Quotes About Understanding

As a group, we realized—just as the organizers had hoped—that much of what impeded true progress in the field was that we were using different terminology to mean the same things, and in many cases, we were using a single word (such as timing) to mean very different things, and following very different elementary assumptions.

Ideally, friends are people with whom we can be our true selves, with whom we can fearlessly let our guard down. (Arguably, a close friend is someone with whom we can allow ourselves to enter the daydreaming attentional mode, with whom we can switch in and out of our different modes of attention without feeling awkward.)

For "full" emotional communication, one person needs to allow his state of mind to be influenced by that of the other.

Inviting our thoughts and feelings into awareness allows us to learn from them rather than be driven by them.

Parents who speak with their children about their feelings have children who develop emotional intelligence and can understand their own and other people's feelings more fully.

For a child or an adult, it's extremely powerful to hear someone say, "I get you. I understand. I see why you feel this way." This kind of empathy disarms us.

It's also crucial to keep in mind that no matter how nonsensical and frustrating our child's feelings may seem to us, they are real and important to our child. It's vital that we treat them as such in our response.

We must keep in mind that only a part of memory can be translated into the language-based packets of information people use to tell their life stories to others. Learning to be open to many layers of communication is a fundamental part of getting to know another person's life.

You don't have to try too hard to have fun with your preschooler. Just being with you is paradise for him.

Connection means that we give our kids our attention, that we respect them enough to listen to them, that we value their contribution to problem solving, and that we communicate to them that we're on their side—whether we like the way they're acting or not.

when a child is upset, logic often won't work until we have responded to the right brain's emotional needs. We

Curiosity is the cornerstone of effective discipline.

Making sense of a past that made no sense is opening to the sensations of the past and putting them together now to see how they impacted you then, and how you can free yourself to live the life you want now. That's why making sense makes so much integrative sense. We cannot change the past, but we can change how we understand the way it has impacted us and how we liberate ourselves in the present to free ourselves for the future.

The key here is that when your child is drowning in a right-brain emotional flood, you'll do yourself (and your child) a big favor if you connect before you redirect.

Rather than trying to shelter our children from life's inevitable difficulties, we can help them integrate those experiences into their understanding of the world and learn from them. How our kids make sense of their young lives is not only about what happens to them but also about how their parents, teachers, and other caregivers respond.

Sometimes parents avoid talking about upsetting experiences, thinking that doing so will reinforce their children's pain or make things worse. Actually, telling the story is often exactly what children need, both to make sense of the event and to move on to a place where they can feel better about what happened.

Engage, don't enrage.

behavior is communication.

I'm too angry to have a helpful conversation right now, so I'm going to take some time to calm down, and then we'll talk in a bit.

We want our kids to expect that their needs can be understood and consistently met. But we don't want our kids to expect that their desires and whims will always be met.

noticing not just their words but also their nonverbal patterns of energy and information flow. These signals are the familiar primarily right-hemisphere sent and received elements of eye contact, facial expression, and tone of voice, posture, gesture, and the timing and intensity of response. The

Attunement requires presence but is a process of focused attention and clear perception. We

when a child is upset, logic often won't work until we have responded to the right brain's emotional needs.

As you learn about the brain and consider all of the information we're offering here, don't forget about the simple and the obvious, the little things you already know. Common sense can take you a long way.