Welcome back to The Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. This has been a special week because we just have gotten word that the Soul of Discipline book is being released in paperback, which that apparently happens this week. And I'm thrilled because it makes it more affordable for us as parents, you know, when we've got all these costs and so on.
And also what a great time to have that kind of content available to us when, you know, when things are so strange at home with all the upheavals that we're experiencing in the world. We're running a giveaway, actually. We're giving away, I think it's a bunch of them, 25 books or something.
So check out the website, simplicityparenting.com and see if you can get in whatever they say, the drawer, for a free signed copy. I don't know, you know, whether a signed copy makes much difference to you. But anyway, it's available.
This week I've had a couple of conversations, actually, with parents about whether to ignore or not to ignore difficult behavior, particularly both these parents had little ones. One had a three-year-old, the other a two- and five-year-old. And it was a really good question, like when there's that kind of misbehavior, do you just turn a blind eye to it and walk away? Or do you move in close and, you know, talk to your child and so on? And, you know, both options are, of course, you know, fine, normal, natural.
But there is a third option. And the third option is I just need to lay a little bit of groundwork to have this make sense. The groundwork is that when a child is in the particularly those first five, six and six and a half years of their life, they have this cluster of neurons in their brain called mirror neurons, like a mirror on the wall, you know.
And these mirror neurons I've mentioned before in these podcasts a while back. But in a nutshell, what researchers found out is that when we do purposeful movement, when a child sees us doing something that is, you know, a directed kind of movement or activity like washing the dishes, like, and they recognize that because we do it all the time, you know, and it makes sense to them. They can see dirty dishes, water, soap, you know, dish drain, whatever it is that we're doing or sweeping the floor.
They see a dirty floor, sweep, sweep, pile of dust and so on. And we put that and we put it in the bin. It's an activity that has a purpose and that really makes sense to a child.
And what researchers found is that even though a child sitting very still, when they watch us do that, this mirror neuron activity really fires in their brain. And they start, the way I think of it, is that they start inwardly becoming sweepish if we're sweeping or washish if we're washing the dishes. You know, they start inwardly washing the dishes, even though they're not outwardly doing it.
So later on, this was first, I came across it in about 1998, 1999, 2000, there were articles being written about this in journals. Then a little later, the researchers continued on and found that these mirror neurons also have clusters in parts of the brain that are very closely associated with feelings and empathy. And what they found was, again, just to generalize, but what they found was that when a parent is feeling an emotion, someone very close to a child, they feel an emotion.
They feel a parent feels sad or happy or just contented or whatever it is. The child feels it as well. And those neurons light up and they feel that emotion via the person that is emotionally close to them.
You know, a caregiver, guardian, parent, educator, someone they see every day, someone they know well, it's particularly the case. Okay, so with all that said, let me try and link that now to do I ignore or do I not ignore? All right. So thanks for bearing with that, because here's how that links.
When a child is being a grumpy little gnome, right, particularly under the age of seven or so, and they're just being grumpy and you think, well, do I deal with this? Do I talk to them? There's a lot of talking to children, sometimes a little bit of over-talking. I think we've got to be careful of that. But do I just walk away and ignore it? Because that seems like I'm rejecting the child and I'm disconnecting.
And actually, over-talking can disconnect because it's just too many words and child switches off. Walking away can disconnect because, well, it's walking away. But if we do purposeful movements around a child, like if they're sitting at the table and they're being grumpy, and we just slowly clear the table off, and they've just got their little arms crossed in front of them and their little scowl on their face.
And then we perhaps wipe the table and we just slowly wipe the table, take the things over, start popping them away where they belong, clearing up the lunch, the breakfast, whatever it is. This is just one example, of course. What happens is that the child's mirror neurons start firing and they start becoming clearing-up-ish.
They start doing it, even though they're not doing it. Because if you ask them to help you clear up the table, you might just meet a grumpy little, no, not. That's not going to work out, right? There's not in a shape to do that.
But if we start doing things around them that they're familiar with, that make sense, and also the great part about it is that we get on with things and don't spend all our time trying to reason with a child and ask them what their feelings are feeling, which is a spectacularly silly question to ask a four-year-old. They don't know. But if we do that, we start making those movements, and you might have noticed that I talk about slow movements.
Then the child is drawn out of their mood. The mirror neurons are one of the few clusters in the brain of activity that can, again generalizing, but ameliorate or start to ease that amygdala hijack, that fight or flight or freeze, which is just the child just being stubborn. It's one of the few activities in the brain that can shift that.
That information is just golden, I feel, as a parent, when we're asking ourselves, do we move in, do we talk, do we ignore? Actually, we don't, strictly speaking, need to do either. I want to emphasize again, though, that to do it slowly, to do it as calmly as we can, and we might even, and here's a little tip, an extra tip, if you want to go for bonus points, is to hum or sing a little song. Because if we hum a little song, and particularly a song that is familiar to the child, as we're wiping the table, now we're really talking, because then the neurons, the parts of the brain that relate to music, then start to shift and open, and then the mirror neurons get busy, and now the child's going to come out of that little patch of difficult behavior, usually a whole bunch quicker.
But we do need to slow our actions down so they can process it. We need to go about it like it's going to take 10, 15 seconds longer to clear a table just a little more calmly than it would be if we were just whisking things away. Because if we're doing it calmly, then that also signals to a child that they can co-regulate with us, because we're okay, we're safe, we're emotionally regulated, we're just going about things as normal.
But they do need a little extra time to process when they're grumpy like that. So just do it slowly, not in a weird way, but just a little more slowly, a little more calmly. If you want bonus points, then hum a song as you're doing it, and just sit back and watch.
And chances are you'll get out of that situation a whole lot sooner than you otherwise would have, and will be able to get on with your day. And the great thing is you got on with your day anyway, because you were doing things you needed to do. Okay, I sure hope that was helpful.
Don't forget, if you want to speak to me personally, just go right onto our website, Simplicity Parenting, and you can see a thing, request a consult with Kim. It's the thing I love to do most of all, is to speak directly to dear parents. Also, don't forget about the free giveaway of the Soul of Discipline book that is coming right up.
So with all that in mind, thanks for tuning in today, and maybe touch base with you next week. Okay, bye bye for now.
