Yes is more than a word. It’s a state of being, of relating, and a gateway to curiosity, growth, and resilience, according to internationally recognized educator, neuropsychiatrist, and bestselling author Dr. Dan Siegel. He and co-author Tina Payne Bryson have written a new book that offers parents everywhere a roadmap for developing and growing their child’s inner spark and internal compass to guide them throughout their lives. It’s called, “YES Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity, and Resilience in Your Child.”
Listen to the “Yes Brain” Interview with Dr. Dan Seigel:
Dr. Dan Siegel: The “Yes Brain” Approach to Parenting
Lu Hanessian: This is an important message and book. All parents want to raise kids who feel an inner sense of stability and authenticity, who can cope with life’s disappointments and losses, who know themselves, and who care deeply about others and themselves. I think most people would say that’s a no-brainer! Actually, you and Tina would say it’s a “yes brainer.”
Dan Siegel: It’s a yes-brainer, exactly! The idea is that when parents or anyone caring for a child—a grandparent, a coach or a teacher—anyone who’s supporting the growth of children, when they understand that the brain can get into a “yes brain” state and approach life with all of these positive features versus a “no brain” state, which is created when we feel threatened and we shut down, you’re actually empowered as an adult to help raise children where these states of a yes brain that are repeatedly created become a trait of positivity in life.
Lu Hanessian: So, a “yes brain” is open, it’s flexible, it can pause before reacting, all that good stuff, looks at the glass half full, or maybe filled and overflowing and “no brain” is…
Dan Siegel: “No brain” is where you’re either getting ready to fight or you might get ready to flee and even, you don’t know whether to fight or flee, so you freeze up your muscles and hold on until you figure out whether you’re going to run or fight and those are the activating threat states of a no brain. There’s also a deactivating no brain threat state which is where you collapse in a faint. So whether you’re fainting or moving toward the freeze or flee or fight, all of those are called reactive states that are activated. For example, if I said “No” harshly several times, you’d feel that kind of reactivity rising up in you depending on your temperament and your history. You might tend to go to fight, you might tend to faint. We’re all different from each other, but in any of those F’s of a no brain state, you shut down learning and you shut down connection to other people. When it’s repeated in a child, a child’s development becomes curtailed because they’re not open to new learning and connected with others.
Lu Hanessian: I’ve been at conferences where I’ve heard you speak and do that yes/no exercise you just referred to and it’s incredible how the collective reaction of the “No” you repeat where people said they felt frightened or small or closed or rigid, and, collectively, people said that “Yes” made them feel ‘open, free, safe, and trusting.’ So if we think of these as states that our child could get into in relationship with us, I think parents might translate that to: “I feel connected,” “My child is easy to approach or get along with,” or, I think with no brain, a lot of parents kind of head into that “Oh, he’s so stubborn or judgmental,” but this affects parents, too. Parents have a yes brain and a no brain, as well!
Dan Siegel: Well, exactly Lu, and it’s so beautiful to hear you remember workshops you’ve been to where I do the “No” experience and the “Yes” experience, and when parents have the opportunity—which is basically where the idea of the book came from—to distinguish these two in themselves, they learn from direct experience that a no brain can be activated when we’re frustrated, when we’re feeling at the end of our rope, when our kid pushes our buttons, when something at work isn’t going right, a neighbor is doing this or that; there are so many things that can get us into a no brain state. And when you as a parent are yourself in that state, you can’t do good parenting when you’re in a reactive no brain state, when you’re fighting with your kid, wanting to run away, when you’re freezing up, or even collapsing in a faint, all of these reactive states shut down good, open, receptive parenting.
Instead you want to learn to move yourself from a “no brain” state you might be in to a “yes brain” state of receptivity where it’s all those things you just described, openness, a sense of connection, curiosity. There’s a positive approach to life that comes, when you look at the neural circuitry of the yes brain, a way you learn a challenge is an opportunity to learn more, not to collapse in fear, that a difficulty you’re having with a friend or family member is an opportunity to get closer, rather than just fight back and hold a grudge. All of these yes brain approaches are, in many ways, the foundations for what Carol Dweck calls a growth mindset or Angela Duckworth would say is the component of grit, of having this resilience, to be in