Brain-Body Parenting

Summary: A clinical psychologist discussed how our bodies and brains relate to one another (in an integrated way) and how that applies to helping children develop and mature.

I have sat with Brain-Body Parenting for over a week, trying to put my thoughts into words. My short review is that it is one of the best books I have read on parenting, and it is written with a tone of grace and encouragement. The chapter on self-care as a parent is excellent, and the ideas should be in most parenting books. And the broader message of the book that parenting is in large part helping children learn to regulate their emotions and responses, not to repress emotions or feelings but to express them well and appropriately is a great message. And naturally, if we as adults are going to help children regulate themselves, we need to work to address our own dysregulation. This is the central message of Raising White Kids and many other parenting or spiritual formation books.

All of that is good, but I still had a reaction to the book that was not entirely positive. I remember reading The Whole-Brain Child nearly a decade ago and being overwhelmed with how much work it felt like it was always to be taking into account everything all the time. NYT's article titled Welcome to the Era of Very Earnest Parenting a few days ago captures a part of my concern. The article takes seriously how seriously many Millennials are taking parenting. They want to get it right, in part because they think that their parents did not get it right. They felt misunderstood and wanted to understand their children.

But I am not a millennial. I am solidly Gen-X, even if my kids are still young. And I am concerned about the era of very earnest parenting, even if I support both the goals and the methods. There is nothing in Brain-Body parenting that I significantly object to. Taking children's developmental stages into account is essential. Helping them to name and regulate their emotions is important. Helping children process emotions properly to internalize change is better than fear-based punishment. All of that I want to support.

But as much as I am supportive and want to incorporate all of these things into my parenting and my dealing with others (children or adults), there is still a nagging sense that we have fallen into a technocratic ditch. Jacques Ellul raised concern about how modern society relies on technique or technology to solve problems. The goal of problems being solved is good. But the use of technique and technology to solve every problem and become ever more efficient and autonomous can make us less human. Ellul was concerned that instead of humans using tools to adapt the world around us to humanity, the tools would instead shape us to their ends. There is some anthropomorphizing there, but we can see it happening if we look at our smartphones. We are literally changing our bodies in response to our desire to use them as a tool.

Part of why this is coming up is my work in spiritual direction and formation. I believe in spiritual disciplines and the use of them to grow closer to God. We should be working internally on being formed to be like Christ. I think rightly done, “Spiritual formation is a process of being formed in the image of Christ for the sake of others.”

But at the same time, we often do not rightly do spiritual formation. Instead, we fall into the dangers of spiritual formation and attempt to manipulate God into blessing us in the ways we want to be blessed. We can use spiritual formation as a type of magic or enchantment to make God do our bidding instead of being formed to be more like Christ.

Our push toward being more efficient and “good at” everything can have the unintended result of making us less human when what it should do is make us more like Christ, the model of humanity.

I want to affirm again, this is an excellent book on parenting. I want to become a better parent because I want to help my children be better people. But I want to do it in the right way that doesn't make them into less human people. Humanity, by its very nature, is a limiting reality. There are no perfect people because humans are limited. James KA Smith's book The Fall of Interpretation helped affirm that while we are limited by sin, our limitation is a part of our created reality, not just a part of our fallen reality. If there were no sin in the world, we still would be limited. That means that if there were no sin in the world, we still would not have the capacity to be perfect parents because we cannot be all things to all people at all times. We have limitations.

I really want to help raise “joyful, resilient kids.” But in doing that and doing my best, I also need to accept that I will never be perfect at it. And that message really does come through in Mona Delahooke's writing. She writes with so much grace toward parents that are trying their best. But even as she writes on the page that you can only do what you can do as imperfect people, we have to actually internalize that part of the message, not just the “you can do better” part.

I originally posted this on my blog at https://bookwi.se/brain-body-parenting/