Season 02 Episode 09
In this brainy episode of Connected Parenting Minute, Will and CarrieAnn Standfest unpack the fascinating world of brain science and its profound impact on parenting. Ever wonder why your reactions and your children’s behaviors unfold the way they do? The Standfests delve into the intricate workings of the brain, from the survival instincts housed in the brainstem to the emotional connections of the limbic system, and finally to the logical reasoning of the cortex. They illuminate how understanding these systems can foster empathy, grace, and better parenting strategies. Whether it’s decoding a child’s meltdown or fostering a safe environment for growth, this episode offers a crash course in brain science that will leave you equipped to navigate the complex pathways of parenting with newfound insight. Plus, they tease a part two that promises to introduce a handy model for remembering these systems. Don’t miss this enlightening dive into the neurological underpinnings of connected parenting—it’s an education for the mind and heart, one minute at a time.
🗣️ Quotes from Will And Carrie Ann Standfest
“Understanding the basics of the brain can help us be better parents.”
“Every reaction is an education.”
Season 2 Episode 9 of the Connected Parenting Minute Podcast
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Episode Keywords
Brain Science, Connected Parenting, Parenting Strategies, Emotional Regulation, Child Behavior, Family Dynamics, Neuroscience, Logical Reasoning, Empathy, Grace, Parenting Podcast, Brain Systems, Survival Instincts, Limbic System, Cortex, Parenting Tips
#connectedparenting #brainscience #parentingstrategies #emotionalregulation #childbehavior #familydynamics #neuroscience #logicalreasoning #empathy #grace #parentingminute #podcast #parentingtips #brainsystems
Show notes created by https://headliner.app
Music by https://lesfm.net/
Show Transcript:
CarrieAnn: Understanding this part of how our brains work and how our children’s brains work can give us the grace and empathy to be able to start seeing that and seeing how we can work within those systems that already exist.
Intro/Outro: You’re listening to the connected parenting minute with Will and Carrie Ann Standfest. This podcast, is a conversation about parenting using connection, first, trauma, and warned principles. Because when you lead with connection, everyone feels seen, which is the foundation to a more peaceful home. This podcast reminds you that you don’t have to be a perfect parent, but we can all get a little better. One connected parenting minute at a time.
Connected Parenting minute focuses on brain science of connected parenting
Will: Hello and, welcome back to the Connected Parenting minute. My name is will Standfest and I am so happy that you have chosen to take a few minutes out of your day and join us here on the podcast. With me tonight on the podcast is the lovely, the one and only, my Carrie Ann Standfest.
CarrieAnn: Hello there it is.
Will: Good to see you tonight, darling. How are you?
CarrieAnn: I’m doing fabulous. I’m really excited to sit down and record tonight.
Will: We are covering one of your favorite topics tonight, and that is always a fun thing to do.
CarrieAnn: It really is just getting excited about thinking about all the different things that we could say and talk about and different angles we could come at.
Will: And this is the topic we’re covering tonight, which is the, brain science of connected parenting.
Will: You’re literally going to learn brain science in the next 18 to 22 minutes.
CarrieAnn: So go you, brain science. It’s interesting because I never really thought that that would be something I was interested in, but I have to say I am actually very enthralled with learning about the brain.
Will: It’s really fascinating, honestly, it is, because.
CarrieAnn: We just get to learn so many different things and different aspects of it, and there’s lots of books you can read and people you can listen to. And I’m definitely not an expert by any means. And so this is my attempt to pull all the information or some of the knowledge that we’ve learned and share it with our listeners. And that’s not to disqualify myself, because I’m working on doing that, but the brain is kind of a, really intricate, really deep topic that I will probably not get to the bottom of, actually, I don’t think anybody will in their lifetime.
Will: Well, it’s not brain surgery. It’s just brain science right here. It’s way easier.
CarrieAnn: Okay. I should have expected that was coming.
Will: And to you, the listener, you can go to work today. Like when you finish your drive, you can be like, yeah, I was studying brain science on the way to work this morning. No big deal. I probably deserve a raise, you know, brain science.
Understanding the basics of the brain can help us be better parents
Anyways, all that to say, here’s some things we’ve learned about brain science that have really helped us and taught us a lot about how our kiddos react and how we react, and we want to share it with you. So, point number one, darling, is that.
CarrieAnn: Understanding the basics of the brain can help us be better parents.
Will: Understanding the basics of the brain can help us be better parents.
CarrieAnn: You said that way smoother than I did. Congratulations.
Will: I almost repeated the. Now I can’t edit it out. Shoot.
CarrieAnn: That’s okay. We’re good. We’re working on being more confident in our speaking anyway. Yes, it’s really interesting because I think the more that I’ve learned about how the brain works and constantly been kind of almost meditating on that to some degree, I’ve been able to have more compassion for our, kids and more compassion for myself, because I recognize that when something’s going on, it isn’t necessarily because I’m failing or because my kids are failing. It’s because there’s actually a reaction going on, and we have the power to help with that reaction. And it’s actually very freeing to me.
Will: It really is. And I think giving ourselves permission as parents not to blame every little meltdown on ourselves is huge.
CarrieAnn: Yeah, it really is.
Will: If we understand how the brain works and why the brain works the way it does, it helps explain some of the reactions our children have in different situations.
CarrieAnn: That’s right.
Will: For example, our brains normalize things. So the first concept we’ll talk about is this idea of normalizing the way you grew up is normal to you, regardless of whether you grew up in what would be considered normal for your culture, for your city that you lived in, for your country, for the time you grew up in, your brain has this function where it normalizes what you experiences as a child. And thus, you feel like that way of growing up is totally normal. Everyone probably experienced it like that is what your brain tells you.
CarrieAnn: Yes.
Will: And so in the adoption and foster care world, this is one of the things we need to understand about our adopted foster kinship kiddos, is that they have experiences that they grew up with, that their brain has normalized.
CarrieAnn: Yeah. And to take that to biological kids or kids that haven’t experienced foster care and adoption, you think of it in this way. You have a kid that grew up on a farm milking cows and raising chickens and et cetera, et cetera. That is normal to them. Then you have a kid that grew up in the city and they could walk to the store and grab milk and grab eggs, and to them, that’s normal. So when those two kids are interacting, they’re like, well, this is the right way. And other kids like, no, this is the right way. Both of them, have that as their normal.
Will: Well, even more simple, you’ve got a kid who grew up in the suburbs who could walk to the drugstore on the corner and buy a pop and a comic book and whatever when they were growing up. And then you got a kid who grew up in a bad part of downtown and their parents, like, you’re not walking to the store by yourself. You need to go with somebody. And it’s just like simple little things. You just normalize them. And these are kind of low level examples to help people understand, but it applies to all kinds of situations in our life, and that’s how our brain looks at the world. Is this normalization of the experiences we’ve had?
CarrieAnn: And that’s an aspect to understand some of the ways that the brain works. It helps you make sense of things and process things in a way that you’ll understand.
Will: Yeah, this isn’t a bad thing. By normalizing your experiences, it makes your brain better at recognizing when something abnormal is happening.
CarrieAnn: Right. And I think that as the adults, when we’re able to understand how that part of our brain works, we can look back and sometimes go, oh, maybe that wasn’t what everyone experienced. And just being able to recognize that in ourselves, oh, gosh, is important.
Will: Think about young married life.
Will: Right. I mean, how many times as a young married couple, is there an interaction we can go stereotypically here?
CarrieAnn: Sure.
Will: Where the husband is like, well, my mom always did all the dishes and my dad sat down and watched TV.
CarrieAnn: Yeah.
Will: I mean, it’s silly and we chuckle, but we all know that there was that tension early on in a lot of marriages, right?
CarrieAnn: Well, because we brought into it what we felt was the normal or the right way to do things.
Will: Right. Or shopping at a co op, or buying name brand groceries and all these silly little things.
CarrieAnn: That’s true. We may have had some things about that. I was all generic. You might not have been.
Will: Oh, yeah. I think I gave a whole speech about how, well, clearly generic stuff is no good and cheaper and whatever.
CarrieAnn: I, was like, exactly. It’s cheaper. All right.
Will: Wait, you want to spend less money on food? I don’t understand.
CarrieAnn: We could so go off on a topic on this, but we’re not going to. We’re going to stick to our points. So point number one is that understanding the basics of the brain can help.
Will: Us be better parents because it helps us understand how our kiddos brains functions and why they do some of the things that they do.
Connected Parenting Minute helps you with your biggest connected parenting struggles
Before we go on to point number two, we’re going to have a quick message about our special end of the season episode. Hey, you, our favorite listener. We want to answer your question.
CarrieAnn: We have a special bonus episode we’re going to do at the end of season two to help you with your biggest connected parenting m struggles. We see you sitting in your car or riding your bike or walking your dog. So spend that time thinking about the things that you’ve been struggling with.
Will: We want to help you be the most connected parent that you can be. So contact us using connectedparentingminute@gmail.com, or message.
CarrieAnn: Us on Facebook or Instagram.
Will: Remember, it only takes a minute. And now back to the show.
Understanding basic brain science can help us be better parents
CarrieAnn: All right, so we’ve already talked about how understanding some of the basics of brain science can help us be better parents. Well, let’s go on to point number two.
Will: The brain processes information systematically. All right, say more about that.
CarrieAnn: Well, when we’re talking about the brain, it’s helpful to understand that the brain has a filter through which it processes information. Okay. All right. We can talk about several of the systems that it goes through. Why don’t we have you start?
Will: I can do that.
CarrieAnn: all right.
Will: And again, this is 50,000 foot view of the brain.
CarrieAnn: Exactly.
Will: I am confident if there’s an actual.
CarrieAnn: Brain scientist out there, we are not going to meet the mark. But that’s okay.
Will: That’s okay, because we are talking to parents right now.
Will: The thing you need to understand we’re going to go for the three basic systems of the brain are the brain stem, followed by the limbic system, and then the cortex, which you may have heard the term prefrontal cortex before, and we’ll get there in a minute. But yes, that’s all part of the cortex there. What goes on in the brain stem. This is your survival brain, your lizard brain, your fight, flight or freeze reaction system.
CarrieAnn: That’s the part of the brain that keeps our heart beating, that regulates our temperature, that makes sure that we breathe when we fall asleep at night. All those very important functions of your body that keep you alive, digestion, all these things, which is interesting to think of because we think of fight, flight or freeze as a reaction, but actually that is part of the brain that keeps us safe.
Will: It’s a survival thing.
CarrieAnn: I was just thinking about that. I mean, we’ve talked about this for a while, but it’s interesting because we always think of that kind of as a bad thing, of those being overactive, but really those are designed to keep.
Will: Us alive again, because if you’ve normalized things around you, then the survival part of your brain is able to react to things that are abnormal. Ah. Your brain is able to hyperidentify because I forget, I wish I had the number in front of me, but the brain takes in millions to billions of points of information constantly all around you.
Will: Like the smell, the temperature, the sound, the lighting, the color of this, the texture of that, all the different smells you’re taking in, like all these things. Your brain is constantly taking all this information in all the time. And it’s your brain’s ability to normalize and say, I can ignore all of this information, all of this information, and say, look, this little 2% of what I’m detecting right now is abnormal or needs my attention. yeah, right. That’s huge.
CarrieAnn: It is huge. We’ve talked about that in the aspect of marketing and all of it. I mean, just business stuff. And so it’s fascinating just to bring that in and be like, no, just generally your brain does this.
Will: Yeah. And it’s a good thing. And so the survival kind of brainstem, part of your brain that has the reactions is what keeps you safe, because as my favorite example, you’re walking through the woods, and all of a sudden there’s a honey badger. Your prefrontal cortex is, wow, that is an interesting creature. He has Fuzzy Arms, and it looks like he has sharp claws and sharp teeth. I wonder what he is. Is that a honeypatcher or is that a wolverine? I don’t know. And by that time, you’ve been mauled and you’re. Oh, my gosh, it’s unpleasant. Your survival brain says, run.
CarrieAnn: It’s pointy and Scary. That is a good part of our survival brain keeps us safe anyways, all.
Will: Right, now that I’ve completely derailed us totally, the brain stem Survival brain keeps us Safe, regulates a lot of Things inside of our body.
CarrieAnn: Next up is the limbic system.
Will: Limbic system.
CarrieAnn: Now, this is the part of your brain that filters information through your experiences.
Will: Through your experiences, your experiences.
CarrieAnn: Think of a good memory you have from childhood. Maybe it’s your grandma baking cookies. In my case, it would have been peanut butter cookies that my grandma would.
Will: Lemon bars for me.
CarrieAnn: All right. And you think of what it smelled like and what it felt like to be at your grandma’s house or visiting with her. And hopefully these are good memories. If that’s not a good memory for you, pick another one. But for me, that was a good thing. I remember the sounds in her house, how she always had Pepsi in the refrigerator for anybody who was coming over. And she had a special jar on top of a cabinet. And you remember this.
Will: You’re making me miss your grandma right now.
CarrieAnn: And those cookies were always in that jar, and she had them. And for me, that was experience. So when you think about that experience, it’s a good feeling.
Will: It totally brings me back.
CarrieAnn: And I mean, I actually have that cabinet in our kitchen right now, too.
Will: Think about that.
CarrieAnn: But see, even just talking about this now, it brings back those warm fuzzies. You remember grandma and you remember the experiences that you had. So that was a good experience. Now take that experience, and maybe you were at your grandma’s and there was fighting going on, or there was tension, or there were just not good things happening around you. And the smell of cookies and the sound of your grandma’s voice could bring back bad memories. Because that’s how your brain filters that information through the experiences that you’ve had.
Will: Yes. Because it takes in that information, identifies stuff that’s important.
Will: And then it says, oh, this is familiar. I remember this. And it reminds you of things like, you go back, smell is like hardwired into this filtering system of the limbic system, where it just draws you back like you smell your grandma’s cookies. Like you said, that’s a great example. And you can picture being there like nothing.
CarrieAnn: Right?
Every reaction is an education. I had the greatest quote for this the other day
And I’m just going tiny tangent, but sometimes when our kiddos, maybe smell something specific or they have a tasted version or something along those lines, we can start thinking, what m have they experienced with this? And this can be specifically with foster and adopt kids, but this can also be with biological kids.
Will: Absolutely.
CarrieAnn: What about this is triggering something? Because at some point, if your kid choked on mashed potatoes and maybe you weren’t even there to see it, but then all of a sudden, they refused to eat mashed potatoes, and you’re like, we used to love this. There could be something going on beneath the behavior because your kid’s trying to relay something.
Will: Yes. Oh, my gosh. I had the greatest quote for this the other day. Every reaction is an education.
CarrieAnn: Ooh.
Will: Every reaction is an education. It’s talking about this concept. And this was on a podcast. I’ll give credit to John Acuff. This came out of his all it takes is a goal podcast. Great stuff for goal setters and just. And he was talking about it in relation to achievement and goals and things like that. I really just took it as like, how much does that apply to our parenting?
Will: That every reaction of our kiddos is an education to what they’ve experienced and where they’ve come from, what they’ve gone through. Every reaction I have internally is an education to, whoa. Why did I react so strongly to that? What’s going on inside of me?
CarrieAnn: yeah.
Will: What button is that pushing? What memory is that bringing back?
CarrieAnn: Interesting. Oh, yeah.
Will: It was so good. You could just taught me all this parenting stuff. Like, I’m going to use this.
CarrieAnn: I like it. All right, we’re going to get to.
The prefrontal cortex is where all logic, our reasoning and language processing occurs
Will: The final portion of the portion of the brain is the cortex.
CarrieAnn: Sorry, you were, yeah, no, it’s great. The cortex. So that’s the upper part of our brain, and we often talk about the prefrontal cortex. Now, what’s special about the prefrontal cortex, will?
Will: The prefrontal cortex is where all of our logic, our reasoning, our, language processing m is stored. When you’re like, are you just not thinking when your kid does something silly and you’re trying to figure out if they’re thinking or not, this is the part of the brain supposed to regulate that. And, Carrie Ann, what age does a prefrontal cortex finally be fully developed within a human child?
CarrieAnn: Person?
Will: Within a human person, that would be.
CarrieAnn: The age of 25.
Will: 25. So when you ask if your teenager is operating off a half a brain, you’re technically right. I’d love you. Teenagers.
CarrieAnn: They didn’t come from us. Please don’t quote us to your teenagers for that, I’ll have to also say we may have pointed out the fact that we got married before 25. Fact it might have been quite a bit before 25, quite a bit before there.
Will: And yet we were wise beyond our years.
CarrieAnn: It worked out. But it’s important to understand that as much as we joke about the prefrontal cortex not being fully developed until the age of 25, there are points where you can see that developing in your kids, and it’s really fun because when you recognize what that part of their brain does and how they process information and then you’re watching for it. I had a moment the other, gosh, I want to say last week where I was like, oh, that child’s learning and reasoning. They’re using their prefrontal cortex. It was just really fun. I mean, it just struck me in a certain way of going, oh, look at that. They’re using that part of their brain that’s so cool. And, so it’s not completely formed, but it’s there and it’s developing.
Will: And that’s one of our jobs as parents, is to provide an environment where they can continue to grow and develop and that part of their brain can mature and reach its full potential. That’s right.
CarrieAnn: So it’s fun to see.
Will: So now we have the brain stem survival brain, lizard brain.
Will: We have the limbic system, emotional experiential reasoning and processing.
CarrieAnn: And I’m sure there’s a ton more in that limbic system, but that’s the important part we wanted to cover.
Will: That’s what’s connecting to what we’re talking about tonight.
CarrieAnn: Yeah.
Will: And then we have the cortex, which includes our logic, our reasoning, our language skills. I want to get into so much more here. There’s so much more to unpack. Maybe we’ll make some more episodes around this because when you’re in fight, flight or freeze, the blood is not flowing through the part of your brain that thinks logically and can use words.
CarrieAnn: Yeah, we’re going to talk about that.
Will: Think about that. Anyways, so we’ve got brain stem, limbic system, cortex. The key part of point number two is that a brain processes information systematically. So the information, all this stuff that your brain is normalizing in, like the 2% or whatever the number is that you actually pay attention to, that your brain is like, this is important. I need to understand what’s going on here. It processes it first through survival. Am I safe? Process it through limbic. Is there an experience that this is similar to? How does this make me feel? Am I stressed out? Am I calm? Am I sleepy? And then it goes up into the prefrontal cortex where it can think through logically and process what’s going on.
CarrieAnn: Right. That’s the part of the brain that we don’t want processing. The honey badger that’s coming out.
Will: Honey badger. your brain has to process inputs in that order. So if you want to have a conversation with your child where they are having logical reasoning, concrete thinking skills using good strong language, you need to first deal with the survival brain, helping them feel safe.
Will: Go through the limbic system, helping them not react out of previous experience or retreading old water.
Will: Going through the same motions you’ve gone through before. You see this in some of our children where we’ve had, when you have a repeated discussion and your child just kind of eyes glaze over and their body may physically be in the room, but mentally, they are gone.
CarrieAnn: They’re no longer present.
Will: they are no longer mentally present in the conversation because their brain says, I’ve had this conversation 17 times, and I know how it goes, and I don’t want to be here.
CarrieAnn: Exactly. Just put it on autopilot, say yes, and then walk away.
Will: I’m not very good about bailing out of those situations. I am working on that personally, of recognizing my child has emotionally and mentally left this conversation, and my mouth needs to stop moving. It’s not helping the situation. Then, once you have navigated through those two systems, is when you get to the prefrontal cortex, when you get to the logical reasoning part of the brain, where you can have a deep and meaningful conversation with your child.
CarrieAnn: Yeah. So important. And I think that understanding this part of how our brains work and how our children’s brains work can give us the grace and empathy to be able to start seeing that and seeing how we can work within those systems that already exist.
Hand model of the brain helps us remember these systems and how we process things
Will: Yes.
CarrieAnn: All right, we want to get to, .3 but we’re going to do something different this week.
Will: Something different.
CarrieAnn: Something different.
Will: My brain is reacting to something different.
CarrieAnn: We’re going to tell you .3 real quick, but we’re going to start a part two episode with. .3 yeah. Point number three is we’re going to explain how a hand model of the brain can help us to remember these systems and how we process things.
Will: The hand model of the brain helps us remember these systems and can help us understand how we process our interactions with the world.
CarrieAnn: Yes, exactly.
Will: I love it. All right, well, let’s go back through point number one and two, then, and tell our listener that they need to come back next time for point number three.
Understanding the basics of the brain can help us be better parents
CarrieAnn: Right. So point number one is that understanding the basics of the brain can help us be better parents.
Will: I love it. What is point number two?
CarrieAnn: Point number two is that the brain processes information systematically. It does its job by taking in information and figuring it out. Am I safe? How can I process this information based on my experiences? And then gets to the logical reasoning part.
Will: It’s so good, and it’s really helpful as you understand the impacts of what that means and how our kiddos process information in situations, it really can help your parenting, and we’ll work to unpack that more to help you guys kind of see that a little easier. And then point number three is we’re.
CarrieAnn: Going to explain how a hand model of the brain can help you to remember these different systems and how you and your children process information.
Will: All right, well, thank you so much for tuning into our episode here. Make sure you send us a question for the Q A episode at the end of the season.
Leave us a glowing review on Apple Podcasts
And before we go, we like to read some of these reviews because they are super encouraging and it is so kind of you to take a few minutes out of your day and leave one. This week we have a brand new one from, Minnesota photog. This podcast is genuine and real. CarrieAnn Ann and will are honest and funny. It’s like sitting on the couch together and having a conversation. Their thoughts, experiences and suggestions are grounding and life giving. They are a reminder of keeping the main thing where it belongs from reminding us to have grace with ourselves and our family. Thanks for sharing your wisdom and insights. That was super kind. Thank you so much. That is really encouraging. That really makes me smile and I appreciate you taking a few minutes out of your day to write that review. You want to hear your review in an upcoming episode? Head over to Apple Podcasts and leave us those five stars in, a glowing review. I would love to read it. That was encouraging. I’m smiling now. Thank you for taking a few minutes out of your day.
Connected parenting minute helps parents become better parents one connected parenting minute at a time
And before we go, we want to.
CarrieAnn: Remind you you don’t have to be a perfect parent, but we can all.
Will: Get a little bit better one connected parenting minute at a time.
CarrieAnn: Thanks for listening to my mom and dad’s podcast. Make sure you hit the subscribe button and hit the like button like 10 billion times. Yeah.
Intro/Outro: For more parenting tips or to connect with us, check out the connected parentingminute on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. Or you can send us an email using connectedparentingminute@gmail.com.
The Connected Parenting Minute 