boost creativity, and enhance IQ”, it also has the potential to lead to “a meteoric rise in attention deficits disorders, increased social isolation, and internet addiction”.

There was a cute story in the book that I wanted to share. It reminded me of Corey and how when he was young he would play video games for hours. I, unlike the mother in the story, didn’t do anything about it...

His skateboard lay on the side of the house, along with his bike, basketball, and soccer gear. Eleven-year-old Ryan hadn’t touched any of it in weeks, maybe months, ever since he’d started playing The Game. He’d race home from school, do a perfunctory job on his homework, and run upstairs to the computer, where he would transform into his Game Identity: Swordsman of Farlander, Protector of the Grand Vision. Many of his friends were online there too, all in their various identities, but Ryan was the god of them all – he had reached Level 10 – and no one else, no matter how many hours they had spent playing The Game, had reached Level 10 yet. Of course, Ryan, or rather the Swordsman, had had to kill quite a few of his friends, capture their treasures, and steal their visions, but that’s how you got ahead in the Game.

During a particularly gory battle with his best friend Dylan’s alter ego Titanus, King of the Mountains, Ryan’s mother came up and said it was dinnertime. Ryan barely acknowledged her; he was so wrapped up in the battle at hand. Killing Titanus would reap a hefty treasure and several visions. The fact that it would devastate his best friend and send him back to Level 1 was irrelevant.

Ryan’s Mom, hating this ridiculous video game and herself for buying it, repeated, “It’s time for dinner. Did you hear me, Ryan?” “Yeah, okay, whatever,” he responded without taking his eyes off the screen or his fingers off the keyboard. Mom: “Maybe you don’t understand me. I mean NOW.” Ryan: “Okay. Right after I kill this guy.” Mom: “No, not after you kill this guy. Now.” She reached down and shut off the computer.

Ryan shrieked, “Mom! What did you do?! I didn’t save my game! I’ll have to back to Level 1! Mom: “I have a better idea. Why don’t you go back to being a normal kid?” As she removed the game’s CD, required for online play, she kissed Ryan’s cheek and said, “Wash your hands, honey, we’re having roast chicken.”

Ryan wailed, “I’m the Swordsman!”

Mom smiled, “Great. You can slice the chicken.”

Gee, perhaps Corey has some skills – liked the Swordsman of Farlander – that I haven’t yet tapped into!...

Rub your Cheek for Forgiveness

It is always striking to me when I am learning something new and then have an unexpected event occur that demonstrates the power of what I am learning. As part of my Masters in Law, I am learning all about the brain and it how processes rational thought and emotion. I read the other day how children do not really develop their full rational ability to reason (left brain) until somewhere around the age of five; most of the time they deal with everyday life using their emotional lens (right brain). Ask any mother of a two year old and she’ll tell you that, without having studied brain science.

The example struck home yesterday. We had a family dinner where Lynn brought her dog, Gatsby, with her and Molly met Gatsby. By any stretch of the imagination, it did not go well. They ended up being in a dogfight with each other and, had it continued, Gatsby would have been on the losing end.

Rather than allowing that to happen, we put Molly in her crate in the kitchen. At one point, Ayden heard Molly whimpering. He said, “Listen, Molly crying”. “Gamma (that’s me), come see”. I took Ayden to the crate and told him that Molly was in there because she had been fighting with Gatsby. Molly was having a “time out”.

Ayden understands “time outs” because he gets them if he does something bad. In order to get out of a time out, Natasha insists that Ayden say he is sorry. Ayden has a habit of softly stroking his cheek at the same time he is saying “I sorry, Mommy”. Indeed, before he could really talk, his way of saying sorry was to stroke his own cheek.

So he started talking gently to Molly through the bars of the crate and was saying "Say 'sorry' Molly" and trying to show her how to rub a cheek. He seemed to believe that Molly wasn't coming out of the crate because she wasn't performing the "stroke cheek" trick. He kept trying to teach it to her through the bars.

When Gatsby left, I told Ayden that all Molly had to do now to get out of the crate was “sit” (at this point she was standing) instead of stroking her cheek and she could get out of the time out. Of course, Molly did the sit on command and Ayden was delighted to release the lock on the pen! Molly immediately scooted past Ayden and found Jim's lap and affection. Ayden was comforted that Molly was again happy.

Empathy is an emotion that comes out of right brain thinking. What a delight to see a little human being practicing empathy with a four-legged friend. Would that we all were like that!

It was once said: “In early childhood you may lay the foundation of poverty or riches, industry or idleness, good or evil, by the habits to which you train your children. Teach them right habits then, and their future life is safe.”

From his two-year old foundation, Ayden is making the world – and one little Australian Cattle Dog – happier, with compassion and forgiveness.