Researchers have used functional MRI scans to investigate which regions of the brain are activated during parenting—how our brains are wired for rearing children, and how parenting can shape our brains. They found that humans’ neural circuitry is primed to respond to babies in ways that are key to the infant’s development. Mothers’ brains actually grow in size in the early months of parenting. The brain regions associated with motivation, reward, emotional processing, and reasoning and judgment (hypothalamus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex), increase in size in the first three months. Looking at an infant’s face activates the inferior frontal gyrus, an area associated with empathy and emotion. Seeing a baby’s face also prompts increased activity in the supplementary motor area, the part of the brain involved with talking to and moving toward the baby. By the time their babies are 3 months of age, mothers’ brains are attuned to their faces, and infants’ brains are attuned to their mothers’ faces.
There is considerable evidence regarding the effects of stress and trauma on the developing brains of children. It is also important to understand how stress affects parents’ brains, and how changes in neurobiology influence parenting behavior. When parents and children are attuned, emotionally close, and securely attached, the neurotransmitters oxytocin and dopamine are released in the parents’ limbic brain region, activating the pleasure and reward systems in the left hemisphere. The parent experiences calm, loving, and gratifying feelings, and can rely on the higher brain centers for emotional regulation, empathy, and self-awareness. This is the neurobiological state that brings about limbic resonance and positive parent–child relationships.
Parents of traumatized children commonly experience severe stress and conflict, due to rejection, defiance, anger, and controlling behavior from their children. Parents also have stress reactions when children trigger unresolved emotional issues from the parents’ past. The parents’ brain systems go into survival and stress response mode—“fight, flight, freeze.” They become rooted in the primitive brain regions which activate defensive and self-protective reactions, and deactivate the balanced and mature responses of the cerebral cortex. Oxytocin and dopamine, the “feel-good” biochemicals, are blocked. Cortisol and epinephrine, the anxiety-producing chemicals, are released. The result is a deficiency in warm and caring feelings toward the child, an increase in fearful and avoidant responses, and an inability to problem-solve in a composed and creative manner.
Parents must learn to identify and tone down their neurobiological stress responses. It is helpful for parents to learn how to remain calm by reducing negative self-talk, being aware of their emotional triggers, not personalizing their child’s behavior, accepting support, and practicing self-care (mind-body-spirit).
