Nicole LePera

instinctual behaviors, they are changeable at any time, thankfully.

100%.

I mean, there was a belief that by letting a child deal with it or telling them that they should be dealing with it in the moment.

Yeah, just stop doing that.

Right.

That that would develop a sort of resilience, right?

This idea that, oh, I don't want a weak child.

I want a child who can make it in this very tough world.

So

Again, a very well-intentioned belief, though, until a child's nervous system is helped to settle by being seen in the emotion, not having to feel shame around the emotion, their body is not going to develop the ability to eventually do that on their own.

So what we thought was on the surface helping them develop the ability to cope was actually doing the opposite.

And I think that comes back to what we were acknowledging earlier.

A lot of times, I even notice in myself, when I feel uncomfortable, when I'm upset, especially someone that I love,

my instinct is to tell them to get over it and that they're okay because I feel so uncomfortable with how they're feeling.

We are very attuned, empathetic creatures.

We have these neurons in our brain that are quite literally making us mirror the reaction.

So when you see your child upset, even if we're not aware of it, we're having an upset experience.

And if we don't know how to cope with it, the easiest way is to avoid the discomfort by just saying you're okay.

But for a child, it not only invalidates them and not only prevents them from being able to cope,

they begin over time to distrust their own reality.