Quotes from Daniel J. Siegel

Explained most simply, mindsight is the ability to see our own mind, as well as the mind of another. It allows us to develop meaningful relationships while also maintaining a healthy and independent sense of self. When we ask our children to consider their own feelings (using personal insight) while also imagining how someone else might experience a particular situation (using empathy), we are helping them develop mindsight.

Remember that after ninety seconds an unimpeded emotion will begin to transform on its own. It is often how we fret over a feeling that creates suffering and maintains the intensity and duration of that feeling in our lives." Excerpt From Brainstorm Daniel J. Siegel, MD

La objetividad impide que nos veamos arrastrados por nuestros pensamientos y sentimientos. Utiliza la capacidad de la mente para ser consciente de que sus actividades presentes, como los pensamientos, sentimientos, recuerdos, creencias e intenciones, son pasajeras y no forman la totalidad de quienes somos.

It's easy to see when our kids aren't integrated—they become overwhelmed by their emotions, confused and chaotic. They can't respond calmly and capably to the situation at hand. Tantrums, meltdowns, aggression, and most of the other challenging experiences of parenting—and life—are a result of a loss of integration, also known as dis-integration.

If his mother hadn't helped him tell and understand the story, Marco's fears would have been left unresolved and could have surfaced in other ways.

Watch for ways to help your children learn to be still and calm at times and find the deep-ocean peacefulness within their hub. From there they'll be better able to survive the storms brewing within them from moment to moment, and they'll have a better chance of thriving—emotionally, psychologically, socially—as they grow toward adulthood.

Yet when adults lose the four distinguishing features of adolescence, when they stop cultivating the power of novelty seeking, social engagement, emotional intensity, and creative exploration, life can become boring, isolating, dull, and routinized.

survive difficult parenting moments, and they want their kids and their family to thrive. As parents ourselves, we share these same goals for our own families. In our nobler, calmer, saner moments, we care about nurturing our kids' minds, increasing their sense of wonder, and helping them reach their

The rate of brain maturation is largely influenced by the genes we inherit.

leave people vulnerable to mental illness later in life. Recent studies have used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), or brain scans, to discover specific changes in certain areas of what's called the hippocampus in the brains of young adults who have experienced abuse.

We're also not talking about wearing yourself (and your kids) out by frantically trying to fill every experience with significance and meaning. We're talking about simply being present with your children so you can help them become better integrated.

the behaviors and skills we want and expect our kids to demonstrate, like sound decision making, control of their emotions and bodies, empathy, self-understanding, and morality—are dependent on a part of their brain that hasn't fully developed yet.

La apertura se refiere a ser receptivos a todo lo que se presenta ante nuestra conciencia y a no apegarnos a ideas preconcebidas sobre cómo «deberían» ser las cosas.

Our children need repeated experiences that allow them to develop wiring in their brain that helps them delay gratification, contain urges to react aggressively toward others, and flexibly deal with not getting their way.

Cuando los niños incrementan la capacidad de conocerse a sí mismos, de tener en cuenta los sentimientos de los demás y de tomar medidas para arreglar una situación, crean y fortalecen conexiones en el lóbulo frontal, lo cual les permite conocerse mejor y llevarse bien con los otros mientras avanzan hacia la adolescencia y la edad adulta.

even though entire libraries have been written discussing mental illness, mental health is rarely defined.

Neurons that fire together wire together, changing the changeable brain.

La observación es la capacidad de percibirnos a nosotros mismos mientras vivimos un suceso.

También es esencial tener en cuenta que por mucho que los sentimientos de nuestro hijo nos parezcan frustrantes y absurdos, para él son reales e importantes. Es fundamental tratarlos como tales en nuestra respuesta.

We want to engage the upstairs brain's receptivity, rather than trigger the downstairs brain's reactivity. Then the higher parts of the brain can communicate and help override the lower, more impulsive and reactive parts.

So one extreme is chaos, where there's a total lack of control. The other extreme is rigidity, where there's too much control, leading to a lack of flexibility and adaptability. We all move back and forth between these two banks as we go through our days—especially as we're trying to survive parenting

deep, empathic connection can and should be combined with clear and firm boundaries that create needed structure in children's lives.

In fact, research shows that merely assigning a name or label to what we feel literally calms down the activity of the emotional circuitry in the right hemisphere.

canoes, and they float down their own river of well-being. Many of the challenges we face as parents result from the times when our kids aren't in the flow, when they're either too chaotic or too rigid.