Book of the Month - March 2016 [The Whole Brain Child Workbook]

The Whole Brain Child Workbook by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
 
It took me a lot longer to write this review than I had intended. I began reading The Whole Brain Child Workbook but after the first chapter decided that I needed to put it to the test.

This is a book that is full of practical ideas for parents and carers. I also read this book with my ‘teacher’s hat’ on. This book could help those of us who work with children that don’t respond to the kinds of approaches we typically use in our classrooms.
 
We often expect that someone or something will change our young people’s behaviours. The premise of this book is different. It is the adult that changes first. When we learn to change our expectations and the way we respond to our children, we create an opportunity for our children to change.
 
I especially like the practical activities that help us attune and maintain connection with our children. There is a table of examples of the non-verbal ways we communicate that helped me think about how I can connect to children when they feel overwhelmed.
 
The book also gives practical advice on how to help children integrate thinking and feelings through activities that encourage awareness of flight or fight type emotions, memories, and their own minds.
 
We should be cautious about offering for panaceas for parenting difficulties. As parents, carers, or teachers, even if we have the right intentions, we don’t always have the inner resources needed to change the way we respond. I would recommend using this book as part of a group. It would make it more fun and allow us to learn from others’ experiences.
 
The central theme of this book is that difficult behaviours may come from a lack of integration in the way the brain works. “We need all the parts to work as an integrated whole in order for us to function at our best” (p. 10). My concern is that by talking about right versus left brain types of thinking the authors may be oversimplifying what is still an emerging picture coming from neuroscience. But don’t let this put you off from reading this book. As I read it, I found myself thinking, “That is a really creative way of helping young people and parents.”
 
Overall, this is a well-thought out and practical book. It helped me as a parent and as a teacher. Even now as I finish writing this review, I am thinking about how I can respond differently to one of my own kids when they get home from school!
 
David Woodier, adopter and teacher
​[David is also the chief blogger over at SAIA]

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