I recently wrote a review of Dr. Jeremy Clark and Jerusha Clark’s book, “Your Teenager is Not Crazy: Understanding Your Teen’s Brain Can Make You a Better Parent”; you can read it here. One of the things they wrote about in the book I found particularly fascinating and find myself continuing to think about.

Essentially, they explored research by neurobiologists regarding brain chemistry, relationships, and a predictable ninety second pattern to emotions. Basically, any emotion that we feel generally will rise and fall in the space of a minute and a half “if proverbial fuel isn’t added to the fire” (Kindle location 1412). What this means is that if we have a surge of joy, it will generally settle within ninety seconds, and if we have a surge of anger, it will generally calm in ninety seconds. However, what often times happens is that we have a surge of anger, fire off a retort of some sort, triggering the same surge of anger in the recipient, who reacts in kind and the cycle continues to escalate with neither side taking the time to let their emotions settle so they can approach the disagreement in a calmer fashion.

As authors of a book for parents, their advice was simple; when parents face a situation where they are angry with their adolescent … step away for two minutes, gather their thoughts, and return to the conversation when their emotions have settled. They further suggested that over time, modeling this approach to conflict would translate to parent’s children learning to adopt it as well.

I’ve always heard advice to “count to ten,” or “take a deep breath.” It’s always made sense, but something about the neurobiology of this really intrigues me. I like that they’ve actually mapped it out, it’s a measurable, predictable cycle. The way I’m wired finds that very appealing; it’s certainly something I want to get better at doing – not just with my children, but in all relationships.