Category Archives: kids’ perspective

brain injuries, brain training, Family, family life, father son moment, fear, frustration, human brain, kids' imagination, kids' perspective, parenting

Surogate Amygdala Reporting For Duty

I was at a conference over the weekend where the presenter used a term I find fantastic to describe parenting.  She said parents are the young child’s “surrogate amygdala” while we attempt to teach our kids emotional control and how to make good decisions.  Children do not have the capacity to apply what they know about right and wrong to their decision making at the time.
The amigdala is an almond shaped part of the brain in the middle of our temporal lobes, and it plays a central role in our emotional learning.  The amigdala is the part of the brain which determines the prominence of memories which invokes fear and shame or pride and joy.  Not surprisingly, it takes until around the age of 25 for the amigdala to fully develop.
Until then parents must continue to watch their children do crazy things.    I noted she said men typically have larger amygdalae than women.  I know O is the most emotional of our kids by a wide margin which supports this assertion, and J chimed in confirming little boys cry more than little girls.  I guess society teaches us to choke down our emotions and “be a man.”  Still, I can not help but wonder if O’s brain damage as an infant will always leave him more susceptible to the often harshest of his emotions.
J and I will just have to live up to the surrogate roll.  I just hope we can do so teaching him we don’t pee on the carpet at the top of the stairs because it makes our parents angry even if our sister thinks it would be funny.  If we can stop such madness while still allowing the creative freedom of expression and comedy to think of dressing in a wedding dress and a Spiderman mask in order to save the day, then I will judge our surrogacy a success.
Spiderman's wedding dress provides the confusion needed for him to swoop in and save the day.
Spiderman’s wedding dress provides the confusion needed for him to swoop in and save the day.
Still sometimes, I find myself going back to my father-in-law’s words on the hardest part of parenting being “remembering to not get angry with a kid for acting their age.”  Perspective is difficult to maintain when a boy sprays a heating lamp with water and then describes how cool it was to have the light bulb explode.  Of all the dunderheaded things done by our children this week, this was the one I understood the best.  Curiosity can lead to unfortunate results, but at least it’s not malicious.  We all have to learn.  It’s just some things are better learned through logic, asking and stories than personal experimentation.
“Paging Surrogate Amygdala!  You are needed to instill proper fear of eye damage and burned down houses.”
Words of wisdom for patients and parents alike.
Words of wisdom for patients and parents alike.
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kids' perspective, MS symptoms, Multiple Sclerosis, Uncategorized

These Are the Days of Miracle and Wonder

Young chemist at work
Young chemist at work

 

This week, I read about a learning pill which is supposed to allow people to regain their ability to hear different pitches.  In the same week, I see a story about an MS author whose books I have enjoyed since I was diagnosed with MS beginning stem cell treatments in an effort to reverse the course of his MS.  Since many of my symptoms these days are cognitive, I began to think about what a treatment to revert or reboot my ability to learn might actually mean for me.

As I thought more on the issue, I came to suspect a drug which allowed for greater plasticity would disappoint many.  I suspect a lot of what keeps us from learning new things is our acceptance of what we already “know.”

When we say kids are like sponges, I think of how many “why” questions I answer daily from A (age 8) and O (age 7).  They are trying to model the world in their minds to gain the ability to predict and impact what is going on around them.  As we get older, we think we know, and we stop asking.  We develop our lives around the world as we perceive it.

The ability for our minds to take in new information is only one part of the equation.  We have to be actively trying to learn.  I think about the book Crashing Through,  and in the book, the author tells how most blind people who suddenly get their sight back at an older age are depressed.  The world of sight is not as they thought, and their ability to use their sight to help them is less than they predicted.  It is only when the author goes back to using his cane as if blind that he is able to rejoin society at large.  Sight had to be relegated to additional information, not a primary source.

Would a more nimble brain be a more open brain, questioning everything, or would it be little more than a faster,bigger hard drive for our existing thought patterns?  For which would you hope?  I note with sight the latter approach was the author’s only way to prevent the common side effect of depression.  New unknowns are only rarely as we think and hope they will be.  Still, it is only through our willingness to explore the unknowns that we are able to learn.  In some ways the choice to embark upon such a treatment course would be a reversion to the younger thought patterns before any chemical entered the blood stream.

 

 

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