Sublime

When parents are able to reliably respond to their child’s emotional and physical needs, that child is able to learn over time that what she feels can be communicated, and responded to.

instead of stopping a child from learning to do things by telling the child he/she is going to get hurt, you could help the child to be successful. Instead of telling a child to be quiet, you could listen to what the child is trying to express.

JOHN HOLT author of How Children Fail

Focus on what they want the child to accomplish. Celebrate the child’s successes and choices. See situations from the child’s perspective, as well as their own. Creatively teach the child how to communicate her wishes and frustrations with words, in an acceptable manner. Hold the child accountable to those teachings.

Outside of your awareness, their behavior is threatening to trigger your own past feelings of despair, of longing, of loneliness, jealousy, or neediness. And so you unknowingly take the easier option: rather than empathizing with what your child is feeling, you short-circuit to being angry or frustrated or panicked.

Many of us received the message as children that strong displays of emotion are unacceptable and conflicts are to be feared. Unfortunately, this perspective makes it next to impossible to stay unruffled with toddlers, who (as I explained above) need to disagree with us and feel safe expressing their strong emotions. Shifting this paradigm is one of