On any given day, we may experience moments of high emotion in reaction to an event, or we find ourselves trying to control everyone and everything around us. Either way, our mental well-being is in danger, especially if we find ourselves stuck in either scenario for long. It can be difficult for children to get unstuck without some help from a parent or other adult. To give children the support they need when faced with this, parents must have a basic understanding of their child’s brain development. By incorporating this knowledge into interactions, parents can support children in learning and growing through a whole-brain approach.

To help us get a clear understanding of how these two extreme reactions can present in children, Dr. Daniel Siegel and Dr. Tina Payne Bryson created the concept of the “river of well-being” in the book “The Whole-Brain Child.” Along the river of well-being, there are two banks: the “bank of chaos”...