They call it “reactive parenting”. I think that basically means “going apeshit on your child”. How to avoid it? Well, in the past, the only tools available were mushy self-control techniques, like those on this site encouraging “quick cooling” and being a “Parent Coach, rather than a Parent Cop.”

Boring!

Now, fortunately, we’ve got Brain Science on our side. A new study in which mothers perform “frustrating tasks” with their kids, shows that reactive parenting correlates with poor Working Memory.

Working Memory is the part of short-term memory that helps you execute tasks, and apparently if yours sucks, you can’t reason that quickly, so you go postal.

What to do if you have poor Working Memory? The study was a little thin on remedies, but there is one outfit that promises to whip your flabby frontal cortex and basal ganglia into shape. And it even has a Dr. Evil-sounding name: Cogmed.

They don’t get too specific about how they exercise your brain, and the whole thing–based in Sweden–does look a little quacky. But apparently some New York shrinks are offering the Cogmed program, including the wonderfully named Rivertowns Center for Attention on the Hudson.

So next time you’re thinking of smacking your child around, call the Swedish brain people instead.