CONTROL CENTRE

Here's something a psychologist shared with us a year or so back, and it had an AMAZING effect on the child it was directed towards.




One of our children was having trouble with emotional outbursts. Along with Asperger's Syndrome he has "Emotional Dysregulation" which means he goes from regular to angry with no stops between.  He also goes very swiftly from regular to depressed/tears/upset/the world is too big/everyone is going to die ...

When the psychologist played a game with him, showing him pictures (a butterfly, an aeroplane, a mummy hugging a child, a car, a building etc), and asked him how he felt about each one, the answer was either happy or angry - despite the fact that this child is fully involved a family where the FULL RANGE of emotions are modelled and accepted.   And the answers were surprising - the butterfly made him angry.  I guess it was because he didn't really like butterflies that much, but he didn't have the ability to feel "neutral".

Anyhoo - the psychologist came up with this illustration, and I'd like to share it here in case someone else can benefit from this information.

I would suggest that if you have a child who struggles with "inbetween emotions" (like frustrated, disappointed, cross, dislike), or BIG emotional outbursts, then pick a quiet moment, uninterrupted when everything is calm, then talk to them about this.

Excuse the poor quality of photos, I took them quickly to illustrate the concept!    Our psychologist drew a rough picture of a head, and drew a little dot in the head which she enlarged as the story went on.
 

When a baby is born there is a little spot of their brain called the "Control Centre".  It's just a tiny spot, very little.  The baby doesn't have much control because their Control Centre is just so small.  Babies can't walk or talk, or hold things until their Control Centre gets larger.

And it does get larger!   With practice and age, a baby's Control Centre will grow and grow, so that by the time they are toddlers the Control Centre has got bigger and they can walk, and hold things, and chew food, and let you know when they want things in a way that doesn't involve screaming.

By the time they're 6 their Control Centre has got bigger and they don't have to cry all the time for something, or scream if something goes wrong, or screw up a paper and throw it away if the picture they are drawing is wrong. 

And so on.

Each time the child has an experience and learns something the Control Centre gets bigger.

Each time a child makes a Good Decision about their behaviour their Control Centre gets bigger.

So in the end, when a person is an adult, their Control Centre CAN be really big, and they can control their emotions and behaviour MUCH BETTER than they could when they were a baby!


**********

Sad to say, some people DON'T learn from their experiences and they DON'T put thought into their behaviour and they never consider the effect they have on other people, and even when they're an adult, they have a tiny, small Control Centre.