a decade ago, Alvaro Bilbao revolutionized the way of understanding parenting with a book that helped thousands of parents look at children’s brains with new eyes. Today, the neuropsychologist and father of three returns with an updated edition of The child’s brain explained to parentsa classic of neuroeducation that continues to change life in thousands of homes.

In this interview he gives to Bodymente, The expert reflects on the advances and challenges in children’s education: the role of screensthe disappearance of physical punishment, the importance of affection, limits and the need for true family conciliation.

–It’s been 10 years since it was first published The child’s brain explained to parentsHow has education changed in the last decade?

A very significant fact: 10 years ago, most parents thought that the fact that their son or daughter swiped a tablet and played with an application was a sign that the child was very intelligent. Nowadays, I believe that, although it is still widely used, all parents are aware that leaving the phone to their young children is not the best idea and they try to do it as little as possible.

Before it was still more or less normal to see a slap on the street, now it is becoming less and less frequent. I remember that a father came to a conference in Madrid and told me that he had come because he had slapped his son in the park and another father had approached him and said: “Hey, look, I’m telling you from my heart and without judging you, but this is something that can cause trauma to your son, follow Álvaro Bilbao, he can help you.” And the guy not only followed me, but he came to a conference and told me about it.

-What happens in the child’s brain when exposed to this type of violence?

It has a technical name called tonsillar sequestration. It means that when the child feels a threat because we are yelling at him, because we are raising our hand, because we are already hitting him, his amygdala activates so much that it disconnects the circuits of what we call executive functions or the prefrontal cortex, which are what allow him to pay attention to what you are saying, reason and learn from that experience and, therefore, we are in some way hijacking his ability to start making good decisions.

In the long term, it breaks the bond between parents and children. And in cases of children who live in homes where there is abuse, it causes trauma, for example, in relation to the partner, which is felt throughout adult life.

There is a very nice study that was done with ex-combatants of the Iraq war. We might think that those whose parents had raised them with a harsher hand would be more resistant to the traumas of war and would have less post-traumatic stress because they have already lived a very hard childhood and, therefore, it should not affect them as much. However, they were the ones who had the most post-traumatic stress and were the most vulnerable. That is to say, good treatment in childhood has been widely demonstrated to help improve mental health.

-What role does physical and verbal affection play in parenting?

Being affectionate only brings good things. It makes children feel safer, more confident in expressing themselves, less afraid of authority, etc.

But sometimes we confuse affection with overprotection and kindness with permissiveness. The difficult thing is finding the balance: you don’t have to slap your child, but you don’t have to let him do whatever he wants either. You have to set limits and rules trying to make the child understand it, but the limit often has to be above the child’s understanding.

-In the book you also quote a phrase from María Montessori. What do you think, as an expert in the child’s brain, about the Montessori method?

It was totally revolutionary in its time, because it brought into focus the differences between the brains of children and the brains of adults, in their way of learning. It is a method that contributes super valuable things to pedagogy, which is integrated naturally in many schools. In Montessori schools, education is of a very high quality.

I wouldn’t tell you that it is a better education than other schools, because in scientific studies in which a Montessori school in a specific neighborhood, for example, in Los Angeles, has been compared with another non-Montessori school in the same neighborhood of Los Angeles where it is assumed that the children have the same socioeconomic level, no major differences have been found.

So, when we see differences, they may have to do with the fact that many times the children who go to this type of school are children from families with high purchasing power, who cultivate language, reading, etc. more. But that does not mean that the Montessori method is not valuable in itself, but simply that there are many more eclectic methods or current education that will achieve very positive things as well.

Each method has its strengths. Those of the Montessori method are very methodical, they give the child a lot of confidence in following their own steps, their own path, but today we have many models that do very similar things.

(You can learn more about this method through RBA’s Montessori Moberi courses. In addition, you can download the free ebook «Why Montessori?)

-Why is it so important for children to set limits?

Because we have a whole series of structures located in the frontal lobe of the brain, which have evolved evolutionarily over millions of years, to accommodate social norms. All children in the world are going to have to learn rules from their parents.

For example, in Spain we have to stop if we see a red light. If you are an Eskimo child you will have to learn that you cannot go through layers of ice that are too thin because you will fall.

And these norms imply a series of learnings from one’s own culture that are located in that cortex of the brain and are learned above all through the limits that we set at home when children are young. It is like when a child does not speak to his parents and ends up developing a language disorder.

When we do not stimulate that part of the brain with limits, explaining what is and what is not, children develop difficulties regulating and controlling themselves. And that also causes anxiety and relationship difficulties with other children.

-In the new prologue to your book you comment that men are now more involved in parenting. How does having both figures involved in parenting affect the child?

We have many studies that tell us that the more involved the father is, the more secure the child is. For example, there is a very nice study that tells us that when the father is more involved in the education of girls, they delay sexual relations more. That is, they do not advance as quickly to sexual relations with partners and tend to have a lower rate of unwanted pregnancies. In some way, having a positive relationship with the father makes girls have more self-esteem and take better care of themselves.

It is also true that when the father is more involved, jealousy problems between siblings tend to be a little less, because the child has that other attachment figure to whom he can join when he is going through that bad time because the little brother has been born. It also helps develop self-control. The studies on the importance of the father in the development of children are very beautiful.

-Another current topic is conciliation. What impact does the time we can spend with our children have on parenting?

It is very important. The time a child spends talking to an adult, the time they play, all of this influences children’s development. But unfortunately, as you say, conciliation does not allow us to spend all the hours we like. Sometimes I see posts that say that taking your child to preschool before the age of six is ​​a crime, but we cannot follow this plan because scientific studies do not say that.

Scientific studies say that, depending on your parenting style and your parenting skills, your child may even do better in preschool than at home. Young children, for example, need us to sing to them, they need to receive a lot of attention. And if you are a super involved father or mother, who likes stories, children’s songs, who is going to do many things with your child, your child will surely be better off at home than at nursery school.

But if you are a parent who is already burned out, who wants to go back to work, who is not particularly a babysitter… Well, studies say that it is better to go to daycare.

The ideal would be that we could spend our lives traveling with our children and watch movies with them every day, eat popcorn and hamburgers and everything would be fun, but real life is that we have to work and they are going to have to end up going to school and enjoying it.

What can be a mistake are parents who put their children in 20 extracurricular activities not because they need to reconcile, but because they want their child to be the best in mathematics, chess, taekwondo, violin, piano, mathematical thinking, etc. There we are indeed robbing the child of very valuable time of being with us, of learning to disconnect, of learning that there are other important things in life as well. Let them get bored, which is something that generates a lot of creativity in children and helps them make better decisions.