This month we’ve been learning about our brains. And we have learned that we really have 2 brains – we have our thinking brain, our smart brain, and our not so smart brain. We call that our lizard brain because:
- lizards don’t make smart decisions.
- They don’t go to school.
- They don’t understand math.
- They’re not very good at driving.
- They just react.
Our brain has a:
- Front part where we make smart decisions and
use our brain to control our emotions.
- We also have that lizard brain, it’s called the
Amygdala, and it’s all fight–flight–freeze–flop. It’s
all emotion.
- When we are being chased by a lion, our lizard
brain is telling us to run. The problem is, that part
of our brain isn’t thinking.
When we get sad or angry or hungry or “hangry” we know that we aren’t using the front part of our brain, we’re using our emotional brain.
*Parents, how often do we try to reason with our kids when they’re upset and we get upset because they aren’t learning, they aren’t listening, they’re just getting my upset. It’s impossible to think clearly when we’re in our lizard brain so it’s important to remember that reasoning with an angry person doesn’t work. A Snickers would probably help more because they aren’t thinking, they’re just reacting with their brain muscle memory. Don’t try to reason a kid back to calmness, do that later after they’re calm and back in their smart brain.