I’m enthralled by Daniel Siegel’s work, partially because his work has touched on all ages: infant to adult. In his writing on childhood development, you can feel his deep knowledge of the human lifespan and what is foundational in childhood for fulfilled adults. In The Yes Brain Child, Siegel and Payne Bryson outline fundamentals for cultivating courage, curiosity, and resilience in children.

I’ll summarize this book over the next three weeks. Part one (this one) introduces their conceptual framework, parts two and three will introduce the four building blocks of a “Yes Brain:” balance, resilience, insight, and empathy.

Siegel details an exercise he uses during speaking engagements. He gets up on the podium and says “no, no, nooooooooooooooo, noo, NO, NO, NOOOOOO” for two minutes. It feels like ten minutes. After this, the audience reports how they feel: shut-down, defensive, upset, tense, angry. Cue the recurring dream of me showing up to my college final naked with a mouth full of broken glass.

Then he switches to “yes, yessss, YAAAZZZ” in a calm, soothing voice. The audience reports feeling open, clear, light, relaxed mussels & vocal cords with a demonstrated drop in breathing and heart rate. Cue the recurring dream of me winning the Great British Baking Show.

This is what Siegel and Bryson mean by a “no” and “yes” brain.

A “yes brain” is flexible, curious, resilient, imaginative, willing to try new things, and make mistakes. It’s open to the world and relationships. It’s primed for learning, has an internal locus of control, and is open to compromise. Sounds like Captain America.

By contrast, the “no brain” is reactive, fearful, rigid, shut down. It’s filled with worry about making a mistake. It’s a mind that focuses on external achievements, gold stars, and people-pleasing for self-worth rather than internal joy. Sounds like the bad guy in every 80s movie filmed at a ski resort.

Our behavior, interaction, and connection with our children can foster yes brains. The short-term benefit of cultivating a “yes brain” is easier parenting. (More Mai Tais for me! And heck, throw a little umbrella in that sippy cup) Kids are happier, more flexible, and interested in the world around them. With the accompanying decrease in childhood stress and more demonstrable grit, the long-term benefits have been demonstrated several times: better mental health, longer life span, and higher lifetime earnings.

Siegel and Payne Bryson introduce the concept of ‘green zone.’ This is when a child (or any person for that matter) can handle what comes at them; they’re able to handle adversity, fear, or anger with calm, confident, clarity. Barista got your coffee order wrong? It’s okay. You know that you can calmly ask them to re-make it for you.

Then there is the ‘red zone,’ when internal feelings become overwhelming. One might feel fear, panic, embarrassment. The autonomic nervous system goes into overdrive, a fight or flight stress response is initiated. You yell at the barista while throwing your drink in the trash, “THIS IS THE LAST TIME I COME HERE!”

On the ice cold side of things, there is the ‘blue-zone,’ which is also a stress response driven by the autonomic nervous system, but driven by faint-or-freeze. In the blue zone, one withdrawals, can become limp, stops making eye contact and engaging, and in extreme cases experience dissociation. Children enter into the blue zone when it seems impossible to escape a scary or difficult situation. The coffee’s wrong. We grumble our way out of the cafe. We never come back. The cafe loses a customer and we lose the best cheese danish in the Northern Hemisphere.

Children don’t choose the red or blue zone. Instead, it is a learned behavior based on what has been a successful strategy in the past. When kids are in the red or blue zone, they are incapable of learning. You can tell them all day long to brush their teeth or there will be no more Great British Baking Show today, but they will be incapable of hearing you. Our goal as parents is to get them back into the green zone before lecturing them on the benefits of oral hygiene (naturally followed by tons of sugary TV).

In the following weeks, I’ll cover the tactics from the Yes Brain for helping your kids stay in the green zone longer (balance), expanding their green zones so that it is harder to get derailed (resilience), and getting them back into the green zone quicker (empathy and insight).

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