Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids

Sometimes, it’s both possible and advisable to wait and see if a child can work on and resolve a problem on their own. But other times, it’s beneficial to identify and address or help resolve a cue of threat for a child. Here are a few examples of successfully meeting a child’s safety needs:

The autonomic nervous system’s job is to automatically regulate the internal organs, such as blood vessels and sweat glands, and their functions, so that our bodies are able to maintain homeostasis.

Although the sensory signals triggering neuroception are outside our awareness, we are frequently aware of the impact of neuroception as feelings in our body

Our best parenting decisions aren’t focused simply on our child’s behaviors or thoughts but rather on our child’s body and the unique way each child continually processes, interprets, and experiences their world.

Psychological resilience is built primarily through relationships, and not through teaching children how to behave or even teaching children (especially toddlers) how to calm their bodies down on their own.

When a child is in the red, with the sympathetic nervous system in full force, the middle ear muscles shift away from distinguishing the nuances of human voices, to hearing low-frequency and predatory sounds.

Behavior shifts are often signals of a body-budget deficit and signs that the child needs emotional support, different pacing, or fewer demands to get back to the child’s appropriate challenge zone.

Feeling safe allows children to work at the top of their emerging executive functions. (Think of those things successful executives need to do to run businesses: stay focused, meet challenges, have self-discipline, and flexibly adapt to changing circumstances.)

What’s crucial isn’t understanding someone else’s guidelines but understanding how our parenting is “landing”