How can you help a child who is having an emotional melt down? Learn brain-science basics and the two simple steps to calm a child who is experiencing intense emotions. In this video, Author and Psychiatrist Dr. Dan Siegel demonstrates a step-by-step approach to help a child manage strong emotions. At the same time, Dr. Siegel explains how this process is working at a biological level by “squirting soothing neurotransmitters” in the brain!
This clip is drawn from Dan Siegel’s hand model of the brain. It is a metaphor to help explain what might be happening in our brains when distressed. It depicts an ‘emotional’ and ‘thinking’ brain but this does not mean they are separate parts of the brain. The ‘emotional’ and ‘thinking’ brain are descriptive metaphors of brain functioning to explain how our brains may be in a more ‘reactive’ rather than ‘reflective’ mode. The hand model clip is used in Emotion Coaching training to show how Emotion Coaching can help to guide the brain to develop a more reflective mode (thinking brain) rather than remain in a reactive mode (emotional brain).
