This Neuroscientists Parenting Strategy Sounds Exactly Like A

As the parent of a 2-year-old, it’s difficult to anticipate what range of emotions my daughter might experience on any given day. And honestly, I can say the same thing about myself. While my daughter is feeling these big feelings and starting to name them, I’m sometimes struggling to identify — let alone cope with — these feelings myself.

Needless to say, I’m open to listening to whatever parenting advice I can glean from experts… and, yes, that includes the modern mom’s *other* co-parent, Bluey. I love it even more when that advice is coming from both sources.

A friend recently introduced me to the Hidden Brain podcast hosted by journalist Shankar Vedantam, and let me tell you — every episode absolutely blows my mind. One episode features psychologist and neuroscientist Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, who poses this titular, mind-melding research question: “Where do feelings come from?”

Dr. Feldman Barrett’s enlightening interview answered this question. However, my biggest takeaway was a parenting strategy she shared, which gave me an idea of how to help my daughter and me manage negative feelings in a fun, playful way reminiscent of one of my favorite Bluey episodes.

Emotions are predictions

Feldman Barrett’s story doesn’t start off like a Bluey episode. Instead, she shares anecdotes about physical and emotional abuse that she experienced in her childhood, all of which inspired her academic studies. Once, she was scolded for making her mom feel bad when asking for a pair of party shoes outside of her mother’s financial means. In this instance and others, Feldman Barrett described being made to feel responsible for others’ emotions, a common phenomenon we all have experienced.

As Vedantam narrates, “It certainly feels as though our minds are taking in signals from the outside world and assembling our internal world … that our emotions are caused by the things that happen to us. But as Lisa went on to become a psychologist and neuroscientist, she was to discover that our feelings are not, in fact, responses to the world. They are really predictions about the world.”

In a memorable anecdote, Feldman Barrett shared that she once conflated an incoming illness with romantic feelings while on a date. Though she wasn’t at all romantically interested in her date, when she mistook the flushing feeling and nausea as signs that she must be falling for this date, she was merely experiencing symptoms of a viral illness. She learned from this that emotions are how we make sense of the world, but sometimes we are wrong in our predictions.

Toddler tantrums

Using her research as a guide, Feldman Barrett discovered that she could help her daughter make different predictions when experiencing typical toddler tantrums.

Feldman Barrett depicted a fictional character whom she called “The Cranky Fairy.” Whenever signs of a tantrum emerged, Feldman Barrett would instruct her daughter to prepare a chair for a visit from The Cranky Fairy. There, her daughter would sit until the Fairy left. Over time, Feldman Barrett said her daughter learned to predict her own tantrums by sitting in the chair of her own volition, which changed the outcome. Through regular practice, her daughter discovered ways of regulating her emotions while in the chair, such as playing with toys or a book, which all helped to cool down heightened feelings.

It’s a brilliant strategy and one I’m eager to implement, as it reminds me of one of my favorite Bluey episodes, “Bad Mood.”

Bad mood

In this hilarious episode, Bingo is in a bad mood, and to personify her bad mood, Bandit dons a Viking hat, places Bingo on his feet, and behaves badly. Acting as Bingo’s “Bad Mood,” Bandit knocks over Bluey’s block tower, kicks over Mom’s laundry basket, and watches TV and eats chocolate without permission. All the while, Bingo giggles at these actions, saying, “I can’t help it,” and “It’s not me, it’s my bad mood.”

What I love so much about this episode is how the Heelers — rather than telling Bingo futility to cheer up or shaming her for having negative feelings — immediately validate Bingo’s feelings and then take multiple approaches to help her until her bad mood leaves. Bluey suggests Bingo take “relaxing belly breaths,” listen to her favorite song, and draw pictures. All of which are awesome examples of coping strategies. Though it isn’t easy, the episode ends with Mom and Bluey embracing not only Bingo, but also her bad mood.

Pull out a chair for The Cranky Fairy or a hat for Bad Mood

In the conclusion of the Hidden Brain podcast episode, Vedantam suggests that a sense of curiosity about our emotions — where they come from and what they’re telling us — can be productive in the long run. Both characters, The Cranky Fairy and Bad Mood, are inherently curious and playful creations that activate a child’s imagination and empower them to make different choices rather than being overcome by negative feelings.

Bingo says before embracing her bad mood, “He isn’t [bad.] He was just behaving bad.” So, let’s take a cue from this amazingly wise cartoon and embrace the bad moods we encounter rather than ignore, criticize, or punish them.