• Most parenting resolutions don’t stick because they rely on willpower instead of addressing underlying needs. When you’re triggered, your nervous system takes over and willpower can’t stop that.
• Intentional parenting means choosing how you respond instead of reacting on autopilot. You figure out what needs drive your and your kids’ behavior, then set up your day so everyone’s needs get met.
• Realistic resolutions start with tracking what sets you off and which needs aren’t getting met – not promising you’ll yell less.
• Positive parenting strategies: identify the need before you react, solve problems together with your child, and change your environment so you’re not relying on willpower when you’re stressed.
• Goals of parenting: understand and meet multiple people’s needs.  When we teach obedience, kids don’t learn how to truly collaborate.
• Repair time matters more than perfection. When you mess up, say what happened, own your part, and reconnect with your child.
• Getting support helps. You need other parents who get it, research-based guidance, and ways to understand what’s happening when things go sideways.

Most parenting resolutions fail by February.

You know the ones: “I’ll stop yelling at my kids.” “We’ll have peaceful mornings.” “I’ll be more patient.”

We set these goals with the best intentions. But by the end of January, we’re back to the same struggles – and maybe feeling even worse about ourselves because we “failed” again.

Most parenting resolutions rely on willpower. And willpower runs out fast when you’re exhausted, triggered, and your child refuses to put on shoes for the tenth time.

Instead of making resolutions based on behavior change, let’s focus on intentional parenting – understanding what needs aren’t getting met (ours AND our children’s) and building systems that support everyone, including you.

Why Your Parenting Resolutions Keep Failing

Think about the last parenting resolution you made. Maybe it was “I’ll stop yelling” or “I’ll be more patient with my kids.”

These resolutions focus on stopping a behavior without understanding what drives it. When your body is flooded with stress hormones and your child is having a meltdown in the grocery store, no amount of willpower will help you stay calm.

When we experience something that reminds us – even unconsciously – of difficult experiences from our own childhood, our bodies respond. Our heart rate increases. Our blood pressure jumps. The part of our brain responsible for speech can actually shut down.

The traumatic events we experienced in our lives show up in our bodies. And when we’re triggered, we yell, run away, leave emotionally, do anything to get them to stop the tantrum, or freeze (depending on what was the most effective strategy for us as we interacted with our caregivers when we were little).

Your upbringing shapes how you parent today. The ways your parents used power over you becomes the template for how you use power over your own children.  

If you would have been punished for having a meltdown, when your kids have a meltdown you probably feel an intense tension.  The part of you that wants your kids to be able to feel their feelings gets overwhelmed by the part of you that remembers being punished for feeling your feelings.  

Because the punished part has been with you for much longer, in stressful moments it usually wins – and you yell.

Willpower-based resolutions ignore all of this. They assume that if you tried harder, you’d be able to make the change you want to see. But trying harder doesn’t address your underlying needs that aren’t getting met, or the triggers from your past that set you off.

That’s why these resolutions fail.  But that doesn’t mean you can’t change how you interact with your kids.

What Is Intentional Parenting?

Intentional parenting means making conscious choices about how you interact with your child, based on your values.

It’s the opposite of reactive parenting – where you’re constantly putting out fires, saying “no” without thinking about why; just surviving each day.

When you parent with intention, you:

• Understand what needs drive both your behavior and your child’s behavior
• Make choices aligned with your values instead of just following what your parents did or what society says you “should” do
• Build systems that support everyone instead of relying on willpower in the moment
• See your child’s resistance as information rather than defiance

Parenting with purpose takes this a step further. It means knowing WHY you’re making the choices you make. What do you want for your children as they grow up? What qualities do you want to nurture? How do you want them to remember their childhood?

Your answers to these questions shape hundreds of small decisions you make every day.

Do you force your child to hug Grandma, or do you respect their bodily autonomy? 

Do you make them finish everything on their plate, or do you trust them to know when they’re full? 

Do you get frustrated when they don’t ‘listen,’ or do you find ways to meet both of your needs?

Each of these interactions teaches your child something – not just about the specific situation, but about:

• How people with power should treat people with less power. 
• Whether they can trust their own judgment.
• Whether their feelings and needs matter. 

Intentional parenting recognizes that children don’t just learn WHAT we teach them. They learn HOW we teach them. 

If we use shame and control to get compliance, that’s what they learn to do with their own power someday – in their relationships with their own kids, and with others in their lives as well.

What Are the Goals of Parenting? A Needs-Based Perspective

Ask most parents what their goals are, and you’ll hear things like: “I want my child to be successful.” “I want them to be happy.” 

And, in the short term: “I want them to listen” (by which we often mean “do what I tell them to do”).

Our parents basically had these goals too.  They wanted the best for us.  And they were surviving every day the best they could with the trauma they were carrying and the tools they had available to them.

Parenting with these goals created a lot of pain for us, because our parents tried to shape our behavior.

They might have rewarded us for fitting in with gender norms; for doing well in school; for ‘listening,’ and punished us when we didn’t do those things.

Or maybe they didn’t even have to reward us – because we understood it was safest if we didn’t even have needs, and took care of everyone else instead.

Many of the parents work with have spent so many decades suppressing their needs that they don’t even know how to identify them.

Needs drive all of our behavior – ours; our kids’; everyone.  

When we understand and meet our own needs, we feel content; at peace.

When we understand and meet our kids’ needs, they feel content and at peace, and our relationship is strong.  They know our love for them isn’t dependent on them producing certain behaviors.  They’re more willing to collaborate with us to help us meet our needs as well.

This is the foundation for everything you want for your child.  Your child can’t be happy if they don’t understand their own needs.  They can’t be in nourishing, fulfilling relationships with others if they don’t know how to meet multiple people’s needs.  

When you understand these deeper goals, suddenly those daily battles look different. Instead of asking “How do I make my child brush their teeth?”, you start asking “How do I support my child in developing healthy habits while respecting their autonomy and maintaining our connection?”.

How to Pick a Realistic Resolution: Parenting Goals Examples That Work

Click here to download the How to Pick Realistic Resolution: Parenting Goals Examples That Work

So if “I’ll stop yelling” doesn’t work, what does?

The key is moving from willpower to understanding patterns. Instead of resolving to be different, start by noticing when struggles happen and what needs aren’t getting met.

Here’s how this looks in practice:

Parent Goals Example 1: The Morning Battles

Typical Resolution: “We’ll have peaceful mornings”

Why it fails: Too vague, no plan for what creates the chaos

The Intentional Approach:

• Map the morning pattern: What derails you? (finding clothes, making breakfast, finding shoes)
• Your needs: perhaps ease, consistency, order
• Your child’s needs: maybe autonomy, competence, play
• Experiment: Talk with your child about what makes mornings hard for them. Maybe there are too many choices, or they feel rushed, or they’re feeling anxious about school.  When you address the challenges underlying their behavior, they stop resisting.

How to know it’s working: You’re leaving on time more days than not, with less conflict

Parent Goals Example 2: The Bedtime Standoff

Typical Resolution: “My child will go to bed without a fight”

Why it fails: Focuses on your child’s behavior, not the system

The Intentional Approach:

• Notice the pattern: Does your child stall? Ask for things? Get a second wind?
• Your needs: rest, ease, calm
• Your child’s needs: connection, autonomy, comfort
• Experiment: Start bedtime routine 20 minutes earlier, ask them what routine they prefer (“pajamas or teeth first?”), add 10 minutes of Special Time right before bed

How to know it’s working: Bedtime takes less time overall and involves less arguing

Parent Goals Example 3: The Sibling Fighting

Typical Resolution: “My kids will stop fighting with each other”

Why it fails: Siblings will always have conflicts – it’s how they learn

The Intentional Approach:

• Notice when fights happen most (tired? hungry? competing for your attention?)
• Your needs: peace, harmony, competence
• Each child’s needs: belonging, respect, autonomy, connection with you
• Experiment: Schedule one-on-one time with each child, teach them problem-solving tools when they’re calm, step back from minor conflicts

How to know it’s working: They’re solving some conflicts themselves, fights are shorter, and you’re less reactive

Parent Goals Example 4: The Screen Time Struggle

Typical Resolution: “We’ll limit screen time to one hour a day”

Why it fails: Creates power struggles without addressing why screens are appealing

The Intentional Approach:

• Notice the pattern: When do screens become a battle? (transitions? boredom? your need for a break?)
• Your needs: ease, support, safety of children
• Your child’s needs: autonomy, fun, connection
• Experiment: Problem-solve WITH your child about screen time – what do they get from screens that they’re not getting elsewhere? Collaborate on screen time agreements, and acknowledge that sometimes you allow screens so you can rest

How to know it’s working: Less arguing about screens, your child transitions off devices more smoothly

Notice how each example starts with observation instead of judgment because you’re trying to understand what’s happening before experimenting with small changes.

Some experiments will work, others won’t. That’s the point. You’re building collaborative parenting skills and connection-based parenting practices that grow with your family.

Parent Goals Example 5: The Yelling Struggle

Note: This example is last in the list because you will already feel less stressed if you use the other ideas first.  This one is for the times when something comes up that you didn’t anticipate, and you feel dysregulated.

Typical Resolution: “I’ll stop yelling at my kids”

Why it fails: Focuses on willpower when you’re already stressed

The Intentional Approach:

• Notice when yelling happens most (mornings? after work? bedtime?)
• Identify your unmet needs (maybe: ease, order, rest)
• Identify your child’s unmet needs (maybe: autonomy, play, connection)
• Experiment: What if you kept a soft piece of fabric in your pocket to touch when you feel yourself getting frustrated? What if you took three deep breaths before responding? What if you said out loud “I’m feeling really frustrated right now” instead of yelling?

How to know it’s working: You might still raise your voice occasionally, but you’re yelling less often and recovering faster

What Are Positive Parenting Strategies That Support Your Goals?

Once you understand your goals and the needs driving everyone’s behavior, you need strategies to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be.

Here are five key strategies:

Positive parenting strategies that support your goals #1: Identify needs before reacting

The next time your child does something that makes you want to yell, pause for just three seconds. Ask yourself: “What need is my child trying to meet right now?”

Maybe they’re dumping water on the floor because they need to experiment and learn. Maybe they’re hitting their sibling because they need your attention and don’t know how else to get it. Maybe they’re refusing to get dressed because they need autonomy.

Your reaction will be completely different when you see the need instead of just the behavior.

Positive parenting strategies that support your goals #2: Problem-solve WITH your child

Instead of declaring what will happen, invite your child into the conversation: “We’re having trouble getting out the door on time in the mornings. I’ve noticed you often can’t find your shoes. What ideas do you have?”

Even young children can contribute solutions. And when they help create the plan, they’re much more likely to follow it. Research shows that supporting children’s autonomy – rather than controlling them – leads to better adjustment and internalization of values.

Positive parenting strategies that support your goals #3: Create systems (not willpower)

Willpower fails, but systems succeed.

Instead of resolving to be more patient, create a system: “When I feel myself getting frustrated, I’ll touch the soft piece of fabric I keep in my pocket to bring myself back to the present moment.”

Instead of resolving to have better mornings, create a system: “We’ll lay out clothes and pack bags the night before.”

Systems remove the need for decision-making in the moment when you’re already stressed.

Positive parenting strategies that support your goals #4: Build in repair time

You will mess up. You’ll yell when you don’t want to. You’ll be harsh when you mean to be gentle. You’ll prioritize getting out the door over connection.

What matters is what you do next.

Repair doesn’t mean apologizing and moving on. It means acknowledging what happened, taking responsibility, and reconnecting: “I yelled at you this morning when you couldn’t find your shoes. That wasn’t okay. I was worried about being late, but that’s not your problem to manage. I’m sorry. Can we talk about how to make mornings easier for both of us?”

This teaches your child that relationships can survive conflict. That mistakes don’t define you. That repair is always possible.

Positive parenting strategies that support your goals #5: Get support

Parents in the Parenting Membership often talk about how much changed when they stopped trying to do this work alone.

One parent, Jenny, spent four years exhausted because she was prioritizing everyone else’s sleep above her own – her son’s sleep, her husband’s sleep because he was “the breadwinner.” When she joined the membership, she realized the best sleep solution is the one that gets YOU the most sleep. She started going to bed at 8pm with her son. She felt a bit sheepish at first, but getting decent sleep for the first time in years changed everything.

Parenting is hard. Changing patterns that have been passed down through generations is even harder. Staying calm when you’re triggered takes practice and support.

You need people who share your values. People who will remind you why this matters when you’re exhausted. People who will help you break down big overwhelming goals into steps you can actually take this week.

Getting Support for Your Intentional Parenting Goals

These strategies work better when you have support. Doing this alone is hard.

Here’s what changes when you have the right support:

You stop spending hours googling solutions at midnight and instead get clear guidance based on research and real parent experiences. You stop second-guessing every decision because you have a framework for understanding what’s happening. You stop feeling disconnected because you’re in community with parents who share your values.

The Parenting Membership gives you:

• Tools for identifying needs – so you can understand what’s really happening in difficult moments
• Coaching on your real situations – not generic advice, but specific help with your actual family
• A community of parents doing this work – who will celebrate your wins and support you through the hard parts
• Resources for specific struggles – whether it’s bedtime, sibling fights, parenting disagreements or something else entirely

Click the banner to learn more about the Parenting Membership.

Final Thoughts

Most parents don’t set out to yell at their kids or have daily battles over shoes. But without intentional planning, we fall back on the patterns we learned from our own parents – even when those patterns don’t match our values.

The New Year is a chance to try something different. Not another willpower-based resolution that will fail by February. But a shift toward understanding needs, building systems, and getting support.

Small experiments over big promises. Progress over perfection. Connection over control.

Links to products on Amazon are affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission that does not affect the price you pay.

Frequently Asked Questions About Parenting Goals & Resolutions

1. What is intentional parenting?

Intentional parenting means making conscious choices about how you interact with your child based on your values rather than just reacting in the moment. When you parent with intention, you understand what needs drive both your behavior and your child’s behavior. You make choices aligned with your values instead of following what your parents did or what society says you should do. You build systems that support everyone instead of relying on willpower when you’re already stressed.

2. What are the goals of parenting?

The goals of parenting should focus on helping children develop three key capacities: autonomy (the ability to make good decisions for themselves), connection (strong relationships where they are accepted and supported), and competence (confidence in their ability to handle challenges). When you focus only on parent-centered goals like obedience, children comply when you’re watching but don’t develop internal motivation to do the right thing when no one’s around.

3. What does parenting with purpose mean?

Parenting with purpose means knowing WHY you’re making the choices you make. What do you want for your children as they grow up? What qualities do you want to nurture? How do you want them to remember their childhood? Your answers shape hundreds of small daily decisions. Each choice teaches your child something about how people with power should treat people without power, whether their feelings matter, and whether they can trust their own judgment.

4. How to pick a realistic resolution?

Pick a realistic resolution by moving from willpower to understanding patterns. Instead of resolving to be different, start by noticing when struggles happen and what needs aren’t getting met. Map the pattern (when does the struggle happen?), identify your unmet needs and your child’s unmet needs, then experiment with small changes. You’ll know it’s working when you see progress, even if things aren’t perfect.

5. What are positive parenting strategies?

Positive parenting strategies include identifying needs before reacting (asking “What need is my child trying to meet right now?”), problem-solving with your child instead of declaring what will happen, and creating systems instead of relying on willpower. Other collaborative parenting strategies include building in repair time when you mess up and getting support from people who share your values. These approaches support respectful parenting by addressing everyone’s needs.

6. What are smart goals for parenting?

Smart parenting goals focus on understanding patterns rather than forcing behavior change. Instead of “I’ll stop yelling,” try “I’ll notice when yelling happens most and identify what needs aren’t getting met.” Instead of “peaceful mornings,” try “We’ll experiment with laying out clothes the night before and starting our routine 20 minutes earlier.” Good parenting goals examples focus on systems and understanding instead on willpower.

7. Why do parenting resolutions fail?

Parenting resolutions fail because they rely on willpower. When your body is flooded with stress hormones and your child is having a meltdown, no amount of willpower helps you stay calm. The traumatic events you experienced in your life show up in your body. When you’re triggered, you go into fight or flight mode. Willpower-based resolutions ignore this and assume you just need to try harder, without addressing underlying needs.

8. What are needs-based parenting goals examples?

For morning battles, identify your needs (ease, consistency, order) and your child’s needs (autonomy, competence, play), then problem-solve together about what makes mornings hard. For yelling struggles, notice when it happens most and experiment with keeping soft fabric in your pocket to touch when frustrated. For bedtime standoffs, add 10 minutes of connection time and let your child choose the routine order. These parenting goals examples address real needs instead of forcing compliance.

References

Conger, R. D., Belsky, J., & Capaldi, D. M. (2009). The intergenerational transmission of parenting: Closing comments for the special section. Developmental Psychology, 45(5), 1276–1283. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016911

Duncan, L. G., Coatsworth, J. D., & Greenberg, M. T. (2009). A model of mindful parenting: implications for parent-child relationships and prevention research. Clinical child and family psychology review, 12(3), 255–270. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-009-0046-3 

Horvath, C. A., & Lee, C. M. (2015). Parenting Responses and Parenting Goals of Mothers and Fathers of Adolescents. Marriage & Family Review, 51(4), 337–355. https://doi.org/10.1080/01494929.2014.955938 

Joussemet, M., Landry, R., & Koestner, R. (2008). A self-determination theory perspective on parenting. Canadian Psychology / Psychologie canadienne, 49(3), 194–200. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012754

Kochanska, Grazyna & Thompson, Ross. (1997). The emergence and development of conscience in toddlerhood and early childhood. Parenting and children’s internalization of values: A handbook of contemporary theory. 

Lumanlan, J. (2025, October 19). I Don’t Enjoy Playing With My Kid: Why It Happens & What To Do. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/parenting-guilt-playing-with-kids

Lumanlan, J. (2025, May 7). How to Foster Positive Sibling Relationships. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/foster-positive-sibling-relationships 

Lumanlan, J. (2024, April 28). How to raise a child who doesn’t experience shame. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/noshame/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2023, August 16). The connection between social challenges and power. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/socialchallenges/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2023, April 30). What I wish I’d known about parenting. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/whatiwishidknown/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2022, September 25). Healing and Helping with Mutual Aid. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/mutualaid/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2021, July 25). The Body Keeps The Score with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/thebodykeepsthescore/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2021, February 7). The physical reasons you yell at your kids. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/yelling/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2018, November 26). You have parenting goals; do you know what they are?. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/goals/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2017, January 8). How do I get my child to do what I want them to do?. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/compliance/ 

Lumanlan, J. (n.d). The Anxious Generation Resources. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/theanxiousgeneration 

Robichaud, J. M., Mageau, G. A., Kil, H., McLaughlin, C., Comeau, N., & Schumann, K. (2025). Parental apologies as a potential determinant of adolescents’ basic psychological needs satisfaction and frustration. Journal of experimental child psychology, 254, 106204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106204 

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1. Why do Halloween candy rules cause fights between parents and kids? Kids want autonomy over decisions that seem important to them, indulgence in delicious treats, and belonging with their friends. But parents worry about children’s health, which can create conflicts.
2. Is sugar actually addictive for children? Research shows kids prefer sweetness more than adults. But restriction often creates obsession rather than true addiction.
3. What really happens when kids eat too much candy? Most effects are mild (constipation, moderate energy spikes) rather than the extreme hyperactivity parents often fear.
4. How can I tell if my candy rules aren’t working? Watch for sneaking behavior, constant negotiation, obsessive focus on rules, or binge eating at parties.
5. What works more effectively than strict candy limits? Work together with kids using a collaborative approach. Start with understanding needs, create agreements you both actually agree to, plan scenarios, and adjust.
6. Should I allow candy every day during Halloween season? Focus on reducing restriction feelings and building autonomy rather than perfect dietary compliance.
7. How do I build a healthy long-term relationship with treats? Prioritize trust and shared decision-making over control.  

The Healthy Approach to Halloween Candy: Four Steps to Halloween Candy Agreements That Stick

This research-backed four-step process that supports your child in understanding their own bodies and developing internal decision-making skills around treats. Read on for the science that supports this method and step-by-step implementation details.

Click here to download the 4 Steps to Halloween Candy Rules That Actually Work

How Most Halloween Candy Rules Miss the Point

Why does Halloween turn even the most confident parent into someone making deals with a tiny sugar-loving boss?

Every October, parents suddenly find themselves fighting with their kids about candy rules. While parents worry about Halloween candy hurting their kids’ health, the real problem isn’t what happens when you eat too much candy. It’s the fights that rip through families faster than kids can open Fun Size Snickers.

This challenge gets right to the heart of parenting. We worry about what too much sugar does to our kids’ bodies while our kids only see us being ‘mean’ and ‘unfair.’ We want to keep them safe, but our rules often blow up in our faces and create sneaking behavior – or at the very least, a lot of arguments.  

Halloween originated as a festival to mark the end of summer and start of winter; the transition between the living and the dead.  We’ve changed it to focus much more on decorations and candy.  When you think about it, celebrating a holiday so focused on candy and then denying our kids access to this candy must be pretty confusing for them!

Moving beyond these yearly battles requires understanding why traditional Halloween candy rules fail. We can learn from my conversations with Dr. Michael Goran, co-author of Sugarproof, sociologist Dr. Karen Throsby who studies sugar’s social meanings, and parent Rose navigating daily candy battles with her child. Together, we can find a way that respects both our kids’ right to make choices and our job as parents.

Why Halloween Candy Rules Create Such Big Problems

Halloween candy fights happen when parents and kids have different underlying needs. When we understand what everyone really needs, we can find ways that work for the whole family.

Children often have a need for autonomy – they want some control over their own choices. They find candy delicious, and want to indulge in treats they enjoy.  They also have a need for belonging and inclusion, especially when they see friends freely enjoying – and maybe even trading – Halloween treats. 

Parents usually need competence in taking care of their kids’ health and wellbeing. We need a sense of safety and competence about our kids’ future relationship with food.  We also don’t want endless fights with our kids!  We have needs for ease and harmony.

Many parents also have a deep need to feel competent as caregivers – to know we’re supporting our children’s wellbeing in ways that align with our values. When we worry about candy, we’re often experiencing fear that something harmful might happen if we don’t step in. This fear can drive us toward trying to control the situation, but what we’re really seeking is confidence that our children will be okay and that family life can flow with more ease.

Conflicts intensify because Halloween candy carries deep cultural meaning beyond nutrition. As Dr. Throsby explains, sugar is tied up with fun, love, celebrating, and eating with other people. When we create rigid rules around Halloween candy, we’re inadvertently asking children to separate the treat from the social connection and celebration it has come to represent.

The traditional approach – where parents make the rules, while kids are expected to follow them – doesn’t meet anyone’s needs well. Kids’ needs for autonomy and inclusion stay unmet, while parents’ needs for ease harmony in the house also don’t get fulfilled.

Can Sugar Be Addictive?

A lot of our worry about Halloween candy comes from hearing that sugar is addictive. Dr. Throsby studies how people talk about sugar in news stories and health messages. She says that when we call sugar “addictive”, it makes us panic and think we need to do something right away, but it doesn’t actually fix the real problems.

When parents hear that sugar might be addictive, it can trigger our need for competence as caregivers. We want to feel confident that we’re protecting our children from potential harm. This fear of ‘getting it wrong’ can drive us toward rigid control, but what we’re really seeking is the ease that comes from knowing our approach supports both our child’s wellbeing and our family’s harmony.

Dr. Michael Goran studies how much sugar kids eat. His research shows that kids do like sweet things more than grown-ups do. And that built-in preference gets amped up even higher with exposure to sweet foods. But this doesn’t make sugar addictive like drugs or alcohol.

The bigger problem is that when we don’t let kids have something, they usually want it even more. When we control something children enjoy, we might make it seem more special and exciting. This can lead to kids thinking about sugar all the time, and if they know they’re not allowed to have it, they may start sneaking food.

Rose, a parent who shared her story on the Your Parenting Mojo podcast, experienced this firsthand. Despite following expert advice about limiting sweets, she noticed that her daughter had begun hiding sugary food to eat it when her parents weren’t around. The very rules designed to create a healthy relationship with sugar were undermining that goal.

What Happens If You Eat Too Much Candy

Understanding what happens when kids eat a lot of sugar can help us to approach this topic in a way that’s aligned with our values.

Dr. Goran explains that fructose is a big part of many candies. When kids eat it, their liver turns it into fat through a process that causes swelling in the body. This sounds scary, but what parents actually see is often not as bad as they expect.

Real symptoms parents notice include constipation instead of the extreme behavior changes we’re often told about. Sugar can give kids a quick burst of energy, then crash and become hungry and want more sugar. But this isn’t the same as the wild hyperactivity many parents worry about.

We might also worry that kids won’t eat enough nutritious food if they’re eating so much candy.  My own daughter has noticed a paradox in how my husband talks to her about candy: if she asks for it before dinner, he says: “Don’t eat candy before dinner, or you’ll be full and won’t eat your meal.”  But if she asks for candy at dinner time, he says: “Candy isn’t real food; it won’t fill you up!”  Getting clear in our own minds about what we believe can help us to give our kids more consistent messaging.

Signs Your Halloween Candy Rules Aren’t Working

Several red flags indicate that your Halloween candy approach might be creating more problems than it solves:

• Sneaking and hiding behavior suggests your child’s access to candy is overly restricted. When children go hide and eat things, they’re telling us the rules are too hard to follow the way we set them up.
• Constant negotiation around treats creates ongoing stress for everyone. If you’re hearing “Are we having cookies tonight?” followed by tears and upset no matter what you say, the system isn’t working for anyone.
• A heavy focus on candy rules can prevent children from enjoying Halloween activities. When kids worry so much about candy rules that they can’t enjoy other parts of the holiday, our rules are making things worse.
• Going overboard at parties or events might mean the rules at home are too strict. Rose talked about her daughter sitting for two and a half hours eating cookies at a party while other kids played. This showed that the child thought she had to eat as much as possible whenever she got the chance.

If you recognize these patterns in your family, it’s because the restrictive approach that many of us learned about candy isn’t working for us.   Here’s a way to create a new relationship with candy for your child.

4 Steps to the Problem-Solving Approach to Halloween Candy Rules

Instead of imposing rules, consider involving your child in creating a Halloween candy plan that works for your family. This approach acknowledges that sustainable solutions need buy-in from everyone affected.

Problem-solving approach to Halloween candy rules #1: Understand everyone’s feelings and needs

When conflicts arise around Halloween candy, both parents and children are typically experiencing real feelings that point to important underlying needs. Taking time to understand these can transform your approach.

Your child might be experiencing frustration when they want autonomy over their treats. Or sadness when they see friends participating freely in Halloween traditions like trading that they can’t be a part of (because they don’t have candy) – they want to belong in their friend group.

You might feel worried about your child’s health and eating, or overwhelmed by regular arguments about food. Your underlying needs might include competence as a parent – feeling confident that you’re supporting your child’s wellbeing – and ease in your daily family life. When we feel uncertain about how to handle candy, we might try to control the situation because we fear something bad will happen if we don’t. But often what we’re really seeking is the confidence that comes from knowing our approach aligns with our values and supports our child’s long-term relationship with food.

And of course, this emotional work often gets dumped on mothers. Dr. Throsby’s research shows that food decisions become “women’s work,” and our performance as mothers is judged by what our kids eat, as well as their body shape and size.

When you can identify the specific feelings and needs involved, you move beyond the surface-level battle of “I want candy” versus “No more candy”. Instead, you can explore creative strategies that address everyone’s underlying needs.

If you’d like help identifying specific feelings and needs in your family’s candy conflicts, you can reference this feelings list and needs list to get more precise about what’s really driving the struggle.

Problem-solving approach to Halloween candy rules #2: Work together to create agreements

Instead of having predetermined Halloween candy rules, shift into a collaborative approach. Invite your child to share their perspective and ideas. This process has two parts: exploring possibilities and then committing to specific agreements.

Start by exploring possibilities together

Invite your child to share their perspective and ideas. Start with open-ended questions that invite creativity. Ask questions like:

“How much candy do you think would work well for our family?”

“When would be good times to enjoy treats?” 

“What would make this fair for everyone?”

“How could we make sure you still eat your meals, and don’t feel so amped-up you can’t go to sleep?” 

These kinds of questions position you as partners working toward shared solutions.

Listen for the needs behind your child’s initial suggestions. If they say “I want unlimited candy”, you might hear their need for autonomy and inclusion. You can acknowledge those needs while exploring strategies that also meet your needs. You may say: “You want to be able to make choices about your treats and not miss out when friends are having fun. I want to make sure your body gets the nutrition it needs to feel good. Let’s think about ways to honor both of those things.”

Then create concrete agreements

Once you understand each other’s perspectives, work toward concrete agreements. These might include:

• How many pieces of candy per day seems reasonable to both of you
• Whether candy comes before or after meals
• How to handle special occasions or parties
• What happens to the candy stash over time
• How to navigate peer situations where other kids have different rules

The key is that these agreements emerge from your conversation rather than being imposed unilaterally. Your child is more likely to follow agreements they helped create.

A collaborative agreement might sound like: “I want one sweet daily, but I also want to join friends at the ice cream truck. What if I save my daily sweet for those times, or what if we agree on flexible amounts for social situations?”

If your family is new to collaborative problem-solving, start practicing on less emotionally charged issues before tackling Halloween candy, like a request for ice cream or candy on a day before Halloween.

Success in smaller negotiations builds skills and trust for more challenging conversations. Your child learns that their input matter to you. And that you’re genuinely interested in finding solutions that work for everyone.

It’s very important that you don’t go into the conversation with a fixed idea of a single outcome that will work for you (“One piece of candy per day or nothing!”).  Your child will sense this inflexibility and will likely refuse to engage.

If you’re new to collaborative problem solving and your child won’t participate, you might say something like: “Last year I made the rules and you didn’t like them.  I really think we can find a way to meet both of our needs, and I’m willing to try to do it if you’re willing to participate.  If we can’t talk about it then I’ll make the rules again like I did last year, and they might not work for you.  I’d prefer not to do that, though, if we can avoid it.”  

Your tone of voice can be the difference between making this a threat and an invitation to collaborate, so you might want to practice this in your head before you say it out loud to your kids.

Problem-solving approach to Halloween candy rules #3: Plan for the unexpected

Halloween rarely goes exactly as planned. Discuss scenarios together:

• What if you get way more candy than expected?
• What if someone offers candy when you’ve already had your agreed amount?
• What if a friend wants to trade or share?
• What if you’re at a party with different rules?

Having these conversations beforehand helps everyone be prepared and reduces in-the-moment conflicts.

For example, your child might suggest “I can have extra candy at parties”. You might agree while adding “and could we pause candy the next day to balance it out?”  You might find your child is willing to come toward you on the day after the party when you come toward them on the party day itself.

Problem-solving approach to Halloween candy rules #4: Adjust and experiment

People’s needs change, so even perfect collaborative agreements will evolve over time. If you see your child hiding candy or always asking to change the rules, you might want to try something different.

Dr. Goran suggests approaching this as a family experiment. You can see for yourself and record the changes in how your child relates to sweets under different conditions.

During these experiments, help children connect their food choices to how their bodies respond. Comments like “You had the ice cream, and you didn’t become hungry at dinnertime, right? But now you’re super hungry again” help kids develop their own internal awareness rather than relying solely on external rules.

You may also decide to keep a journal for a period of time, recording what your child eats and what else is going on in their lives.  Many parents uncover that the bedtime meltdown is less about candy and more about waking up early that morning, or challenges at preschool/school.

When children do overeat, address the underlying feelings rather than just the behavior. If your child wonders why does everyone else get all of this stuff and they don’t, that sense of unfairness needs attention alongside any conversations about moderation.

Help kids understand how their bodies respond to sugar, which may change over time.  When my daughter was two, a lollipop given by a kind server at a restaurant led to an hour of running around.  Now she’s 11, that same lollipop no longer has the same effect on her.

Long-Term Halloween Candy Health Strategy

When thinking about Halloween candy health over time, sustainable approaches focus on overall nutrition patterns rather than micromanaging individual treats. Dr. Goran emphasizes reducing sugar, increasing fiber, increasing protein, and increasing more fruits and vegetables as general principles. This supports health without creating food anxiety.

One really useful tool that Dr. Goran introduced me to is to offer another food with candy. This can look like:

Child: “Can I have a lollipop?”

Parent: “Yes, although I’m a bit worried you’ll suddenly have a lot of energy and then you’ll crash afterward.  Would you like to have some yogurt with it, so you get some protein as well?”

Remember that learning to have a positive, nourishing relationship with food is a lifetime journey for many of us. It will change as you and your child learn together. Halloween is just one part of a much bigger conversation about how your family thinks about food and celebrating.

The goal is helping kids learn what they like and how to make their own choices instead of having parents control everything forever. This means accepting that kids will make mistakes. This also includes Halloween nights when they might eat more candy than you want them to.

Making Peace with Halloween Candy

Is It OK to Eat Candy Every Day? A Realistic Answer

World Health Organization recommendations about sugar focus mainly on dental caries rather than dramatic health effects. This suggests that moderate candy consumption isn’t the emergency we sometimes imagine.

Parent Rose tried allowing “one sweet thing a day” and found it initially helped. But it created new problems when opportunities arose for additional treats. The real question isn’t whether daily candy is “okay” but whether your approach is creating restriction and obsession.

Sometimes it’s better to have more but less frequently. Especially if that approach reduces conflict and sneaking while maintaining overall nutrition goals.

Building a Healthy Relationship with Halloween Treats

Dr. Throsby reminds us that we get a lot of pleasure from eating, – not just via taste, but socially as well.  We may struggle with children’s candy intake at Halloween because we see so much enjoyment and indulgence in our kids – but we’ve been continually warned about the ‘dangers’ of eating too much and of eating the ‘wrong’ kinds of food.  

It can help to separate out our own feelings about our children’s body shape and size from theirs.  

If we choose to celebrate Halloween, we probably hope it will be enjoyable rather than anxiety-provoking. Creating positive associations with celebration and food serves children’s long-term wellbeing.

The path forward is in the direction of autonomy over decision making rather than external control. This means helping children develop internal tools for making food decisions.

We want to raise kids who can make good choices while still enjoying parties and eating with friends.

Final Thoughts

Successful Halloween candy rules prioritize relationships and trust over perfect compliance. This year, try talking with your child about Halloween candy rules before the big day. Ask your child what they think would be fair, what they worry about, and what they want from Halloween.

Giving up some control over what your kids eat may ultimately help you to meet your broader goals for your children’s long-term health and balanced relationship with food.   

Remember that your need for competence as a parent is valid. You want to feel confident that your approach supports your child’s wellbeing. The collaborative method honors this need while also meeting your need for ease in daily family life – reducing the exhausting negotiations that rigid rules often create.

Most importantly, remember that this is not going to be something that gets fixed in one problem-solving conversation. Be patient. Your child is learning. You are learning too as you deal with these hard situations.

This Halloween, don’t just try to limit how much candy your child eats. Think about how your approach affects your child’s relationship with food. Think about their independence. Think about whether they trust you. The goal is to raise kids who can make good choices. We also want them to enjoy the celebrations that make childhood special.

Note: Links to Amazon are affiliate links.

Turn Daily Power Struggles Into Collaboration

Do your Halloween candy battles also show up as arguments about bedtime, screen time, chores, and every other rule your child pushes back on? You’ve tried everything – rewards, consequences, pleading, getting tough – but the same patterns keep repeating.

You already see how collaboration works better than control. Now learn how to create that calm partnership on every topic where your child tests limits.

The Setting Loving (& Effective) Limits workshop gives you the exact tools to make this shift. You’ll learn how to move from constant struggles and nagging to genuine partnership with your child – without bribes, threats, or giving in.

Sign up for the workshop today!

Frequently Asked Questions About Halloween Candy

1. Why is Halloween candy so addictive?

Research shows kids do like sweet things more than grown-ups – and that built-in preference gets amped up even higher with exposure to sweet foods. However, calling sugar “addictive” creates urgency that isn’t really backed by research. The real issue is that restriction often creates obsession and sneaking behaviors.

2. What happens if you eat too much candy in one day?

The effects are usually milder than parents expect. Dr. Michael Goran’s research shows fructose gets processed by the liver and can cause inflammation. But observable symptoms typically include constipation and energy spikes followed by crashes. Controlled studies often find that these energy spikes are much lower than parents might imagine (in one study, researchers had to create a new category of movement to distinguish between baseline and slightly above baseline when kids ate a sugary breakfast).

3. How much is too much Halloween candy?

Instead of focusing on exact amounts, watch for signs your approach isn’t working. This may include sneaking and hiding candy, constant arguments about treats, or going overboard at parties. These red flags show your restrictions may be creating the problems you’re trying to avoid.

4. Should I let my kids eat all their Halloween candy?

Most children benefit when we focus more on their relationship with food than the specifics of what they’re eating.  You may find that allowing more freedom reduces your child’s sense of ‘not enough-ness’ as well as fights over food, which keeps interactions around food more positive.  Overall, we’re trying to help kids navigate their own food intake rather than controlling it ourselves.

5. How to limit kids’ Halloween candy?

Use collaborative problem-solving instead of imposing strict rules. Understand everyone’s needs. Generate solutions together and create specific agreements your child helps make. Plan for unexpected scenarios, and adjust as needed. Children are more likely to follow agreements they helped create.

6. What are the signs of too much sugar in your body?

Help children connect food choices to how they feel: “You had ice cream and didn’t want dinner, but now you’re hungry again.” Explain sugar’s effects without shame: “This gives you energy fast, then it wears off.” This builds internal awareness rather than reliance on external rules.

7. How to get rid of excess Halloween candy?

You might feel tempted to just throw excess candy away, but this may undermine trust in your relationship with your child.  They may also think it’s unfair because their friends get candy and they don’t.  When we create scarcity around highly palatable foods like candy, kids may respond by wanting it more.  Restricting their access to candy when they’re young may not necessarily lead to the healthy eating habits you want to instill.  You may find that kids eat a wider variety of foods when we back off from controlling what’s available to them.

8. Is Halloween candy healthy?

Halloween candy isn’t nutritious, but the social and emotional aspects matter too. Dr. Karen Throsby notes that food is “an important site of pleasure,” tied to celebration and connection. Focus on overall nutrition patterns while allowing children to participate fully in cultural traditions without shame.

9. What is a healthy alternative to Halloween candy?

Don’t focus on replacing Halloween traditions. Focus on building a healthy relationship with all foods. Emphasize increasing fiber, protein, and vegetables year-round while reducing sugar gradually. Remember this is an ongoing journey.

References

Brown, R., & Ogden, J. (2004). Children’s eating attitudes and behaviour: a study of the modelling and control theories of parental influence. Health education research, 19(3), 261–271. https://doi.org/10.1093/her/cyg040

Guideline: Sugars intake for adults and children. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2015. Hu F. B. (2002). Dietary pattern analysis: a new direction in nutritional epidemiology. Current opinion in lipidology, 13(1), 3–9. https://doi.org/10.1097/00041433-200202000-00002

Ludwig D. S. (2002). The glycemic index: physiological mechanisms relating to obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. JAMA, 287(18), 2414–2423. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.287.18.2414

Lumanlan, J. (2022, January 9). Sugar Rush with Dr. Karen Throsby. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/sugarrush/

Lumanlan, J. (2021, October 3). How to Sugarproof your kids with Dr. Michael Goran. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/sugarproof/

Lumanlan, J. (2021, August 15). Division of Responsibility with Ellyn Satter. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/dor/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2019, July 7). Using nonviolent communication to parent more peacefully.  Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/nvc/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2019, May 5). SYPM002: Sugar! with Rose Amanda. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/roseamanda/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2016, October 10). Help! My toddler won’t eat vegetables. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/007-help-toddler-wont-eat-vegetables/ 

Patrick, H., & Nicklas, T. A. (2005). A review of family and social determinants of children’s eating patterns and diet quality. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 24(2), 83–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/07315724.2005.10719448

Wolraich, M. L., Wilson, D. B., & White, J. W. (1995). The effect of sugar on behavior or cognition in children. A meta-analysis. JAMA, 274(20), 1617–1621. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1995.03530200053037

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1. Intergenerational trauma occurs when effects of past experiences pass to children and grandchildren, even when they never experienced the original traumatic events themselves.
2. Parents may react intensely to small behaviors because trauma survivors often struggle with emotion regulation, especially during stressful parenting moments. Strong reactions happen when children unconsciously remind parents of their own childhood experiences, activating old emotions and survival responses – this is called being “triggered.”
3. Being “triggered” is a clinical term that describes when trauma survivors experience intense reactions because present situations remind them of past traumatic events. Parents without trauma histories may experience emotional overwhelm or “flooding,” but this is different from being triggered.
4. Trauma shows up today when parents blame their child – or themselves – rather than recognizing deeper patterns from their past are at play.
5. Breaking cycles starts with understanding your triggers and pausing before reacting, creating space between past wounds and present responses.
6. Processing your story in safe environments helps organize traumatic memories and prevents both complete silence and constant rehashing from harming relationships.
7. Healing involves keeping focus on your child’s actual needs rather than trying to rewrite your own childhood through your parenting decisions.

My-Linh Le grew up in San José watching her parents explode over small mistakes – when she forgot her backpack in first grade, her mother “kicked that thing across the room and hit the wall so hard it terrified me.” When her sister messed up dinner, her father threw dishes at the wall. The house was filled with an unpredictable rage that left Le lying awake at night, anxious about what mistakes she might make the next day.

As a child, Le assumed all Vietnamese families were like this. But years later, as an adult, she realized something that shook her. During a phone call with her boyfriend, when he didn’t do something she expected by a certain time, rage “just suddenly came out of nowhere, just like totally bubbled up within me.” She wanted to throw the phone across the room. “It was this really depressing moment of realizing that I’m just like my mother,” she said. 

Despite spending her childhood learning to suppress her anger to avoid setting her parents off, their trauma had somehow passed to her too. Her father’s first wife and son had drowned when their boat sank trying to reach America. Her mother had left a daughter behind in Vietnam, too afraid that the girl’s kicking and screaming would mean their escape would be discovered. These losses – never discussed, barely acknowledged – had shaped a family’s emotional landscape and passed their effects to the next generation.

I realized that trauma doesn’t just affect the people who directly experience it. It can ripple through generations, showing up in unexpected ways in children and grandchildren who never experienced the original events.  This blog post draws on my conversation with Dr. Rebecca Babcock Fenerci, a licensed clinical psychologist from Stone Hill College whose research focuses on intergenerational trauma resulting from family-based trauma.

Based on the insights from our conversation, this blog post will explore how intergenerational trauma can show up in parenting and practical strategies to break the cycle of trauma.

What Is Intergenerational Trauma

The definition of intergenerational trauma goes beyond what many people initially think. 

Dr. Fenerci explains that when we first consider intergenerational trauma, we might think about trauma being perpetuated across generations – parents experienced some type of trauma, whether being a victim of abuse or neglect, and then their own child has similar experiences.

But intergenerational trauma encompasses much more than direct repetition. The definition also includes the increased risk these children have for experiencing the consequences of that trauma, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, mood disorders, behavioral problems, and disrupted attachment.

Dr. Fenerci gives this example: 

“A child whose parent survived physical abuse growing up may be at risk if that child also experienced physical abuse. But the child might also be at increased risk for certain mood disorders or behavior problems or disrupted attachment, altered cortisol or stress-response system functioning.”

This means trauma transmission can happen even when the specific traumatic events aren’t repeated. The effects of trauma like the altered stress responses, emotional patterns, and relationship difficulties can pass to the next generation.

Why Do People React So Differently to Trauma

I was surprised to learn how differently people may react to traumatic circumstances. Studies on coping with trauma have looked at Holocaust survivors and children of Vietnam War veterans. Even within these groups, the effects were completely different for different people.  Some people experience truly horrific events, and go on to lead fulfilled lives.  Others see what we might think of as less overwhelming events, but they are profoundly impacted by them.

Dr. Fenerci explains why this happens, using the diathesis-stress model. This shows that our genes and stressful events work together. They shape what happens to us.

“If you’re thinking about the results of trauma and its consequences, whether it’s increased results in psychopathology or developments of mental illness or post-traumatic stress disorder or other negative consequences, it really depends a lot on certain risk factors that may run in a particular family.”

This includes genetics, but also epigenetics – how our experiences can actually change which genes are turned on or off. 

“It’s an ongoing interaction between genetics which may result in a certain predisposition or personality,” she notes. 

Even siblings who grew up in the same family and share half their genes can have very different outcomes.

The severity and chronicity of trauma also matter. As Dr. Fenerci puts it: 

“The more chronic or severe the trauma – such as the Holocaust, that’s exceptionally severe, exceptionally chronic, the more likely it is that the trauma is going to have an impact on a large percent of the population that has endured that.”

How the Brain Processes Trauma

Understanding how trauma works in the brain helps explain why it can affect us and our children for years. The brain handles trauma differently than regular memories.

When an event happens that we find traumatic, our fight or flight response kicks in. Our body gets flooded with stress hormones. When this happens too much, especially with family trauma, it can cause two things. We might have very vivid memories that keep coming back. Or we might forget the trauma completely.

During traumatic events, the limbic system in our brain works extra hard to keep us safe. But the frontal lobe which helps us think clearly and make sense of things shuts down. This is the part of the brain that helps us organize our memories and understand what happened to us.

This survival mechanism becomes problematic when trauma isn’t discussed. When a trauma isn’t talked about, the survivor is never able to process and make sense of the events.

The Extremes: Too Much Silence vs. Too Much Sharing

Through listener stories, we see both ends of the spectrum when it comes to family trauma and communication. Some never talk about it at all. Others talk about it all the time. Both ways can cause problems.

The Danger of Complete Silence

One pattern involves never discussing traumatic experiences. Many Japanese Americans virtually never mentioned their experiences in internment camps during World War II. This left lasting effects on their children. 

When we’re traumatized by something, it affects us in many different ways. If we never get to make sense of what happened, those effects keep playing out in our relationships and everyday experiences.

The Problem with Constant Rehashing

On the opposite extreme, one listener shared an example of family trauma. Her grandfather had been so abusive that he once lined up his wife and children at gunpoint, planning to kill them all before killing himself. Only when the mother came out of the bathroom and yelled for him to stop did he drop the gun, allowing the grandmother to sneak all the children out of the house that night.

The four older daughters developed various addiction issues throughout their lives. But there was something else going on:

“Every time they would get together as a family, they would rehash all of their memories of the abuse in absolutely excruciating detail.” 

Despite this constant discussion, the listener, who grew up in an otherwise loving home, found herself very fearful and couldn’t understand why.

This constant retelling can create vicarious traumatization. When we hear about a traumatic event experienced by someone we love, it can make us upset.

6 Ways Trauma Shows Up in Parenting

Parenting after trauma presents unique challenges. Here are several specific mechanisms through which trauma impacts the next generation.

How trauma shows up in parenting #1: Strong emotional reactions

Parents who experienced trauma may get furious over small things – not just annoyed, but experiencing the same fight-or-flight response they had during their original traumatic experiences.

Being “triggered” is a clinical term that describes when something in the present unconsciously reminds a trauma survivor of past traumatic events. Their brain responds as if the original danger is happening again, even when the actual situation is minor.

This might happen when their child asks for something over and over, or when they get interrupted while talking.

This connects to a powerful story from podcast listener Katie. She was adopted from the USSR after her alcoholic, abusive parents spent time in prison. Katie works hard with medication and therapy to build a strong bond with her son. But she knows she gets angry very quickly. Simple things set her off.  She reacts quickly and harshly when her son repeats things over and over, and when he does something she asks him not to do.

It’s important to note that not every strong parenting reaction qualifies as being “triggered.” Parents without trauma histories may experience intense emotions or “flooding” when overwhelmed, but this is different from the trauma-based activation that defines triggering.

How trauma shows up in parenting #2: Children as trauma reminders

A parent’s own child may actually serve as a trauma reminder. This may be conscious or unconscious. When children are traumatized by their caregivers or other family members, it can disrupt their ability to form healthy attachments.

When people who were hurt by caregivers become parents themselves, they’re now on the other side of that attachment relationship. Being close to your child can remind you of how your own parents treated you when you were a kid. 

If you went through something hard or hurtful back then, those old emotions might come back. This happens even if you haven’t thought it through or talked about it. You might not even realize it’s happening. Sometimes, those emotions can affect how you treat your own child, even though you don’t mean for this to happen.

How trauma shows up in parenting #3: When we think our reaction about our kids, but really it’s about our past

Sometimes parents don’t realize their intense reactions are related to their past experiences – especially if things have been ‘fine’ up to the point when they had children. They might think, “My child is making me angry” rather than recognizing deeper patterns at play.

This is what psychologist John Briere calls ‘source attribution errors.’ When parents don’t understand where their upset emotions come from, they blame the wrong thing. They might blame their child or themselves. So even when their child acts normally for their age, the parent gets triggered easily.

The problem gets worse because we often believe everything we think is true. When we think “My child doesn’t respect me” or “I’m a terrible parent”, these thoughts seem like facts. But our explanation is just one way to make sense of what’s happening. There could be many other explanations.  A child might jump on the couch even when you’ve told them not to because they’re deliberately trying to irritate you…or because they’ve had a hard day and they’re trying to get your attention to connect with you.

When you can step back from your automatic thoughts, you might discover your child isn’t trying to disrespect or annoy you at all. They might be trying to meet their own needs in the only way they know how. When we understand what need our child is trying to meet through their behavior that we find difficult, we often find strategies to meet both of our needs.

How trauma shows up in parenting #4: Disorganized memory and trauma-related thoughts

Dr. Fenerci studied disorganized memory, which happens when the person who had a traumatic experience hasn’t processed or understood what happened. She found that mothers who had experienced abuse as children were more likely to have toddlers who seemed sad, withdrawn, or anxious.  

She also studied specific thoughts and emotions that can stick around after traumatic experiences – things like shame, anger, fear, self-blame, and feeling cut off from others. She wanted to understand how these might affect parenting relationships. One key finding stood out: when mothers carried a lot of shame from their past, their toddlers were more likely to struggle with mood and behavior issues.

How trauma shows up in parenting #5: Difficulty regulating emotions

Children learn how to manage their own emotions by observing and interacting with their parents.

But trauma survivors often have trouble with emotion regulation themselves, especially when dealing with challenging or stressful situations. Parenting is already tough, and if your child is acting out or pushing your buttons, it’s even harder.  It can be difficult to teach your child how to manage their emotions when you’re struggling with your own.

This challenge doesn’t just affect your relationship with your children. It impacts your whole family system, including your relationship with your partner. When one parent gets triggered or flooded, it can trigger the other parent too. The stress spreads through the family like ripples in a pond.

How trauma shows up in parenting #6: Sense of loss and unmet needs

When parents didn’t get what they needed as children, it can show up in confusing ways with their own kids. Sometimes trauma survivors unconsciously expect their children to meet needs that weren’t met in their own childhood. This flips the relationship – suddenly the parent’s needs become more important than the child’s.

It might look like this: A child reaches out for connection, but their parent gets angry instead of responding warmly. Why? Because that parent might remember their own childhood, when they reached out for connection their parent reacted angrily. Without realizing it, they’re repeating the pattern.

But there’s another layer that makes this even harder. When parents start giving their children the love and attention they themselves never received, it can bring up painful awareness of what they missed. This puts parents in a tough spot. They’re trying to heal their own wounds while also showing up for a child who depends on them completely. 

9 Steps to Break the Cycle of Trauma

Click here to download the 9 Steps to Break the Cycle of Trauma

How to break the cycle of trauma #1: Understand your triggers

Common triggers often relate to past experiences in ways we don’t immediately recognize. Start by looking closely at what specifically sets off your sudden anger.

When a child’s action triggers us, there’s usually a thread connecting it to something from our own childhood. Maybe their defiance reminds us of times we were punished for speaking up. Or their tears bring back memories of being told our emotions were “too much”.

This awareness doesn’t make the triggers disappear overnight. But when we understand why we’re reacting so strongly, we may be able to create space between the trigger and our response. In that space, we can choose how to respond rather than just reacting from our past wounds.

How to break the cycle of trauma #2: Understand your needs

Understanding your triggers is just the first step. You also want to understand what needs you’re trying to meet when you get triggered. 

Often we think we ‘need’ our child to put on their shoes or brush their teeth, but these aren’t actually needs – they’re strategies. Your real needs might be for ease, collaboration, or connection. 

When you can identify the need underneath your reaction, you open up many more ways to meet that need. If your need is for ease and your child won’t get dressed, maybe you can lay out clothes the night before or let them pick between two outfits. If your need is for connection and they’re pushing you away, maybe you can find a small way to connect that doesn’t involve the thing they’re resisting.

How to break the cycle of trauma #3: Process your own story

As we’ve discussed earlier, too much silence and too much sharing can do more harm. Avoiding the topic altogether can keep old wounds festering, but so can rehashing them in exhaustive detail with anyone who will listen. Aim for a middle ground, whether that’s with a therapist, a trusted friend, or in a journal, where you can tell your story in a way that helps you make meaning of it.

Trauma gets stored differently in our brains. When our fight-or-flight system is activated, the part of our brain that helps us organize and make sense of experiences gets shut down. That’s why revisiting these experiences in a safe, supportive environment can be so helpful because it allows us to use our whole brain to process what happened.

How to break the cycle of trauma #4: Take a breath

When you notice intense anger or other strong emotions, try taking one conscious breath before responding. This gives your brain’s thinking centers a chance to come back online and helps you respond more thoughtfully.

Understanding where these big emotions come from can help make this strategy even more effective. When we’re triggered, our body is responding to something it perceives as a threat – even when that threat is actually just our toddler asking for a snack for the fifth time. Our brain doesn’t always distinguish between real danger and reminders of past pain.

You can also practice family-wide breathing practice. Parents can model these techniques for children and suggest doing it together: “We’re all having a hard time! Is it okay if we take a break to both take some deep breaths?”

This approach has several benefits. Not only does that give us the moment to think, but it also physiologically calms our system down because when we experience anger or other intense emotions, our sympathetic nervous system gets activated, so to be able to calm that system down gives us some time to be able to think things through.

How to break the cycle of trauma #5: When you can’t take a breath, practice self-compassion

You won’t be able to do this perfectly every time. Sometimes you’ll still yell. Sometimes you’ll still react from your triggers before you can catch yourself. This can be really discouraging.

When we mess up, we often beat ourselves up about it. We think things like “I’m a terrible parent” or “I should know better by now”. But this harsh self-criticism actually makes it harder to change our patterns.

Instead, try treating yourself with the same compassion you’d offer a dear friend. If your friend told you they yelled at their child, you probably wouldn’t say “You’re awful and you’ll never get better at this.” You’d likely say something like “Parenting is really hard. You’re doing your best and you’re working on it.”

That same gentle approach with ourselves is much more likely to lead to actual change. When we’re kind to ourselves about our mistakes, we can learn from them without getting stuck in shame. We can repair with our children and try again tomorrow.

How to break the cycle of trauma #6: Be thoughtful with storytelling

If you choose to share aspects of your past with your child, keep their developmental stage in mind and let their questions guide how much you say. The goal is to not overwhelm them with details they can’t yet process.

Consider what you’re hoping to accomplish by sharing:

• What are the pros and cons of saying this to my child? 
• How would I like to express this to them? 
• What could their reaction be to this situation and what is the purpose of telling them? 
• How could this potentially benefit our family? 
• What could it potentially hurt the family dynamic in some way?”
  

There’s no universal right answer – just what works for your family.  By sharing minimal information and then responding to their questions, you’re less likely to share information they aren’t ready for yet.

How to break the cycle of trauma #7: Keep the focus on your child’s needs

It’s understandable to want to “rewrite” our own childhoods through our parenting, but that can easily shift the focus from the child’s needs to our own unmet ones. Our children can’t heal our past – they can only live their own lives, with our support.

Dr. Fenerci found something surprising in her research: mothers who reported “loving being mothers” sometimes had children with lower social-emotional wellbeing. Her hypothesis was that these mothers might be unconsciously using their children to meet their own emotional needs rather than focusing on what their kids actually needed.

How to break the cycle of trauma #8: Consider asking for support in navigating your traumatic experiences

Therapy can be an invaluable tool for uncovering unconscious patterns, making sense of big emotions, and practicing new ways of responding. And if you ever consider revisiting the people or places connected to your trauma, having professional guidance can make that process safer and more productive.

Remember that the people who hurt us might not remember things the way we do or they might not be willing to acknowledge what happened. Going in with realistic expectations and support can help protect you from additional harm.

You might also consider talking with your healthcare provider about your experiences. Research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) shows that early trauma can affect not just our mental health, but our physical health too. People with four or more ACEs have twice the risk for heart disease and over 12 times the risk for thoughts of suicide. Your doctor can help you understand how your experiences might be impacting your overall health and connect you with appropriate resources.

How to break the cycle of trauma #9: Pay attention to the signals

Changes in your child’s mood or behavior, persistent conflicts, or experiences of depression, anxiety, or distress in yourself are all important signs. Sometimes the “problem” we see in our child is actually a sign that something deeper is going on in the family dynamic.

This doesn’t mean everything is your fault. Kids go through normal developmental phases, and plenty of challenges have nothing to do with our past trauma. But it’s worth asking: Could something that’s impacting me also be impacting my child?

Going Deeper: Taming Your Triggers

These nine steps can make a real difference. But if you’re finding that intense reactions are happening frequently, if you’re regularly “seeing red” over small things, or if you notice your child starting to walk on eggshells around your emotions, you might benefit from more targeted support around triggers specifically.

When we’re triggered, our brain’s alarm system takes over. The part that can think clearly and make good decisions goes offline. That’s why simply telling ourselves to “calm down” rarely works because we need different tools.

In my Taming Your Triggers workshop, we dig deeper into understanding what’s happening in your brain and body when you get triggered, and practice specific strategies for:

• Catching yourself before the trigger takes full hold
• Calming your nervous system in the moment
• Responding to your child from a place of connection rather than reaction
• Having conversations after big reactions that actually bring you closer together

Many parents tell me this work has transformed not just their parenting, but their relationships with their partners and even their own sense of self. When you can stay present with your child even in challenging moments, both of you benefit.

K.D., a parent who took the workshop, shared: 

“I’ve been determined to break the generational trauma with my own children while holding my triggers like an inevitable nuisance at best and as only human when I lost it and react. It’s so incredibly freeing to consider that possibility that I could lay down those chains all together. 

The Taming Your Triggers workshop was a clear, concise and actionable path forward. The workshop gave me very clear steps to take toward being the mother I aspire to be by helping me heal my own hurt. Since the workshop I’m more patient and have greater capacity.”

Breaking the cycle comes down to becoming aware of what you’re carrying, and choosing to respond with intention instead of reaction. When you pause, reflect, and respond differently, you’re building new patterns that your children will carry forward into their own lives.

Ready to learn how to tame your triggers and break the cycle of trauma?

Click the banner to learn more!

Final Thoughts

Breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma means making intentional choices to respond in ways that are different from the patterns you inherited. This work takes time and patience with yourself. 

You might still get triggered sometimes. You might catch yourself reacting in ways that remind you of your own childhood. That’s part of being human. What matters is that you’re aware, you’re trying, and you’re willing to repair when things go sideways.

The trauma you experienced wasn’t your fault, but the healing you do now is your gift – to yourself, to your children, and to the generations that will come after them. 

This isn’t easy work, but it’s some of the most important work you’ll ever do. And you don’t have to do it alone. Whether through therapy, supportive community, or resources like the Taming Your Triggers workshop, help is available when you’re ready to take the next step.

The chains of trauma that were passed down to you don’t have to be the legacy you leave behind. You have the power to transform pain into wisdom, reactivity into responsiveness, and old wounds into new possibilities for connection. Your children, and their children, will benefit from the courage you show today.

Frequently Asked Questions About Intergenerational Trauma

1. What is intergenerational trauma?

Intergenerational trauma goes beyond direct repetition of traumatic events. It includes the increased risk children have for experiencing consequences of their parents’ trauma, such as mood disorders, behavioral problems, and disrupted attachment. Even when you don’t experience the exact same events that your parents did, effects like altered stress responses, emotional patterns, and relationship difficulties can pass down to you (and potentially to your kids as well).

2. Why do people react so differently to trauma?

People’s reactions depend on the interaction between genetics, epigenetics, and environmental factors. This is called the ‘diathesis-stress model.’ Even siblings in the same family can have very different outcomes because of genetic predisposition, personality differences, and how experiences change which genes are turned on or off. The severity and chronicity of trauma also affect how many people will be impacted.

3. How does trauma affect the brain and memory?

During trauma, the fight-or-flight response floods the body with stress hormones. The limbic system works overtime for safety, but the frontal lobe that helps organize memories and make sense of experiences shuts down. This creates either vivid, intrusive memories or complete memory gaps. When trauma isn’t processed, the survivor never gets to organize these experiences in a coherent way.

4. How does trauma show up in parenting?

Trauma appears through strong emotional reactions to small triggers, children serving as trauma reminders, source attribution errors where parents blame the wrong cause for their emotions, disorganized memories affecting parent-child relationships, difficulty regulating emotions, and unconsciously expecting children to meet needs that weren’t met in the parent’s own childhood, flipping the relationship dynamic.

5. How can parents break the cycle of trauma?

Start by understanding your triggers and the needs behind them. Process your story in safe environments, avoiding both complete silence and constant rehashing. Take conscious breaths when triggered to help your thinking brain come back online. Keep focus on your child’s actual needs rather than trying to rewrite your own childhood through parenting decisions.

6. When should parents seek professional support?

Consider therapy when intense reactions happen frequently, when you’re “seeing red” over small things, or when your child starts walking on eggshells around your emotions. Professional guidance is especially valuable when revisiting people or places connected to trauma. Changes in your child’s mood, persistent conflicts, or your own experiences of depression and anxiety are worth addressing.

7. How should parents share their trauma story with children?

Be thoughtful about developmental appropriateness and let your child’s questions guide how much you share. Consider what you hope to accomplish, potential benefits and risks, and how sharing might affect family dynamics. The goal is to help them understand their own experiences with you, without burdening them with adult emotional work.

References

Babcock Fenerci, R. L., Chu, A. T., & DePrince, A. P. (2016). Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma-Related Distress: Maternal Betrayal Trauma, Parenting Attitudes, and Behaviors. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 25(4), 382–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2015.1129655

Bonanno G. A. (2004). Loss, trauma, and human resilience: have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely aversive events?. The American psychologist, 59(1), 20–28. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.20

Briere, J. (2010). A summary of self-trauma model applications for severe trauma: Treating the torture survivor. Center for Victims of Torture. https://healtorture.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/A_Summary_of_Self-Trauma_Model_Applications_for_Severe_Trauma_Treating_the_Torture_Survivor.pdf

Dembosky, A. (2025, May 1). Just like my mother: How we inherit our parents’ traits and tragedies. KQED. https://www.kqed.org/news/11616586/just-like-my-mother-how-we-inherit-our-parents-traits-and-tragedies 

Fenerci, R. L. B., & DePrince, A. P. (2018). Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma: Maternal Trauma-Related Cognitions and Toddler Symptoms. Child maltreatment, 23(2), 126–136. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077559517737376

Fonagy, P., Steele, M., Steele, H., Higgitt, A., & Target, M. (1994). The Emanuel Miller Memorial Lecture 1992. The theory and practice of resilience. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 35(2), 231–257. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1994.tb01160.x

Fraiberg, S., Adelson, E., & Shapiro, V. (1975). Ghosts in the nursery. A psychoanalytic approach to the problems of impaired infant-mother relationships. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 14(3), 387–421. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0002-7138(09)61442-4

Lumanlan, J. (2024, October 6). Where emotions come from (and why it matters) Part 1. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/emotionspart1/ 

Lumanlan, J (2024, February 2). The Real Reasons You Feel Triggered by Your Child’s Behavior. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/parenting-beyond-power/202402/the-real-reasons-you-feel-triggered-by-your-childs-behavior 

Lumanlan, J. (2024, January 28). How to Heal from Adverse Childhood Experiences with Dr. Nadine Burke Harris and Jackie Thu-Huong Wong. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/aces/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2023, October 8). Regulating for the kids…and for your marriage. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/foryourmarriage/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2023, October 1). You don’t have to believe everything you think. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/thoughts/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2022, February 20). Why are you always so angry?. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/iris/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2021, July 25). The Body Keeps The Score with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/thebodykeepsthescore/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2021, February 21). Introduction to mindfulness and meditation with Diana Winston. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/mindfulness/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2020, October 18). Self-Compassion for Parents. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/selfcompassion/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2018, July 22). Reducing the impact of intergenerational trauma. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/intergenerationaltrauma/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2018, May 7). How family storytelling can help you to develop closer relationships and overcome struggles. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/familystorytelling/ 

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Lumanlan, J. (n.d.-b). Needs list. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/needs/

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1. Children ages 3-5 enter the “Why Phase” when they ask endless questions to understand how the world works.
2. Quick Google (or AI) answers teach fact-collecting instead of thinking skills and can actually shut down your child’s curiosity
3. Try responding with: “Hmmm…what do you think?” first to engage their reasoning before providing answers and show you value their thinking.
4. Turn questions into mini investigations by exploring together rather than jumping straight to final answers – or trying to teach a lesson.
5. Let children lead their own learning without forcing teachable moments.
6. Their questions build critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills that matter more for future success than content knowledge.
7. The questioning phase develops lifelong learning foundations and intrinsic motivation – it’s something to celebrate!

You’re barely three sips into your coffee when it starts. “Mama, why is the sky so blue today?” Before you can even formulate an answer, the next one comes: “Why are the birds singing so loud? Why can’t I go swimming right now? Why do we have to eat breakfast when it’s already so hot outside? Why does the sun make everything bright?”

By the time you’ve managed to pour cereal into a bowl you’ve fielded seventeen questions, and you still have the looooong summer day stretching ahead of you.

Nearly every parent of a young child has experienced this at some point – that mix of pride in your child’s curiosity and complete overwhelm at the sheer volume of questions coming your way. (The other parents have kids who rarely ask questions, and we have ideas for them, too!)

Summer seems to make it even more intense, with longer days, less structure, and more time for those little minds to wonder about everything they see, hear, and experience.

Here’s what I want you to know: your child isn’t trying to drive you up the wall (even though it might feel that way). They’re not just asking random questions. They’re actively trying to connect the dots in their world.

The challenge isn’t that your child asks too many questions. The challenge is that most of us were never taught how to handle this phase of development in a way that supports both our child’s growth and our own sanity.

The Science Behind All Those Questions

If your child is between the ages of three and five, you’re in what researchers call the “Why Phase“.  While children ask who, what, where, why questions throughout their development, the Why Phase specifically refers to when ‘why’ questions dominate their curiosity. 

Around this age, children begin to understand something pretty remarkable: that people have knowledge, and that this knowledge can be accessed simply by asking questions. Think about how sophisticated that realization actually is. Your child has figured out that you know things they don’t know, and that they can get access to that information just by putting their thoughts into words.

This surge in curiosity happens alongside huge leaps in brain development. Language is exploding – not just vocabulary, but the ability to use words to explore ideas. Logical reasoning is emerging, helping them connect cause and effect. And they’re starting to develop what psychologists call “theory of mind“, basically, they’re figuring out that other people have different thoughts and knowledge than they do.

What’s fascinating is that this learning isn’t happening just in their brains. Research shows that we think with our whole bodies through movement, through our hands as we explore objects, through our environment. When your child picks up a stick and examines it while asking about trees, or jumps up and down while wondering about gravity, they’re not getting distracted from learning. They’re actually enhancing it by engaging their extended mind.

I like to think of it this way: your child has turned into a tiny researcher. They notice something that doesn’t fit with what they already understand, they form a guess about how it might work, and then they test that guess by asking you about it. When you give them an answer, they’re not just filing it away. They’re connecting it to other things they know, seeing where it fits in the bigger picture.

The Hidden Problem: Why “Just Answering” Doesn’t Actually Help

When your child asks “Why is the grass green?” your instinct is probably to pull out your phone and ask Google, Alexa, or ChatGPT. Quick answer delivered: “Because of something called chlorophyll.” Question answered, right? You can move on with your day.

But here’s what research shows us: jumping straight to answers can actually do more harm than good. It teaches children that learning is about collecting facts, not exploring ideas. They learn that questions have quick, simple answers that come from others, not from their own thinking.

Imagine giving a quick Google answer about chlorophyll. Your child says, “Oh, okay,” and moves on. But did they actually learn anything meaningful? Probably not. They didn’t explore what chlorophyll does, why plants differ in color, or how it connects to the sun. What they learned is that questions get answered by devices – and they’ll likely forget what you told them in an hour anyway.

This creates answer-seeking behavior instead of thinking behavior. Kids start to believe every question has one “right” answer out there and their job is to find it fast. Curiosity becomes a finish line, not a doorway to discovery.

Here’s the thing that might surprise you: research shows that by the end of first grade, most kids stop asking the rich, wondering questions they asked as toddlers. Instead, they only ask “Do I have to learn this?” and “How do I do this thing you’re telling me to do?” We’ve accidentally trained them out of their inherent curiosity.

But what if we approached their questions differently? What if, instead of jumping in with an answer, we paused to wonder together? This simple shift changes everything. It often means re-examining our own relationship with learning.

3 More Effective Ways to Respond to Your Child’s Constant Questions

Supporting your child’s endless curiosity doesn’t mean you need to be an expert or create elaborate Pinterest-worthy activities. In fact, the most powerful approaches are surprisingly simple and they work better than traditional ‘teaching’ methods.

Click here to download the 3 Better Ways to Respond to Your Child’s Constant Questions

Responding to your child’s questions #1: Start With “What Do You Think?”

The next time your child asks, “Why is the sky blue?”, pause. Look up at the sky together. And then say something like: “Huh. That’s a great question. What do you think?”

This simple shift is more than just a way to buy yourself a second to think. It tells your child:

• I take your question seriously.
• I believe you’re capable of thinking about this.
• We can explore this together.

This gives your child time to engage their own thinking before being handed an answer. It strengthens their ability to reason, hypothesize, and make connections.

When we respond immediately with facts (or a quick “Alexa, why is the sky blue?”), we accidentally send the message that learning comes from outside themselves and not from within. Over time, that can squash the very curiosity we want to nurture.

Responding to your child’s questions #2: Turn their questions into mini learning investigations

Rather than seeing each question as something to answer and move on from, think of them as launching points for exploration. This doesn’t mean turning everything into a formal lesson. It means following their curiosity one step further.

Here’s what this might look like in real life: When your child asks about why fish live in water, you might say: “I wonder about that too. Do we have any books about fish? Should we see what we can find out?” Or: “What do you think would happen if a fish tried to live on land like we do?”

The key is taking just one step forward, not jumping to the final answer. This is what’s called scaffolding. You provide just enough support to keep your child engaged and learning, but not so much that you take over their thinking process. 

Maybe you look at a book together. Maybe you watch a short video. Maybe you have a conversation while you’re doing dishes. The goal isn’t to become experts on fish biology.  It’s to show your child that their questions are worth exploring.

Responding to your child’s questions #3: Let kids lead without needing to teach a lesson

This might be the hardest shift for many of us, especially if we went to school ourselves and learned that adults ask questions and children provide answers. But when we let children lead their own learning, they stay engaged much longer and go much deeper than we ever could have pushed them.

Instead of becoming the “sage on the stage,” try being the “guide on the side“. Your job isn’t to lecture about everything you know on the topic (which often makes kids’ eyes glaze over). Your job is more like being a helpful travel companion – someone who helps them find resources, asks good questions, and celebrates their discoveries.

This might mean biting your tongue when they’re building something and you can see it won’t work the way they think it will. It might mean letting them spend way more time on something than you think is “productive.” It might mean following their interests into territory you know nothing about, which, by the way, is perfectly fine.

This kind of trust in your child and in yourself doesn’t always come easily, especially if you went through traditional schooling yourself. Many parents find themselves feeling like their job is to rush and provide answers or resources the moment their child shows interest in something. But learning to step back and trust both your child’s own learning process (and your own instincts as a parent) is often the most powerful thing you can do.

Whether your child asks three questions a day or thirty. Whether they’re obsessed with bugs or want to know why people have different skin colors.

The method stays the same:

• Pause.
• Wonder together.
• Take one step forward.
• And let them lead the way.

Why This Phase Matters More Than You Think

I get it. Sometimes it can feel like you’re trapped in an endless loop of questions from your child.

But here’s what I want you to know: those questions aren’t just something to endure until your child grows out of this phase. They’re actually building the exact skills your child will need to thrive in the future.

When your child seems compelled to ask all these questions throughout the day, they’re not just being curious. They’re developing critical thinking skills.

When I looked into what skills will actually matter for our children’s success, I found something surprising. A McKinsey report identified 56 critical skills for the future job market. Want to guess how many had to do with coding or technology?

Eleven. Just eleven out of 56.

The other 45 skills? Things like critical thinking, communication, self-awareness, and problem-solving. In other words, exactly what your questioning child is practicing right now. While schools focus heavily on content knowledge, these other skills are primarily developed through the kinds of interactions you’re having at home every single day.

The Hidden Skills Behind Your Child’s Endless Questions

When your child fires off what seems like their millionth question of the day, “Why do dogs wag their tails?” followed immediately by “What makes the sky blue?”, it’s easy to feel like they’re just trying to drive you to distraction. But something much more important is happening.

Your child isn’t just hunting for random facts. They are developing the thinking skills they will need throughout their lives. Every time they notice something and wonder about it, they’re strengthening their ability to see patterns and make connections. When they ask why water freezes or how birds know where to fly, they’re doing the same work scientists do, trying to make sense of the world around them.

And when they keep asking follow-up questions? That’s not them being difficult. That’s their way of exploring ideas from different angles and learning to think flexibly. 

Perhaps most importantly, when your child follows their own curiosity, they’re learning to set their own learning goals and stick with them, even when understanding gets challenging. These are the foundations of intrinsic motivation that will serve them far better than any external reward system ever could.

The questioning phase isn’t something to survive. It’s something to celebrate – because it’s building the very foundation of lifelong learning.

What to say when kids keep asking why?

Not all ‘why’ questions are equal…sometimes your child will just ask ‘why’ endlessly, even when it doesn’t seem like they’re trying to understand:

Child: Why are we going to Grandma’s house?

You: Because we haven’t seen her since last week.

Child: Why?

You: Because we’ve been busy.

Child: Why?

Your child has discovered a new tool for connecting with you!  Very often, these kinds of questions are a way to prolong the conversation, rather than get information.  If you sense this is happening, try getting down on their level and asking: “It seems like you’d really like to connect with me right now.  Is there something you’d like to do together?” or “Would you like a hug?” (depending on how much time you have available).  

In the Learning Membership we call this ‘looking for the question underneath the question: this child isn’t really asking about Grandma; they’re asking for time with you.

If Your Child Isn’t Asking Questions

If your child isn’t asking many questions, that doesn’t mean they’re not curious. They might just be showing their curiosity differently. 

Some children are more hands-on learners who prefer to explore through doing rather than asking. Others might be processing quietly, taking in information before they’re ready to wonder out loud. 

The key is to become a detective of your child’s interests by watching what they gravitate toward during free time. What do they choose to do when you’re not directing their activities? What lights them up when you suggest it? 

Parent Anne discovered this when she sat with a notebook and observed her son’s LEGO play, realizing there was “SO MUCH going on”. He was working through ideas about solar power and movement that she’d never noticed before. 

Try sitting quietly and watching your child for just five or ten minutes during their play. Notice what captures their attention, what they return to again and again, what makes them lean in with focus. 

Then you can gently offer related experiences: “I noticed you’ve been really interested in how water moves. Want to see what happens when we pour it through different things?” This approach meets children where their curiosity already lives, rather than trying to manufacture interest in topics that don’t resonate with them.

Final Thoughts

When your kids ask you question after question, try to keep your eye on how amazing this stage of your child’s development is! Their questions are a window into how your child’s mind works. 

You don’t need to become Google/Alexa/ChatGPT in human form. You don’t need to craft perfect educational moments with Pinterest-worthy setups. What your child really needs is to know that their questions matter to you and that their curiosity is seen and valued.

You also don’t have to have the answers to every question they ask. Your job is to show your child that their questions matter, and that thinking together is more valuable than knowing everything.

Instead of feeling drained by constant questions, you start noticing the incredible mind at work behind them. Your child learns that their curiosity matters. They develop confidence in their own thinking. And you get to rediscover the world through their eyes – which, honestly, is pretty magical.

Those questions aren’t interrupting your day. They’re showing you exactly how to connect with the remarkable little person you’re raising.

Transform those daily questions into meaningful learning moments

If you want more support turning your child’s everyday curiosity into meaningful learning without pressure, lectures, or constant Googling, my ‘You Are Your Child’s Best Teacher masterclass’ can help.  It gives you practical tools to turn everyday curiosity into rich learning and connection without lectures, pressure, or overwhelm.

You’ll discover how to:

• Support your child’s intrinsic curiosity (without becoming their personal Googler)
• Turn everyday moments into rich learning opportunities
• Help your child develop confidence as an independent thinker and learner
• Navigate challenging phases (like constant questioning) with understanding instead of exhaustion
• Build your relationship while supporting their development

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Frequently Asked Questions About Kids’ Endless Questions

1. Why does my child constantly ask questions?

Your child isn’t trying to drive you crazy. They’re in the “Why Phase” (typically ages 3-5) when their brain is developing critical thinking skills. They’ve realized that other people have knowledge they can access by asking questions. This constant questioning shows they’re connecting dots in their world, developing language skills, and building the foundation for lifelong learning.

2. How to deal with kids asking why?

Instead of jumping straight to answers, pause and ask “What do you think?” first. This strengthens their reasoning abilities and shows you value their thinking. Turn their questions into mini investigations by saying “I wonder about that too” and exploring together. Let them lead the learning process rather than lecturing with facts.

3. At what stage of development does the child ask many questions?

The Why Phase typically occurs between ages 3-5 when children experience huge leaps in brain development. During this stage, language explodes, logical reasoning emerges, and they develop “theory of mind” – understanding that other people have different thoughts and knowledge. This is when “why” questions dominate their curiosity about the world around them.

4. What to say when kids keep asking why?

Try responses like “That’s a great question – what do you think?” or “I wonder about that too. Should we see what we can find out?” Take one step forward in exploration rather than jumping to final answers. This scaffolding approach provides just enough support to keep them engaged without taking over their thinking process.

5. Why is children’s curiosity valuable to learning?

Children’s questions build exactly the skills they’ll need for future success. Research shows 45 of 56 critical future job skills involve critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving – not just content knowledge. When kids ask questions, they’re developing pattern recognition, flexible thinking, and intrinsic motivation that serves them better than any external reward system.

6. How to help kids answer why questions?

Don’t rush to provide answers yourself. Instead, help them explore by asking follow-up questions, looking at books together, or having conversations during daily activities. Be a “guide on the side” rather than “sage on the stage.” Trust their learning process and follow their interests, even into territory you know nothing about.

References

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2271-7 

Dondi, M., Klier, J., Panier, F., & Schubert, J. (2021, June 25). Defining the skills citizens will need in the future world of work. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-sector/our-insights/defining-the-skills-citizens-will-need-in-the-future-world-of-work

Engel, S. (2011). Children’s need to know: Curiosity in schools. Harvard Educational Review, 81(4), 625–645. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.4.h054131316473115 

Frazier, B. N., Gelman, S. A., & Wellman, H. M. (2009). Preschoolers’ search for explanatory information within adult-child conversation. Child development, 80(6), 1592–1611. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01356.x

Gopnik, A. (2012). Scientific thinking in young children: Theoretical advances, empirical research,and policy implications. Science, 337(6102), 1623–1627. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1223416

Kuhn, D. (2000). Metacognitive development. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(5), 178–181. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00088 

Lumanlan, J. (2024). The skills your child will need in the age of AI. Your Parenting Mojo.

https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/ai/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2023, July 16). How to learn way beyond ‘doing well in school’. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/beyondschool/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2022, September 11). Learning to trust your child – and yourself. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/claire/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2021, September 5). The Extended Mind with Annie Murphy Paul. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/extendedmind/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2020, December 17). Doing Self-Directed Education. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/freepeople/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2016, September 26). How to “scaffold” children’s learning to help them succeed. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/005-how-to-scaffold-childrens-learning/ 

Schulz, L. (2012). The origins of inquiry: Inductive inference and exploration in early childhood. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(7), 382-389. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.06.004

Wang, X., Wang, C., Ye, P., & Tao, G. (2025). The role of intrinsic motivation in enhancing deep learning in early childhood education: Intrinsic motivation and deep learning in ECE. International Theory and Practice in Humanities and Social Sciences, 2(6), 274-290. https://doi.org/10.70693/itphss.v2i6.847

Wellman, H. M., Cross, D., & Watson, J. (2001). Meta-analysis of theory-of-mind development: the truth about false belief. Child development, 72(3), 655–684. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00304 

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1. The teen mental health crisis may be less severe than headlines (and The Anxious Generation) suggest. Much of the scary data shows better screening and diagnosis rather than new cases caused by social media. The changes are not as widespread as the book makes them appear. They are at least partly explained by changes in how we diagnose and label mental health conditions.
2. Social media’s impact on youth mental health is surprisingly small. Research shows social media explains less than 1% of teen wellbeing. It’s about the same as whether or not the teen eats potatoes. While statistically significant in large studies, this effect on an individual child is tiny compared to factors like family relationships and academic pressure.
3. The most vulnerable teens aren’t the ones that The Anxious Generation focuses on. While The Anxious Generation prioritizes (assumed: White middle class) teenage girls, suicide rates and signs of youth depression remain much higher for boys and men. LGBTQ+ teens and some Native American communities face the biggest mental health risks. These problems often have nothing to do with social media. Helping these groups would make a much bigger difference than just keeping white middle-class girls off social media.
4. Family relationships, friendships, and school stress matter way more than screen time for youth mental health. When teens go to emergency rooms for self-harm, 64% say family problems are their biggest worry. School stress, friend drama, money troubles, and school problems matter way more than technology for Gen Z mental health.
5. Phone bans address symptoms while ignoring underlying needs. Kids use phones because they meet needs for independence and connection. School often doesn’t provide these. Banning devices without addressing why kids want them is like taking away a crutch without healing the broken leg.
6. Control-based parenting approaches often backfire with technology. Just like the failed “Just Say No” drug campaigns, strict phone rules can damage trust and push teens away when they need guidance most. Kids who fear punishment can’t come to parents when they encounter problems online.
7. Building connection works better than imposing restrictions for mental health for teenagers. The best protection for teen mental health isn’t limiting screen time. It’s creating relationships where kids feel seen and supported. Working together on technology rules works better than forcing blanket rules.

Note: This blog post is based on a four-part podcast series, where we took a deep dive into Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation. 

• The Anxious Generation Review (Part 1): Is There Really a Mental Health Crisis in the U.S.?

• The Anxious Generation Review (Part 2): Does Social Media Actually Cause Kids’ Depression and Anxiety?

• The Anxious Generation Review (Part 3): Should we ban cell phones in school?

• The Anxious Generation Review (Part 4): Should we ban cell phones at home? 

Find a collection of resources related to The Anxious Generation on this page.

If you’re a parent, you might worry when you see your child on their phone all the time. You might feel upset when they pick their screen over talking at dinner. Or maybe you’re scared that their phone is somehow changing their brain in bad ways. You might wonder: Is this normal teen stuff, or is something different happening to kids today?

Jonathan Haidt’s bestselling book The Anxious Generation seems to confirm our worst fears. The book shows scary charts of teen depression and anxiety going way up. Haidt says this is clear proof that smartphones and social media are causing a mental health crisis in our kids like never before.

The book’s central claim is compelling in its simplicity.  Between 2010 and 2015, Haidt says kids stopped having a “play-based childhood” and started having a “phone-based childhood.” He thinks this change rewired kids’ growing brains and caused more suffering than any kids before them had experienced.

For worried parents, The Anxious Generation offers both validation and a clear villain. Those endless battles over screen time? The way your once-chatty teen now grunts responses while staring at their phone? The anxiety you see in their eyes that wasn’t there a few years ago? According to Haidt, these changes are not just connected to but caused by their phone.

But before we panic and ban our kids’ phones (at school or at home), we should look more closely at what the research actually shows. Our parental worries about technology might feel urgent. But the scientific picture is far more complex than Haidt’s compelling narrative suggests.

What if the crisis isn’t as big as those graphs make it look? What if the jump in reported mental health problems just shows changes in how we find and track these conditions? Not new cases caused by social media? What if focusing only on screens makes us miss the real things causing our teens’ problems?

Parents everywhere are asking: Is social media really destroying our kids’ mental health? The answer isn’t as simple as The Anxious Generation makes us believe.

What Is The Anxious Generation About?

Haidt’s book presents a clear narrative. Between 2010 and 2015, we saw the decline of what he calls the “play-based childhood” and the rise of the “phone-based childhood.” This shift, he argues, is responsible for dramatic changes in Gen Z mental health. The evidence seems compelling at first glance. The seemingly endless graphs show rising rates of teen depression, anxiety in teenagers, and self-harm episodes.

He also points to the front-facing camera on the iPhone 4 as a key driver of the shift in 2010, as well as Instagram reaching mass usage in 2012. This means that Haidt sometimes points to 2010 as the beginning of a key shift, and sometimes to 2012. His collaborator Dr. Jean Twenge was raising the alarm as early as 2007, when the first iPhone came out. This raises the question of whether the data have been picked to confirm a theory, rather than the theory coming from the data.

And when we dig deeper into this data, some troubling patterns emerge. Many of these dramatic-looking increases might not be what they seem. 

The Hockey Stick Graphs: Crisis or Perception?

The Anxious Generation review of data includes dozens of alarming statistics, many on graphs that are shaped similarly to the ‘hockey stick’ graph responsible for convincing many people that climate change is real:

In the first of my detailed podcast episodes on The Anxious Generation, I focused heavily on suicide data. I figured it would be easier to understand than the many different measures of whether someone is experiencing mental health challenges.

Here’s the data I found on the suicide rate for girls age 10-14:

Data Source: https://wonder.cdc.gov/mortsql.html  (Note: Haidt’s graph continues with data from 2017-2020, which I couldn’t independently verify from CDC sources)

According to Haidt’s data, the suicide rate for girls is up 167% from 2010 to 2020.  Haidt also says that the rate for girls age 15-19 doubled from 2010-2020, which may be true, but 2009 was a historic low point and overall the rate isn’t a lot higher than it was in the late 1980s:

Data source: https://wonder.cdc.gov/mortsql.html

But the Pew Research Center found that older teens are much more likely to be online ‘constantly,’ with half of 15-17 year olds saying they were online ‘constantly’ in 2024, compared to 38% of those aged 13-14 (and we can assume that kids younger than 13 are spending less time than this online).  So if being online is driving girls to suicide, why aren’t the girls spending most time on social media committing suicide at higher rates?

What this means for you: Those scary numbers you see in The Anxious Generation aren’t happening everywhere like the book makes it seem. The author picks one number from one place and another number from somewhere else to make his point. Some teens really are struggling, but the problem is not universal across all teens.

Here are some other explanations I discovered when we examined the data more carefully:

Changes in mental health screening and diagnosis affect reported rates

Between 2009 and 2015, we made big changes in the U.S. in how we identify and track youth mental health issues:

• 2009: The US Preventive Task Force recommended depression screening for teens aged 12-18.
• 2011: The Affordable Care Act required coverage for evidence-based mental health services.
• 2012: Health insurance plans were required to cover annual depression screenings for girls aged 12 and older.
• 2015: Mandatory new diagnostic codes made it easier to identify intentional self-harm in hospital records.
• 2016: CDC guidance changes ICD-10 coding guidelines to include symptoms and signs codes (R40-R46) as an Exclusion 2 note for mental disorder codes (F01-F99) implies that SI should be coded as a secondary disorder when other mental health disorders are primary.

Figure source: https://jhr.uwpress.org/content/59/S/S14

Author’s notes: These figures plot trends in suicide-related hospital visits, suicide deaths, and suicidal ideation hospital visits in New Jersey. The vertical lines at 2011 and 2016 help to visualize the changes related to the implementation of the Women’s Preventive Services Guidelines in 2012, as well the difference between 2015 and 2016 (implementation of ICD-10) and between 2016 and 2017 (implementation of the “include SI” [Jen’s note: as a secondary diagnosis when other mental health conditions are present] guidance).

The authors conclude: “These results suggest that underlying suicide-related behaviors among children, while alarmingly high, may not have risen as sharply as reported rates suggest.”

What this means for you: The dramatic increases in reported teen depression might say more about our healthcare system getting better at identifying, treating, and classifying problems. They aren’t about phones making things worse. Before panicking about your teen’s screen time, consider other changes in their life. These may be academic pressure, family stress, or friendship issues, might be more important to address.

The scale of the increases look worse than they really are

Haidt also visually manipulates data on the graphs in the book. When he describes “dramatic increases” in school alienation worldwide, he’s actually talking about changes of about 0.2 points on a 4-point scale (Figure 1.12, Alienation in School, Worldwide) but the graph is zoomed in to the scale between 1.6 and 2.2 so those 0.2 points look like a huge increase. 

Figure 1.8 shows Excellent or Very Good Mental Health, Canadian Women; those aged 15-30 visually appear to have reported near-perfect mental health in 2003 and are now close to the baseline.  But the baseline is 50%, and the top of the scale is at 80%, so the decline appears far more dramatic than it really is.

In a collaborative Google doc that Haidt maintains, Haidt observes two ‘big’ jumps in suicides of 10-14-year-old females in the U.S., from 66 to 88 in 2009, and from 85 to 141 in 2013. He says that the rate for the last five years of data is nearly triple the rate for the first five years. Dr. Chris Ferguson’s counter-argument in the document is that the raw increase in the number of suicides among 45-49-year-old men is 1000 deaths, which is a 900% increase, among comparably-sized populations of about 10 million each. 

I want to be clear that I believe that any suicide death is one too many for the families who are left behind. I can’t even imagine the pain and suffering of each of the families who have lost a child in this way, and I’m so sorry they have to experience that. But if you’re looking at raw numbers rather than an increase in rates, you’d do a lot more to prevent deaths by focusing on older men than on teenage girls.  Ferguson would fail a senior student research project for trying to make the inferential leaps that Haidt is trying to reach. 

The language we use matters. When we talk about a “mental health emergency” or “surge of suffering”, it shapes how we think about solutions. If we believe there’s a tsunami, we reach for emergency measures like blanket phone bans. If we recognize it’s a modest tide, we might consider more thoughtful responses.

The International Data Doesn’t Add Up

Haidt often points to similar trends across multiple countries as evidence for his theory. But when you look closely at the data from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the patterns aren’t as consistent as they first appear.

Haidt says that “we see similar trends in the other major Anglosphere nations, including Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia” (p.40-41).  Again, while you can see an overall increase from 2009 to 2015 in New Zealand, the suicide rates for girls and young women are within historical averages, and have declined for boys and young men.

Data Source: https://www.health.govt.nz/publications/suicide-facts-data-tables-1996-2015

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare did the hard work of the graphing for me (although I couldn’t find data by gender), and yes, there was a substantial increase in suicides among 15-17 year-olds from around 2010 to 2018, and among 18-24 year olds from around 2009-2020. But the preliminary data shows that the rate has dropped pretty sharply for both groups since 2022, and I don’t think social media has been banned in Australia.

Data Source: https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/population-groups/young-people/suicide-self-harm-young-people 

In the U.K., the suicide rate for girls has doubled from 1.4 per 100,000 in 2007 to 3.1 per 100,000 in 2023. But, the rate for boys is a third less than it was at its peak in 1990.

Data Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/2023

Haidt’s graphs describing mental health crisis symptoms do seem dramatic when the graphs are shown one right after another.  When he shows suicide rates for young teens in the U.S., self-harm for U.K. teens, and mental health hospital visits for Australian teens, The Anxious Generation gives the impression that the changes are happening consistently across all the different types of data, across the entire Anglosphere.  But this isn’t always the case.

What this means for you: If smartphones were really the main cause of teen mental health problems, we’d see the same patterns in all countries where lots of kids use phones. Since we don’t, it means the real causes are more complicated. This means the solutions need to fit your specific child’s situation.

Only Looking at Gender Camouflages Other Trends

Haidt fails to analyze risk factors other than gender in The Anxious Generation.  Among Australian First Nations people aged 0–24, suicide rates were 3.1 times as high compared to non-Indigenous Australians. 

Inuit females age 15-24 had a suicide rate that was 33 times higher than non-Indigenous females between 2011-2016.  

I have yet to find suicide data that breaks out transgender youth statistics, but in 2021, more than a quarter (26.3%) of high school students identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual reported attempting suicide in the prior 12 months. This was five times higher than the prevalence among heterosexual students (5.2%).

The photo of the slim, blonde, straight, and White-presenting girl looking at her phone on the front of The Anxious Generation isn’t really representative of the actual suicide risk that teens face.

Depression Doesn’t Always Lead to Self-Harm

Studies of people who have considered suicide reveal that different communities experience distress very differently:

• Latinx Americans are more likely to see suicide as escape from poverty, discrimination, and social problems rather than internal mental health issues
• Asian Americans showed higher suicide risk related to interpersonal problems and academic pressure
• LGBTQ+ people aged 18-44 had lifetime suicide attempt rates of 38-44%, often driven by rejection and discrimination

School problems are more than twice as likely to contribute to suicide for Asian and Pacific Islander-Americans compared to white teens. This might be because many Asian-Americans and their parents put a lot of pressure on them to do well in school. But this pressure isn’t only an Asian-American problem. A study of Latina teens who had attempted suicide included one girl named Lola who said:

“I guess I started thinking about, like, my life, like about school. I’m not doing so good. I’m like, “What am I doing with my future?” And I guess it made me kind of sad. [My mom] screams at me. She’s like, “Why don’t you do better? Why don’t you try?” I do try.” 

Lola’s mom said: 

“I don’t remember these issues growing up. You just did what you had to do, and that was pretty much the end of it. You just do it. You don’t get a gold star.” 

Sofia described frequent arguments with her mother about chores. When Sofia did her chores, she believed her mother didn’t notice. 

Sofia’s mom told her during a fight: “I don’t care what you do no more. I don’t care!” 

Sofia thought her participation in the family was inconsequential, and concluded: “So you don’t care if I die,” and then she took pills. 

Her mother interpreted Sofia’s behavior in terms of resistance: “She just doesn’t want to listen. I hope it’s a phase, I just don’t think it’s a phase. I wanna know what it is with her. Because what happens is her anger comes to, ‘I don’t have to do this’. That attitude, it’s like, it’s disrespectful. I’m not your child. I’m your mother.”

A Scottish meta-analysis of ethnographic studies found that teens who self-harmed were often deeply frustrated by adult efforts to link their behavior to social media. Many felt frustrated by attempts to blame social media for their behavior. They saw the narrative that social media was driving their self-harm as wrong and unhelpful. In fact, trying to pin their struggles to one cause often increased their sense of shame and isolation.

These young people talked about self-harm in complicated ways. They said it helped them cope, process big feelings, or they couldn’t explain why they did it at all. If we try to make their pain sound simple, we might miss what they really need for help.

This matters because Haidt thinks that measuring depression and suicide rates shows us what’s wrong with teens. But if different communities understand and feel distress in different ways, we might be missing huge pieces of what’s really going on.

Most research on social media focuses on similar groups of college students. So we might not fully understand how screen time, mental health problems, and suicide connect.

So if the crisis isn’t as bad as claimed, what about the other half of Haidt’s argument? Does social media really cause the mental health problems that teens do face?

Does Social Media Actually Cause Teen Depression?

Jonathan Haidt is adamant that social media causes teen depression. In The Anxious Generation, he writes: “Taken as a whole, the dozens of experiments that Jean Twenge, Zach Rausch, and I have collected confirm and extend the patterns found in the correlational studies: Social media use is a cause of anxiety, depression, and other ailments, not just a correlate.”

That’s a bold claim. But when we dig into those “dozens of experiments,” we find research that’s far less convincing than it first appears.

The Problem with Social Media Research

When students know what you’re studying

Let’s start with one of the studies supporting Haidt’s position: Melissa Hunt’s “No More FOMO” experiment. Researchers told 143 psychology students they were studying social media use, then asked some to limit Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat to 10 minutes per platform per day for three weeks.

Here’s the problem: the students knew exactly what the study was about. They’d heard countless times that social media is bad for mental health. When researchers then asked them to report on their wellbeing, is there any chance they didn’t know the “right” answer?

Here’s the problem: when you tell college students you’re studying whether social media is bad for them, and they’ve heard this message their whole lives, what do you think they’re going to report?  Dr. Peter Gray, who has extensively critiqued this research, points out that despite this built-in bias toward finding negative effects, the study still found:

• No significant effect on overall psychological wellbeing
• No effect on anxiety
• No effect on self-esteem
• No effect on autonomy
• No effect on self-acceptance

Even with this built-in bias toward finding problems, the study barely found anything. No effects on anxiety, self-esteem, or overall wellbeing. Just small changes in loneliness and depression, and only for students who were already struggling.

The Instagram “beauty filter” study

Another study Haidt cites (Kleemans et al. 2018) randomly assigned teen girls to view Instagram selfies, some original, some digitally enhanced to look “extra attractive.” The researchers found that viewing the enhanced photos led to lower body satisfaction.

But again, every teenage girl has heard that perfect Instagram images harm body image. When you tell participants you’re studying “facial preferences” and then show them obviously manipulated photos before asking about body satisfaction, you’re practically telegraphing what you want them to say.

The study also had other limitations:

• Participants viewed 10 selfies in a row (not typical Instagram use)
• Only Dutch girls from similar backgrounds participated
• Effects were measured immediately, not over time
• No control for participants’ mood or baseline body satisfaction

When researchers make it obvious to the study participants that they’re studying whether social media is bad for you, it isn’t surprising when they find that social media is bad for you.

What this means for you: The research claiming to prove that social media harms teens is far weaker than headlines suggest. Studies with serious flaws shouldn’t drive major family decisions. Your energy might be better spent on building a strong relationship with your teen rather than battling over their phone.

The “Natural Experiment” Problem

Given the obvious issues with controlled experiments, researchers have turned to “natural experiments”, studying what happens when broadband internet rolls out to different regions at different times. The logic: if social media really harms mental health, we should see clear declines in mental health as internet speed improves.

Haidt cites studies from England, Spain, and Italy. But the results don’t support his thesis as cleanly as he suggests:

Spain: Effects for men only (or men and women?)

Researchers in Spain tried to look at the connection between the timing of negative mental health effects and the rise of Instagram and TikTok. 

They did find a link between broadband and depression, but only for men born between 1985 and 1995, not women. Yet the study’s abstract claims effects for “both males and females.” This kind of inconsistency between results and reporting undermines confidence in the findings.  

Italy: Mental health impacts likely aren’t only caused by social media

The Italian study mostly covers a period before widespread social media use, yet still found mental health effects. This suggests that mental health impacts aren’t uniquely tied to social media. They could come from other online activities like gambling or pornography.

England: Confusing results

The English study was the most rigorous, tracking 6,000 children across 3,765 neighborhoods as broadband speeds improved. But the results were puzzling:

• Broadband was associated with better exam performance at age 10-11
• But worse performance at age 16
• The largest effect was a 0.6% decrease in how children felt about their appearance
• No statistically significant relationship between the use of social media and girls’ satisfaction with their friends or family relationships
• Spending 5+ hours on social media per day had an effect size comparable to bullying or family conflict found in other research

One challenge with both the English and Spanish studies is that the researchers split their data by factors like gender, age, and urban/rural areas.  But they didn’t state up-front that they were planning to do this analysis.  This is a red flag in research when you keep slicing data different ways until you find something that looks significant, you might just be finding statistical noise.

Dr. Jean Twenge’s Work: A Clear Finding of Harm

I looked at all of the papers Dr. Twenge lists on her website that are related to screen time, and I can see why she would be alarmed!

She looks at multiple large datasets, often of over 100,000 people that represent the U.S. population. She finds that teens who use a lot of digital media, especially social media, are twice as likely to report low well-being, depressive symptoms, and suicide risk factors compared to light users.

She finds that this pattern happens in the U.K. as well and is especially strong for girls. The relationship isn’t straight. Teens who use social media for up to an hour a day often have slightly higher well-being than teens who don’t use it. But well-being goes down steadily as you go beyond 1-2 hours per day.

Most of Twenge’s findings are correlational. This means she can say that screen time and wellbeing are linked, but can’t prove that one causes the other. She does cite studies that follow people over time. She does cite longitudinal studies suggesting that more social media use can predict later declines in well-being, rather than a decline in well-being preceding social media use. 

She proposes that sleep disruption, displacement of in-person interactions and exercise, social comparison, and cyberbullying create the negative effects.

The Potato Problem: When Big Data Misleads

This brings us to one of the most revealing critiques in this entire debate. Dr. Amy Orben, a leading researcher at Cambridge University, looked at teens’ digital technology use and their wellbeing to see if there was a relationship.  She found that there was an association: one approximately the same size as the one between teen wellbeing and eating potatoes.

Both correlations were statistically significant in a dataset of over 60,000 people. Both explained similar tiny amounts of variance in teen wellbeing (less than 1%).

We don’t blame potatoes for teen depression. So why do we blame social media?

This illustrates a crucial problem with big datasets. When you have enough participants, you can find statistically significant correlations between almost anything. The question isn’t whether the correlation exists. It’s whether it matters in the real world.

What the Research on the So-Called Harms of Social Media Actually Shows

When we look at the full body of research on social media and teen mental health, here’s what emerges:

The effects are tiny: Even studies that find bad effects usually explain less than 1% of how teens feel. That’s like saying a teen feels sad because they didn’t eat breakfast while ignoring their family problems, money stress, school pressure, and sleep. Dr. Twenge says 1% matters when you’re talking about millions of people. But other things are still way more important.

The effects aren’t consistent: Dr. Orben’s research shows that scientists can get very different results from the same information depending on how they look at it. Some studies (including Dr. Twenge’s) that show social media is bad pick “the most negative possible” way to look at the data.

Within-person effects are even smaller: Studies that track how changes in one person’s social media use affect their own wellbeing over time show even smaller effects than studies comparing different people at one point in time.  This is important because when we think about banning social media or screen time, we’re trying to create a change in a specific person which may not happen.

What this means for you: If social media affects your teen’s mood less than 1%, trying to control their phone all the time might not help much. You should address things like your relationship with them, their sleep, their stress, and how supported they feel at home and school.

What Affects Teen Mental Health More Than Social Media

If social media explains less than 1% of teen wellbeing, what explains the other 99%? Research consistently points to several factors:

What affects teen mental health #1: Family relationships 

In the UK study of teens who showed up at emergency rooms for self-harm, 64% cited family relationships as their primary problem. Mental health issues – supposedly driven by social media – ranked fifth.

There’s a significant association between positive supportive relationships with parents and young people’s wellbeing and life satisfaction.

What affects teen mental health #2: Social connections

This isn’t just about having friends, but the quality of those friendships. Strong friendships can be especially protective when teens aren’t getting support from family.

What affects teen mental health #3: Economic security

The stress of poverty affects everything from where families live to whether parents are home or working multiple jobs. Financial instability has massive impacts on teen mental health that dwarf any effects from screen time. 

Children’s suicide rates are higher in counties with a higher concentration of poverty than counties with less poverty. Having money is protective for the people who have it, but not having money can be incredibly difficult for those who don’t.

What affects teen mental health #4: Sleep and physical health

Poor sleep is both a cause and effect of mental health struggles. While screens can interfere with sleep, other factors can too. This may include family stress, feeling unsafe in your neighborhood, and early school start times.

What affects teen mental health #5: Academic pressure

A meta-analysis of 52 studies found evidence linking academic pressure to mental health problems in 48 of them. 

In research on communities like Palo Alto, CA and the anonymized ‘Poplar Grove’ in the book Life Under Pressure where suicide rates are many times national averages, kids don’t describe social media as being an important component of their distress.  

These case studies are important because the Palo Alto and ‘Poplar Grove’ teens had everything Haidt says should protect them from social media’s harms. They have tiight community bonds, involved parents, shared values. Yet they experienced suicide rates four to five times the national average.  These are the statistically significant risk factors for past year suicidal ideation among the six school districts in Santa Clara County (in which Palo Alto sits):

1. Drank alcohol, ever in lifetime
2. Use illicit drugs (marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine), ever in lifetime
3. Used pain medication, ever in lifetime
4. Smoked a cigarette, ever in lifetime
5. Female gender
6. Self-identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual
7. Feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more, past 12-months
8. Experienced violent victimization at school, past 12-months
9. Experienced psychological bullying at school, past 12-months
10. Experienced cyberbullying on internet, past 12-months > The only item related to phones/social media
11. Ever skipped school, past 12-months

In addition to these factors, students perceived academic pressure or distress, general life challenges, depression, feeling disconnected and socially isolated, family or cultural pressure, lack of access to mental health care, poor coping skills, sleep deprivation/disorders, and family economic distress as important risk factors for suicide.

What affects teen mental health #6: School environment

Beyond academic pressure, factors like bullying, feeling unsafe, lack of belonging, and unsupportive teachers all contribute to mental health challenges.

We’ve seen recent increases in the percentage of students who were threatened or injured with a weapon at school, and in the percentage of students who were bullied at school.  There has also been a jump in the percentage of students who missed school because of safety concerns either at school or on the way to school.

What this means for you: Focus on being a parent your teen feels safe talking to rather than a parent who monitors their every online move. Ask about their friendships. Notice if they seem overwhelmed by school, and pay attention to how your family dynamics might be affecting them. These factors have far more impact than their Instagram usage.

Blanket Phone Bans Won’t Help All Teens

The Anxious Generation glosses over the idea that smartphone and social media bans may not be beneficial for all teens:

• LGBTQ+ youth often use social media as a lifeline when their families and communities don’t accept them.
• Black teens are more likely than white teens to use social media to get information about mental health.
• Native American girls aged 15-19, who have suicide rates five times higher than white girls, might rely on social media to connect with other Native youth in geographically isolated communities or access mental health resources.

When we create blanket policies for young teens based on research conducted predominantly on advantaged young adults at university, we risk harming the very teens who most need support.

Why This Matters for Your Family

You might be thinking: “Studies have limitations, so what? Shouldn’t we err on the side of caution?”

Here’s why the research quality matters: when studies are this flawed, we can’t tell the difference between correlation and causation. And if we can’t tell what’s actually causing the problems our teens face, we might be fighting the wrong battle.

Imagine if doctors treated every fever by putting patients in ice baths, without checking whether the fever was caused by infection, heat exhaustion, or medication side effects. That’s essentially what happens when we assume screens are the problem without solid evidence.

Haidt points to what he says is a clear decline in children’s mental health and the ‘obvious’ smoking gun of screen time as the single cause. But in our incredibly complicated world with so many things affecting us, what’s more likely? That there’s one single issue creating such a big impact and that screen time is it? Or is it more likely that it’s a complex interplay of issues, of which screen time makes up a fairly small part? Based on the evidence we’ve reviewed, I argue for the latter.  

School Phone Bans: Are We Solving the Wrong Problem?

Given the mixed evidence on social media’s harms, you might wonder: what about the practical solutions being implemented?  Twenty-one states are now studying or have already enforced school phone bans. Florida led the charge, banning cell phones during instructional time and restricting social media access on school Wi-Fi. Louisiana, Virginia, and Indiana just finished their first year of implementation, while Oklahoma, North Dakota, and New York have bans coming next school year.

The logic seems simple: if phones are distracting students and harming their mental health, removing them should help. But what if we’re missing something crucial about why kids turn to their phones in the first place?

The Myth of the Golden Age of Childhood

Before diving into phone bans, we need to examine the premise behind them. Jonathan Haidt argues we should return to a “golden age” of childhood when children played freely without adult supervision. He describes his own 1960s childhood in suburban Scarsdale, riding bikes and going on neighborhood adventures. Dr. Peter Gray similarly recalls the 1950s, playing pickup baseball and basketball with no adults in sight.

But this “golden age” narrative has some serious blind spots.

Who actually had this freedom?

This idealized childhood was primarily available to White, middle-class boys. Here’s what the research shows about who was actually free to play:

Girls had far less freedom due to cultural expectations that kept them closer to home. Even today, young men and boys spend 85% more time outdoors than young women and girls. In interviews with English girls, many report feeling unwelcome or unsafe in parks when boys are using the spaces.

Black and immigrant children faced segregation and discrimination that made many public spaces unsafe. In 1945, Washington D.C. officially segregated public recreation spaces. Four Black boys were arrested when their ball hit a street lamp outside a park they were barred from entering.

Working-class children often had jobs from young ages. Child labor wasn’t federally regulated until 1938, and many children worked in dangerous conditions in factories and mines.

The “golden age” was golden for some, but it wasn’t universal. And even for those who experienced it, the complete absence of adult guidance had its own problems.

What Actually Happens During Unsupervised Play

While Haidt and Gray celebrate adult-free childhood environments, research shows this freedom came with costs. During recess, one of the few times kids still play with minimal supervision, we see:

• Boys taking over sports fields while girls (and boys who don’t play football) are marginalized
• Racial hierarchies being established and reinforced.  Dr. Debra Van Ausdale’s ethnography of preschool classrooms found white children “trying on” the use of power over non-White classmates, seeing if adults would notice or intervene. By and large, nobody did
• Bullying and exclusion of children with less social capital, neurodivergence, etc.
• Boys’ sexual harassment of girls is normalized

These findings suggest that completely unsupervised play doesn’t automatically create the inclusive, character-building environment that phone ban advocates envision.

The Academic Performance Argument Falls Apart

Haidt claims that declining test scores since 2012 prove phones are destroying education. He points to National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data showing drops in reading and math scores coinciding with smartphone adoption.

But when we look closely at the numbers, the story changes:

The “decline” in test scores is tiny

For 9-year-olds, reading scores dropped by one point from 2012 to 2020 on a scale of 0 to 500. Math scores dropped by three points.  (Declines in 2020 and beyond point to COVID as a factor, rather than screens.)

Figure Source: National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt/?age=9

For 13-year-olds, reading dropped three points and math dropped five points over eight years – again on a scale of 0 to 500.

Figure Source: National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt/?age=13

These aren’t “substantial” declines – they’re barely measurable changes on a massive scale.

International data doesn’t support the theory

If smartphones were driving academic decline, we’d expect to see them in countries with high smartphone adoption. But when we compare data on smartphone penetration in 2013 and PISA (an international test of student achievement) scores, we find:

• Singapore and Norway maintained or improved their high scores despite high phone penetration.
• The UK, Hong Kong, and Israel had flat or improving trends.
• Sweden hit a low point in 2012, then rebounded (pre-COVID), with a smart phone penetration 8 points higher than the U.S.
• The United Arab Emirates, with the highest phone penetration in 2012, held steady in reading (pre-COVID) and improved in math.
• Australia’s scores have declined linearly, a trend which began well before 2010 (first smart phones) / 2012 (front-facing camera/Instagram) / 2013 (first smartphone penetration data available).

While we have to assume that smartphone penetration was similar for adults and teens (as separate data on teens isn’t available), there’s no consistent pattern linking high smartphone penetration to academic decline.

Other factors driving school outcomes were ignored

Haidt ignores that both Common Core standards and the Race to the Top program were implemented in 2010, exactly when he claims phone-related decline began. These programs cost $10-20 billion federally plus billions more at state level, fundamentally changing how teachers taught and students learned.  Research indicates that these programs (especially Common Core) have not improved students’ learning outcomes, and may have done harm.

It’s unlikely that disengagement with school, or test score performance, is driven solely, or even mostly, by kids’ mobile phone use.  So is banning phones in school the right answer?

What Research on School Phone Bans Actually Show

The research on phone bans in schools reveals mixed results at best:

Denmark: Mixed results on physical activity from a not-real ban

A four-week ban on smartphones during recess found increased moderate physical activity but decreased vigorous activity. However:

• Only 68% of students actually complied with the “ban” (so was the study even a real test of smartphone bans?)
• There were no control schools that didn’t ban phones for comparison
• The study occurred during COVID with various outdoor recess mandates, which could have affected the results
• Four weeks isn’t long enough to determine lasting effects

England: No significant differences (probably driven by study design)

Researchers compared 30 schools with restrictive versus permissive phone policies and found no significant differences in:

• Student mental wellbeing
• Anxiety or depression
• Academic achievement
• Disruptive behavior
• Sleep or physical activity

The “restrictive” schools often still allowed phones in bags or lockers, and while in-school phone use decreased, overall daily usage didn’t change – suggesting kids just used phones more outside school.

Industry-supported study: Miraculous results!

Yondr, the company that makes locking pouches for phones commissioned a study showing dramatic improvements in academic success and behavior. But this “research” had:

• No control group
• No accounting for other variables that might affect outcomes
• Marketing-style displays of data rather than rigorous analysis
• A clear financial conflict of interest

What this means for you: If your child’s school bans phones, don’t expect it to dramatically improve their mental health or grades. Research suggests these bans treat symptoms rather than causes. Stay focused on what actually helps your child do well: feeling connected, having some control over their life, and dealing with real stress they face.

A Teacher’s Story Reveals the Real Problem

The most revealing insight for me came from physical education teacher Gilbert Schuerch, whose account of his school’s phone ban was featured on Haidt’s blog. Schuerch describes the elaborate lengths students went to circumvent phone restrictions:

• Stabbing through the Yondr pouches with pens
• Bringing two phones (one decoy to put in the Yondr pouch; one real to keep in their pocket)
• One enterprising student bought the Yondr unlock magnet on Amazon and charged classmates $1 per unlock

But the most telling part is Schuerch’s typical interaction with a disengaged student. When a student doesn’t want to participate in gym class, Schuerch tells them:

“You have to learn how to do the things you don’t want to do… Here’s what I actually want right now. I want to be home, on my couch, watching Netflix, with a girl on my left arm, and a girl on my right… But here I am, because we have to do the things we don’t want to do.”

Setting aside the teacher’s sexist dream that he’s holding up as a model to his student, and also that the teacher’s own dream involves zoning out in front of a screen even as he’s telling his student to engage in the class.  

What’s most important to me is that Schuerch sees the main purpose of school is to train kids to do things they don’t want to do, so they can spend the rest of their lives doing things they don’t want to do.

Is this really the purpose of school?  Is this what we hope our kids will aspire to in life?

The Missing Piece: Why Kids Want Phones

This exchange reveals what phone ban advocates miss: kids turn to phones because phones meet needs that school doesn’t. Kids turn to their phones to meet needs like:

• Autonomy: Choice over what to engage with and when
• Connection: Real relationships with peers on their terms
• Relevance: Content that feels meaningful to their lives
• Agency: The ability to shape their own experience

School, by contrast, often provides:

• Forced compliance with predetermined curricula
• Limited choice in activities or pace of learning
• Minimal opportunity for authentic peer connection
• Content disconnected from students’ interests and experiences

When we ban phones without addressing these underlying needs, we’re treating symptoms while ignoring the underlying disease.

What Students Actually Say About School Engagement

When researchers ask teens directly about school engagement (instead of just studying numerical data), students report that engagement is fostered by:

• Supportive relationships with teachers and staff
• Opportunities for real choice and voice
• Relevant, hands-on learning experiences
• Classroom environments focused on growth rather than just grades
• Respect and fair treatment from adults

School disengagement is associated with:

• Strict, punitive rules and policies (perhaps including phone bans?)
• Irrelevant or boring curriculum
• Limited autonomy and voice (perhaps on policies like phone bans?)
• Lack of respect from adults
• Peer exclusion and social problems

Some researchers in Spain worked with middle schoolers in several different schools to co-design ethnographic research on the middle school experience. One student said: 

“I learn little in school. I spend most of my time looking for information … I look for things not explained at school in Internet … [ … ] In the class, I listen, but not too much, because just being attentive you get the picture. I know too much…I learned to produce videos, movies, songs … The camera … I know a lot about videos: effects, how to assemble a video, and so on.”

An adult researcher on the project observed: 

“What the students learn in school somehow helps them to understand the outside world, but what they learn outside is not usually incorporated and taken into account at school. Only in a very few classes teachers pay attention to their experience, knowledge and understandings. At school they learn things to pass exams, but once passed they find difficult to remember them. They tend to remember what they learn outside, because for them this learning is more meaningful, is more related to their experiences, interests, and social and emotional relationships. Although digital technology is increasingly incorporated in classes, it is used differently inside and outside school. Within often its use places them as spectators and recipients of information, outside its use increases their responsibility, agency, ability to scan information, to communicate and express.”

Phone access might be related to school disengagement, but it’s only a small part of what drives disengagement. Relationships, relevance, and respect are what matter.  Where teachers and schools can build real relationships with kids, kids thrive.  When kids know that their voice doesn’t matter, and that the adults are trying to get kids to do things that don’t matter, kids disengage.  

Phone bans are unlikely to lead to a huge improvement in kids’ mental health (since they may just use their phones more outside of school) or test scores.  Fortunately this will be relatively easy to test: in a year or two, we’ll expect to see kids’ mental health and test scores increasing in the states where bans have been implemented.

What this means for you: If your teen seems checked out from school, their phone probably isn’t the main problem. Look for signs they feel unheard, overwhelmed, or disconnected from learning. The solution likely means pushing for better school experiences, not just taking away their device.

Now we’ve looked at schools, what should we do about our kids’ use of smartphones and social media at home?

Should We Ban Our Kids from Using Smartphones at Home?

Dr. Jean Twenge, Jonathan Haidt’s frequent collaborator, will release a book in September 2025 offering what seems like the perfect solution: 10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World: How Parents Can Stop Smartphones, Social Media, and Gaming from Taking Over Their Children’s Lives. 

Her rules include “You’re in charge,” “No social media until 16,” and “Give the first smartphone with the driver’s license.”

These rules are appealing to parents. They’re clear, easy to communicate, and give us something concrete to do. But what if this approach, built on control and restriction, actually pushes our kids further away from us when they need our guidance most?

The Problem with “You’re in Charge”

Twenge’s Rule #1 is “You’re in charge.” While I understand the appeal of parental authority, especially when dealing with apps designed to capture our kids’ attention, this approach has a fundamental flaw: it’s really hard to change someone else’s behavior.

Nobody likes it when others try to control their behavior, and kids are no exception. When we make ourselves “in charge” of our teen’s technology use, we’re essentially trying to control their behavior rather than helping them develop their own internal compass.

Here’s a personal example: My husband loves mountain biking and has been encouraging our daughter to ride with him for years. Despite his enthusiasm and constant invitations, she increasingly resists. The more she’s asked to ride, the less she wants to do it because she wants it to be her own decision.

Contrast this with hiking, something I love but stopped pushing her to do. Once I gave up asking, she started occasionally suggesting hikes herself. She wants to make choices about her own activities, just like she chooses to walk dogs for her pet-sitting business.  She doesn’t love walking, but she does it because she chose the goal of building her business.

What this means for you: Rules and restrictions might seem like the obvious solution. But, they often backfire by damaging the trust and communication you need most. Before implementing strict limits, ask yourself: Am I trying to control my teen’s behavior, or am I trying to help them develop their own healthy relationship with technology?

Why Control-Based Approaches Backfire

The sneaking problem

When we ban technology, kids don’t just comply. They get creative. They already know how to:

• Create secret social media accounts
• Hide social media app icons behind calculator logos
• Access devices at friends’ houses

The real danger isn’t that they’ll only reduce their screen time slightly when we take their phone away (which Twenge says is still beneficial). The danger is that they’ll lose the ability to come to us when they encounter disturbing content, inappropriate contact, or confusing situations online.

Imagine two scenarios:

Scenario 1: A teen with open dialogue about technology encounters disturbing content on their device and thinks: “I saw something online that made me uncomfortable. I’m going to tell my parent so I can understand this better and make a plan so I don’t see that kind of content again.”

Scenario 2: A teen who’s banned from smartphones sees the same content on a friend’s device but thinks: “That’s really disturbing.  But my friend says it’s normal, so I guess it must be normal.  I can’t tell my parent about this because I’m not supposed to be on a phone at all and they’ll kill me if they find out.”

Which teen is safer?

The historical failure of “Just say no”

We’ve tried control-based approaches before. The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program in the 1980s and 1990s taught kids to “just say no” to drugs through willpower alone. Not only did DARE fail to reduce drug use, in some cases, it actually increased it.

Why did it fail?

• It promoted abstinence without addressing underlying reasons kids use drugs (stress, trauma, curiosity, social pressure)
• Zero-tolerance messaging discouraged honest conversations
• Kids knew they’d be punished if caught, so they couldn’t seek help

Sound familiar? Kids use social media for many of the same reasons they might use drugs. They use it to cope with stress, connect with others, escape boredom, or explore identity.  When they thought about using drugs or actually tried them, they didn’t talk with caring adults because they knew they’d be in trouble.

The Relationship Cost of Control

When we focus primarily on controlling our teen’s behavior, we risk damaging the very relationship that could help them navigate technology healthily. Consider this story from the book Hold On To Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté:

Melanie was thirteen years old.  Her father could barely contain his anger when he talked about his daughter.  Life with her changed after Melanie’s grandmother had died when the child was in the sixth grade.  Until that time, Melanie had been cooperative at home, a good student at school, and a loving sister to her brother…Now she was missing classes and couldn’t care less about homework.  She was sneaking out of the house on a regular basis.  She refused to talk to her parents, declaring that she hated them and that she just wanted to be left alone…

The mother felt traumatized.  She spent much of her time pleading with her daughter to be “nice,” to be home on time, and to stop sneaking out.  

The father could not abide Melanie’s insolent attitude.  He believed that the solution was somehow to lay down the law, to teach the adolescent ‘a lesson she would never forget.’  As far as he was concerned, anything less than a hard-line approach was only indulging Melanie’s unacceptable behavior and made matters worse.  He was all the more enraged since, until this abrupt change in her personality, Melanie had been ‘daddy’s girl,’ sweet and compliant.

Everyone wants Melanie to be ‘nice’ and ‘sweet’ and ‘compliant’ again.  Perhaps she was short with them at times in her grief after her grandmother’s death, and they responded by pushing her away.  

She withdrew further, so they punished her more. They created a cycle where her friends became more accepting than her parents, and she no longer wants to be with her family.

If the book had been written more recently than 2004, Melanie’s Dad would have shouted at her for always being on her phone, and then taken it away.  But would this have improved their relationship?  The “solution” of imposing stricter rules doesn’t address why Melanie pulled away in the first place. It just continues the pattern that created the problem.

What this means for you: The relationship you have with your teen matters more for their mental health than any rule you could make about their phone. If screen time restrictions are causing constant fights and pushing your child away from you, the cure might be worse than the problem.

What Kids Are Really Moving Away From

Here’s something crucial to understand: when kids spend excessive time on screens, they’re not just moving toward technology. They’re often moving away from something, and sometimes that thing is us.

Many teens become what Neufeld and Maté call “peer-oriented”. They are more attached to their friends than to their parents. While cutting off screen time might seem like it would bring them back to us, it won’t work if we haven’t addressed why they moved away in the first place.

If your relationship with your teen has become primarily about rules, consequences, and compliance, removing their phone won’t suddenly create the warm, connected relationship you want. It might just leave them feeling more alone and powerless.

Make Offline Life Compelling

Instead of restricting online activities, we need to make offline experiences genuinely interesting:

• Support kids in taking on real responsibility: My daughter loves her pet-sitting business partly because clients trust her with important things like their pets’ safety and their house keys. (It’s not like we hadn’t tried to get her to take on more responsibility around the house but again, it being self-chosen is key!)
• Acknowledge their contributions: Even for routine chores, acknowledgment matters. Just like adults appreciate being thanked for cooking dinner, kids appreciate recognition for their efforts.  I now thank Carys each day for unloading the dishwasher and putting her plates in the kitchen after dinner.
• Support their goals: When Carys wanted to expand her business, she needed pet first aid certification. The online course was miserable. The written content was hard for her dyslexic brain to process. I supported her by showing her how to use a screen reader (which read in a boring monotone).  But she persevered because it served her goal, not something imposed on her.
• Create opportunities for autonomy: Let them make meaningful decisions about their classes, schedules, and activities.  When we push them into doing things they don’t want to do they might learn a skill, but it might come at the cost of our relationship with them.

What this means for you: If your teen seems “addicted” to their phone, look at what they might be avoiding in real life. Are they stressed about school? Feeling disconnected from family? Bored with their daily routine? Address the underlying issue, not just the symptom.

Moving Forward: 6 Strategies Better Than Just Banning Phones

I’m not directly facing challenges with phones or social media yet, because Carys doesn’t use either of them by her choice.  I still use the following strategies around discussions about iPad time.

Instead of focusing solely on restriction, I hope you’ll consider involving your kids in any rules around phone usage, model healthy device use yourselves, and address broader sources of stress and disconnection in your family.

Here are strategies that work better than simply banning phones:

Screen time strategy #1: Look at the whole picture, not just the screen

Teen mental health comes from many different places. It can be from school stress, family problems, being excluded by friends. For example, if your teen seems ‘addicted’ to their phone, ask yourself: Are they avoiding homework they find overwhelming? Using social media to stay connected with friends when they feel left out at school? Scrolling to decompress after a stressful day of advanced classes? The phone might be their coping mechanism, not the actual problem.

Social media is just one small piece of this puzzle. When we only focus on phones, we might miss the bigger problems that are really causing our teens to struggle. While the exact mechanisms will be different, kids will face these issues regardless of whether they’re online.

Screen time strategy #2: Build strong connections through listening

The best protection for our teens is having close relationships with parents and other caring adults. Set aside time for real conversations about what’s happening in your child’s life, both online and offline. Listen more than you talk. 

Instead of ‘How was school?’, try ‘What was the best part of your day?’. Or ask about something specific that you know your child was looking forward to or was feeling worried about. When they share something from their phone, resist saying ‘You’re always on that thing’. Instead try: ‘That’s interesting, tell me more about that’ or ‘How did you feel about that?’.

Don’t jump in with quick fixes. Instead, help your kids figure out their own solutions to the problems they face.

Screen time strategy #3: Work together instead of just setting rules

Instead of making strict rules or banning things completely, include your child in deciding what healthy limits look like. Help them think about how different activities make them feel. Support them in learning to make good choices about technology on their own. When kids help create the rules, they’re much more likely to follow them.

Here’s what this looks like in practice: Sit down with your teen and say, ‘I’ve been reading about screen time and I’m curious about your perspective. How do you feel after spending time on different apps? Are there times when your phone feels helpful versus stressful? What would healthy phone use look like for our family?’ Then actually listen to their answers and build agreements together.

If you start by threatening to take away their phones, your kids will never tell you when phones are actually causing problems for them.

Screen time strategy #4: Focus on the bigger sources of stress for the most stressed people

Pay attention to the pressure you might be putting on your child about grades, activities, or being “successful”. Sometimes the kids who look like they have everything figured out are actually carrying the heaviest loads. Talk with your kids about what success means to them and what kind of support they need. 

Look for signs your child is overwhelmed: Are they staying up late doing homework? Stressed about college applications? Feeling pressure to get perfect grades? Having friendship drama? 

Ask what support your child would like to receive from you. Maybe that means talking to teachers about workload, helping them develop better study habits, or simply acknowledging that things are hard for them right now.

Look for ways to make the biggest difference. It can be making sure your child supports LGBTQ teens at school or helping young men access resources when they’re struggling. Both of these are likely to reduce the rate of harm more than keeping middle class White girls off social media.

Screen time strategy #5: Create phone-free connection opportunities that don’t feel like rules

Instead of declaring ‘no phones at dinner’, try ‘I miss talking with you. Do you want to cook together tonight?’ 

If your teen loves a particular game, TV show, or YouTube creator, engage with their interests. Ask genuine questions about what they’re watching or playing. 

You might be able to find a shared project to work on, like learning to make sourdough bread, planning a family trip, or working on a room makeover. When you’re both invested in the outcome, phones naturally take a backseat. 

When I’m helping my daughter with her business to help other kids start their own businesses we are often using screens. But, there’s a big difference between social media scrolling and recording videos, updating her website, and managing her retirement savings account.

Timing matters: Don’t try to create connection when your teen is stressed, tired, or in the middle of something important to them. Pay attention to when they seem most open. They may need time alone to decompress after school. Dinner might have become a battleground. A quiet late evening or weekend may be a better opportunity.

Make it low-pressure: The goal isn’t deep emotional conversations every time. Sometimes connection can happen by just being in the same room doing different things. It can also happen by sharing a funny meme or having them help you figure out why the printer isn’t working. These small moments build trust that makes the bigger conversations possible.

Follow their lead: If your teen starts telling you about something, put down whatever you’re doing and listen, even if it’s not a convenient time. 

The magic happens when your teen starts thinking: ‘I want to tell my parents about this’. Not ‘I have to talk to my parents because they’re making me put my phone away’.

Screen time strategy #6: Remember that every child is different

What helps one child might not help another. For some kids, social media causes stress. For others, it’s where they find important support. For many kids, social media can be supportive in one moment and a stressor in the next.

Think about your child’s personality and what they’re dealing with when making decisions (with them!) about screen time. If your child seems really affected by social media, talk with them about what you’re seeing and ask what help they want. And if your teen is using social media to cope with real-life problems, you’ll need different strategies to support them.

Final Thoughts

The Anxious Generation has received a lot of publicity. A lot of parents are worried about the ideas in the book. This matters because if we believe smartphones and social media cause our children’s problems when they really don’t, we’ll take actions that might not work. They might even be harmful.

The research shows us that social media does influence our kids’ mental health.  But a far bigger influence on kids’ mental health is the relationships, pressures, and experiences in their real lives. This doesn’t mean phones are harmless or that we should ignore concerning behaviors. But it does mean that banning devices without addressing the deeper issues is like taking away a teenager’s diary because they’re writing sad entries in it.

Instead of asking “How do I get my kid off their phone?” we might ask:

• “What is my child getting from their phone that they’re not getting elsewhere?”
• “What pressures are they facing that I might not fully understand?”
• “How can I create more opportunities for real connection and meaningful conversation?”
• “What kind of support does my child actually want from me?”

The teens who are struggling most need us to be curious, not controlling. They need us to listen without immediately jumping to solutions. They need to know they can tell us when something online bothers them without worrying we’ll take their devices away.

I know this approach can feel more difficult than simple rules. It would be so much easier if we could just ban smartphones and solve our kids’ problems. But the evidence tells us that the issues our teens face are more complex than any single solution can address.

Our kids are growing up in a world we didn’t experience. Whether we like it or not, technology will be a part of their lives. The question isn’t how to protect them from that reality. It’s how to help them develop the skills and judgment to handle it well.

That happens not through control, but through connection. Not through fear, but through trust. Not by solving their problems for them, but by supporting them as they figure out their own solutions.

Your relationship with your teen is the most powerful tool you have for supporting their mental health. It’s worth protecting, even if it means taking a more nuanced approach to the phone in their pocket.

Frequently Asked Questions About The Anxious Generation

1. What is the summary of The Anxious Generation?

Jonathan Haidt’s book says that between 2010-2015, smartphones and social media created a mental health crisis among teens. He says phones replaced “play-based childhood” with “phone-based childhood.” He presents dramatic statistics showing increases in depression, anxiety, and self-harm. But when you look closely, these increases may come from cherry picked research, better mental health screening, and changes in how mental health problems are reported. They may not be new cases caused by technology.

2. How do you define a mental health crisis?

A true mental health crisis would show big, consistent increases in problems across different groups and countries. What we actually see are changes that happen inconsistently both within and across countries. For example, suicide rates among kids aged 10-14 increased from 0.8 to 2.2 per 100,000. That rate is still far below middle aged men. It’s also much lower than teens aged 15-19, who tend to spend more time on smartphones and social media than the 10-14 year-olds.

3. Why are today’s youth so anxious?

Research shows the biggest factors aren’t social media. These are family relationship problems (cited by 64% of teens seeking help), school pressure, money stress, sleep problems, and school environment issues. Different communities experience stress differently. This is often related to discrimination, poverty, or cultural pressures that have nothing to do with phones.

4. Does social media cause depression in teens?

The evidence for causation is much weaker than headlines suggest. Studies claiming to prove this have major flaws: participants know what researchers are studying, effects are measured immediately rather than over time, and many recruit only from middle class, predominantly White communities. The correlation exists but is extremely small. Some researchers argue that the practical significance in real life is much less than for factors like family relationships, friendships, and school stress.

5. Should parents allow their child to use social media?

Rather than blanket bans, focus on building strong relationships and open communication. When we ban technology, kids often find ways around restrictions but lose the ability to come to us when they encounter problems online. The real protection comes from having teens who feel safe discussing their online experiences with parents.

6. How do you set social media limits with your teen?

Work together rather than imposing strict rules. Include your teen in deciding what healthy limits look like. Help them think about how different activities make them feel. When kids help create the rules, they’re much more likely to follow them and come to you when problems arise.

7. Should parents control their child’s phone?

Control-based approaches often backfire. Kids get creative with secret accounts, hidden apps, and borrowed devices. More importantly, they lose the ability to come to you when they encounter disturbing content or inappropriate contact. Focus on connection over control. The relationship is your most powerful tool.

8. What’s the best way to support teens’ mental health

Look at the whole picture, not just screens. Build strong connections through listening more than talking. Address bigger sources of stress like academic pressure or family problems. Make offline activities genuinely interesting and support kids in taking on real responsibility and autonomy when they’re ready for it. Remember that every child is different in what they need, and try to meet your child where they are.

9. How do I manage my teen’s phone?

Instead of trying to manage the phone, focus on the relationship. Ask what they’re getting from their phone that they’re not getting elsewhere. Listen to their perspective without immediately jumping to solutions. Address any bigger stressors in their life. Create opportunities for meaningful offline connection and real responsibility.

10. Should parents have the right to monitor teens’ activity on social media?

Monitoring can damage trust and push teens away when they need guidance most. Instead of surveillance, focus on creating an environment where teens feel safe discussing their online experiences. When they encounter problems, you want them thinking “I can talk to my parents about this” rather than “I have to hide this so I don’t get in trouble.”

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References

Finding this useful? Share with a friend!

1. Summer boredom happens when kids lose school structure and face too many choices without knowing how to navigate free time independently.
2. Kids with ADHD experience boredom differently due to lower dopamine levels that make time feel slower and increase their need for stimulation.
3. Traditional activity lists fail because they ignore each child’s unique interests and create overwhelm instead of genuine engagement.
4. Child-led learning means following what naturally captures your child’s attention and building on those interests together as their guide.
5. When kids say “I’m bored,” respond with curiosity instead of immediate solutions – it’s valuable information about what they need.
6. Boredom creates space for creativity and self-discovery when we resist filling every moment with structured activities and entertainment.

It’s 10 a.m. on a Wednesday. You’re one coffee in and already Googling “summer activities for 8 year olds” while your child lies dramatically on the floor groaning: “I’m bored! There’s nothing to dooooo!” You click through Pinterest boards and pre-made printables, hoping for a magic fix, but deep down, you know the novelty will wear off by lunchtime.

If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

Summer boredom is real. It’s frustrating. And it often feels like your child is begging you to be their full-time entertainment director. But what if I told you that the best “summer boredom busters” don’t come from a screen or a subscription box?

They’re already inside your home and inside your child.

Today, I want to reframe how we think about summer, boredom, and learning. Instead of asking how can I keep my child busy? Let’s ask: What are they trying to tell me when they say they’re bored?

Why Is Summer So Boring

If you’ve ever wondered why your child seems more bored during summer than during the school year, you’re asking exactly the right question.

Summer break can feel boring to many kids because it takes away the routine they’re used to. During the school year, their days are filled with challenges, school work, and clear goals. When summer arrives, that framework disappears, leaving children with endless stretches of time but no roadmap for how to fill it. But here’s the thing – many kids find school boring too, for the very same reason. When children don’t have real choices about what they’re learning or how they’re spending their time, when they can’t pursue what genuinely interests them, that lack of autonomy leaves them feeling disconnected and bored, whether they’re sitting in a classroom or lounging at home.

There’s also the paradox of choice at play. When children have “everything” available to them – toys, books, games, outdoor space – the abundance can actually make it harder to settle on something that feels genuinely engaging. It’s similar to how adults sometimes stand in front of a full refrigerator and declare that there’s “nothing to eat”.

The cultural pressure to have an amazing summer doesn’t help either. When kids hear about camps, vacations, and all those perfect activities they see online, regular time at home doesn’t seem as fun. Without meaning to, we’ve taught them that summer should be exciting all the time. This makes normal, everyday moments feel disappointing.

What Causes Boredom in Kids

At its core, boredom happens when there’s a mismatch between what our brain can handle and what we’re asking it to do. Think of it like Goldilocks and the three bears – the porridge can’t be too hot or too cold. Our kids need mental stimulation that’s just right.

When a task is too easy, kids zone out because their brain isn’t engaged. But here’s what might surprise you: when something is overly challenging, kids get bored too. Their cognitive resources get overwhelmed, making it hard to pay attention to anything.

Do kids with ADHD get bored more easily?

This mismatch becomes even more complex for neurodivergent kids, particularly those with ADHD. There’s fascinating research showing that children with ADHD experience boredom differently because of how their brains process dopamine – that feel-good neurotransmitter that’s part of our reward system and triggers emotions like joy and excitement.

For kids with ADHD, lower dopamine levels affect how they experience time. Minutes crawl by more slowly than they do for other people, which means they feel bored much more quickly during periods of inactivity. Dr. Katya Rubia at King’s College London found that when these kids look for new and exciting things or take risks, they’re actually trying to help themselves feel better. They’re boosting chemicals in their brain to make time feel normal again and get rid of that awful boredom. 

Here’s the reframe I want to offer: when we see our kids sprawled on the couch declaring “I’m bored!”, that’s not a problem to solve immediately. It’s valuable information about what’s happening in their world right now. Instead of rushing to fix it, we can get curious about what they’re really telling us.

I know that can feel uncomfortable. When your child says they’re bored, something inside you might start scrambling – your mind racing through activity lists, wondering if you’re failing them somehow, feeling that familiar pressure to be their entertainment director. That discomfort is completely normal, but here’s what I want you to remember: your child’s boredom is not your problem to fix.

What can help both you and your child is building in predictable daily one-on-one connection time. This doesn’t have to be elaborate. Maybe it’s fifteen minutes of undivided attention after breakfast, or a brief check-in before bedtime where you’re fully present with them. When children know they have that reliable connection time coming, they’re often more willing to navigate boredom on their own. They’re not using “I’m bored” as a bid for your attention because they already know when that attention will come.

So how do we teach kids to handle boredom? The answer might surprise you: we don’t teach them to handle it. We teach them to listen to it. When your child says “I’m bored,” that’s actually their internal compass pointing toward what they need. Maybe they need more challenge, maybe they need to rest, or maybe they’re ready to dive deeper into something that genuinely interests them. By responding with curiosity instead of immediate solutions, we’re teaching them that boredom isn’t something to fear or fix quickly – it’s information they can use to guide their own choices.

Why Traditional Summer Activity Lists Don’t Work

I know you’ve seen them: “100 Summer Activities for Kids!” “12 Ways to Keep Your Child Learning This Summer!” I get why these lists feel appealing. As parents, we want to do right by our children, especially during those long summer months when the structure of school disappears.

But these one-size-fits-all approaches often create more problems than they solve.

These lists assume that what sparks joy in one child will automatically work for yours. They ignore your child’s unique interests, learning style, and developmental needs. Even more concerning? They often pack in so many activities that children never get the chance to dive deep into anything that truly captures their attention. And they also assume that if a child is doing something not on the list, they aren’t really learning.

When we over-schedule our children, especially during summer, we’re not creating opportunities for growth. We’re creating stress. Instead of fostering the curiosity and engagement we’re hoping for, we often end up with overwhelmed, resistant children.

So when your child comes to you and says, “I’m bored”, pause before you reach for that activity list. They might not be telling you they need more to do. They might be telling you they need more say in what they do.

How to Help Bored Children: A Different Approach

Here’s the shift I’m inviting you to make: let go of the pressure to fill every moment with structured activities. Step away from the Pinterest-perfect summer schedules and the guilt that comes with them.

Instead, get genuinely curious about what your child already loves. This doesn’t require you to become an expert in dinosaurs or coding or whatever captures their attention. Your role is to be a guide on the side, not a sage on the stage, someone who helps them explore deeper rather than someone who teaches from a position of authority.

The beautiful thing about this approach is that it’s entirely flexible. Some families might spend hours each day following their child’s interests, while others might dedicate just a weekend afternoon here and there to extending what their child is curious about. There’s no right amount of time. It’s about following your child’s lead and your family’s rhythm.

When your child announces “I’m bored,” resist the urge to immediately offer solutions or activities. Try responding with a simple “Oh, yeah?” in a non-judgmental voice. This communicates that boredom isn’t a problem that needs fixing. If they persist with “I’m BORED! I have nothing to do!” you might offer: “We don’t have to do something every moment of every day. It’s okay to just be. Sometimes you’ll have an idea about what you want to do, but if not, that’s fine too.”

You can even sit with them in that boredom. Notice what comes up in your own body when faced with empty time. Many of us learned as children that we should always be productive, always be doing something. But there’s enormous value in simply being present with our children without any agenda to change or fix anything.

Learning doesn’t have to look like worksheets and educational apps. It can look like baking experiments, cataloging backyard insects, or building elaborate stick forts. When we follow our children’s authentic interests, we don’t just support their learning – we reconnect with our own capacity to wonder and discover alongside them.

What Child-Led Summer Activities Look Like

Let me be clear: this is not another activity list. What I’m about to share are examples of what some children might be drawn to during summer but your job isn’t to copy these ideas. Your job is to observe your child and discover what genuinely lights them up.

Summer activities for 3 and 4 year olds: Following their natural curiosity

Some preschoolers might become fascinated with mud. Not just playing in it, but mixing it with water in different ratios, adding leaves and stones, treating their backyard like a laboratory. Others might discover the magic of water and measuring cups, spending hours pouring, comparing, and experimenting with cause and effect.

The key question isn’t “What activity should I plan?”. It’s “What is my child already drawn to?” Then we follow their lead. If you’re curious about why some activities capture your child’s attention while others fall flat, it might be because you’re tapping into what researchers call their current “schema” – those patterns of repeated behavior that drive their play.

Summer activities for 5 and 6 year olds: When independence meets imagination

A 5-year-old might become captivated by creating their own restaurant, spending days designing menus, taking orders from family members, and preparing elaborate pretend meals. Some 6-year-olds discover the joy of collecting – interesting rocks from neighborhood walks, each one carefully examined and sorted by color, size, or texture.

This is the age where children often want to be “helpers” in real family tasks. A child drawn to cooking might graduate from stirring to measuring ingredients and following simple recipes. The key is noticing when your child expresses genuine interest in joining adult activities, then finding ways to let them contribute meaningfully.

Summer activities for 7, 8, and 9 year olds: When interests deepen

A 7-year-old might spend an entire summer cataloging every insect in the backyard, creating detailed drawings and descriptions. What starts as simple curiosity could become a deep dive into biology, art, and scientific observation. An 8-year-old who thrives on organization might create elaborate color-coded schedules for playdates and family activities, exploring systems and planning in their own way.

When you notice these deeper interests emerging, you can help them build on what they’re already drawn to. The child fascinated by insects might love trips to the library to find field guides, or you might help them connect with a local nature center’s junior naturalist program. The organizer might enjoy learning about different planning systems or helping coordinate a family project. The key is offering resources and connections that extend their existing curiosity rather than redirecting it toward what we think they should be learning.

Summer activities for 10 year olds and up: The power of autonomy

A 10-year-old passionate about baking might document their experiments, take photos, and share discoveries with friends. Another child might research everything about starting a pet-sitting business, from pricing to marketing. Some children devour mythology books all summer, then write their own modern retellings.

At this age, autonomy becomes crucial. The more ownership children have over their learning, the more deeply they’ll engage.

The pattern here isn’t the specific activities. It’s that each one emerges from the child’s own interests and develops naturally.

How to Discover What Actually Interests Your Child

So how do we uncover what truly excites them? The answer is simpler than you might think, but it requires us to slow down and pay attention.

Start by watching your child during free time.  What activities do they gravitate to?

What do they choose when no one is telling them what to do? 

What activities do they go back to over and over, even when other options are available? 

These patterns tell us much more about their real interests than any test or questionnaire ever could.

When you want to learn more about what’s catching their attention, try writing down their questions if you don’t have time to address them in the moment. Then return to them when your child has free time.

And here’s something that might surprise you: treat boredom as helpful information, not a problem to fix right away. When your child says “I’m bored”, don’t jump in with suggestions. Let that moment breathe. What happens when they’re given space to figure it out themselves often points directly to their real interests.

These sparks of genuine curiosity are your best guide toward summer experiences that will actually engage your child, rather than just fill time.

Child-Led Learning: The Key to Busting Summer Boredom

You may have heard the phrase “child-led learning” before. But what does it really mean, especially when it comes to creating effective summer boredom busters?

It’s not about letting your child “do whatever they want” with no boundaries. True child-led learning means taking what genuinely captures their attention and building on it together. Think of yourself as a guide on the side rather than a teacher delivering lessons from the front of the room.

Here’s what this looks like in practice: when a child becomes fascinated with fire trucks, that interest can naturally grow into drawing them, reading about them, building them with blocks, learning about community helpers, and maybe even visiting a fire station. A child who loves cats might explore biology through animal studies, practice writing by creating cat stories, and learn about different cultures by learning how cats are viewed around the world. 

This is where scaffolding becomes your best tool as a parent. You’re providing just enough support to help your child dive deeper into what they’re curious about, without taking over their exploration. You may scaffold your child to learn more about firetrucks by helping them find books about fire trucks. 

The key is that these interest-based learning activities come from the child’s real curiosity, not from a predetermined curriculum.

When you’re wondering how to follow your child’s lead, resist the urge to immediately turn their interest into a formal lesson. Instead, you might ask, “Would you like me to help you learn more about this?” or “What else would you like to discover about that?”

This approach works as one of the most effective summer boredom busters for tweens and younger children alike because it addresses boredom’s root cause: the mismatch between what children find meaningful and what they’re being asked to do.

Benefits of Child-Led Learning

The research on child-led learning is compelling, and the benefits extend far beyond just keeping children occupied during summer months.

Child-led learning benefit #1: Enhanced performance and persistence 

When children have autonomy over their learning – when they can exert control over what and how they explore – we see dramatically improved performance and persistence. They stick with challenges longer because the motivation comes from within, not from external pressure.

A child who decides to build a fort in the backyard might spend hours working through problems like how to make walls that won’t fall down, which materials work best, and how to create a roof that keeps out rain. Even when their first attempts don’t work perfectly, they keep trying different approaches without any external pressure to succeed.

Child-led learning benefit #2: Increased creativity and critical thinking 

Interest-based learning activities naturally foster creative problem-solving. When children are really curious about something, they look at it from different angles, ask deeper questions, and make connections that wouldn’t happen in more structured learning.

When a child wants to build something with blocks or cardboard, that simple interest can naturally grow into planning, designing, testing ideas, trying different ways, using what’s available, and understanding how things fit in space. All of these skills can grow naturally from the child’s own curiosity – no curriculum needed.

What we might dismiss as ‘just playing around’ is actually how children are wired to learn. When we give them space for this kind of exploration, we’re letting them do what comes naturally – and what they need to grow into flexible, creative thinkers.

Child-led learning benefit #3: Stronger intrinsic motivation 

This is perhaps the most important benefit. Young children demonstrate this naturally. Think about how effortlessly preschoolers acquire language and explore their world. You rarely hear parents complaining about their toddler’s lack of motivation to learn new words or figure out how things work.

Instead of rushing to provide answers, you might notice your child asking better questions when given space to think. They might muse over ideas in their own head, coming up with surprisingly thoughtful answers that remind you just how smart kids really are.

Child-led learning benefit #4: Better long-term retention 

Children remember what they’ve learned when it comes from real interest instead of what adults require. The knowledge becomes personally important to them rather than just facts to memorize for a test.

A child who gets interested in how shadows change during the day might still be playing with flashlights and objects months later. They might draw maps showing where the sun hits their backyard at different times. This kind of deep interest that leads to creative work can’t be forced. It has to come from the child themselves.

Child-led learning benefit #5: Less pressure for parents

Perhaps one of the most surprising benefits is how much easier this approach makes parenting. Many parents feel like they need to be a fountain of knowledge, always ready with the right answer. But child-led learning reveals something freeing: you don’t need to have all the answers. It’s actually okay to not know something and help your child through the process of finding out on their own. 

This connects to what we know about self-directed education – it’s not about leaving children to figure everything out alone. It’s about becoming a facilitator of their learning rather than the director of it. You’re still deeply involved, but in a way that supports their natural curiosity rather than replacing it with your agenda.

This shift can feel incredibly liberating because you get to simply enjoy the process of your child’s learning and trust them to find answers, taking on more of a support role with much less pressure.

Final Thoughts

Boredom isn’t the enemy we’ve been taught to believe it is. It’s actually a nudge toward deeper exploration, creativity, and connection with what truly matters to our children.

When we rush to fill every empty moment with activities and entertainment, we’re inadvertently teaching our children that they can’t trust themselves to navigate uncertainty. We’re suggesting that discomfort should be avoided rather than explored. But what if we flipped that script entirely?

As Nietzsche once said, creative people require periods of unstimulated time for their best work to emerge. I think the same is true for our children. They don’t just need quiet time for future creative work. They need it for their basic growth as people who can be comfortable alone, come up with their own ideas, and find meaning in peaceful moments.

This summer, you have an opportunity to give your child something far more valuable than a packed schedule of activities. You can give them the gift of space – space to be bored, space to wonder, space to discover what genuinely captivates them when no one else is directing their attention.

This isn’t about being a “lazy” parent or abandoning your role as a guide. It’s about trusting that your child has an innate capacity for curiosity and learning that doesn’t need to be manufactured or managed. It’s about recognizing that the most profound discoveries often happen in the spaces between structured activities.

When we make space for boredom and respond with curiosity instead of trying to control everything, we’re helping our children take charge of their own learning. We’re helping them build the inner guide they’ll need long after summer is over.

So this summer, when your child inevitably comes to you and says “I’m bored,” take a breath. Resist the urge to immediately solve or fix. Instead, you might smile and say: “That sounds like the beginning of something wonderful.”

Because it just might be.

Ready to become your child’s best teacher this summer?

If you’re feeling inspired to try this approach but wondering “Where do I actually start?”, I’ve got you covered.

In my You Are Your Child’s Best Teacher masterclass, I’ll show you how to turn what your child is curious about into great learning experiences. You’ll use simple things you already have at home. No Pinterest prep required.

Parent Wynne discovered this when her son wanted to tackle a sewing project alone. Instead of jumping in to teach, she sat nearby working on her own project, offering gentle encouragement. Her son developed planning skills, focus, patience, and problem-solving abilities all by himself and was incredibly proud of what he created.

“I found that I didn’t need to ‘teach’ him a thing.” – Wynne

If you want to discover how to be the guide on the side your child needs just like Wynne did, then come join us in the workshop!

Click the banner to learn more and sign up.

Want a Deeper Dive into the Science and Psychology of Boredom?

My full podcast episode will tell you all about:

• Why school environments often cause chronic boredom (and what that means long-term)
• The history of boredom, from medieval monks to modern researchers
• How different cultures experience or even lack the concept of boredom (like the Warlpiri people of Australia)
• What Buddhism and mindfulness can teach us about tolerating boredom
• How boredom might be the gateway to creativity, self-reflection, and learning
• Practical strategies for helping kids navigate boredom in and out of school—not just “fixing” it

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why do kids get more bored in summer than during the school year?

Summer removes the structured routine kids are used to during school. After nine months of adults directing their schedule, they suddenly have lots of free time but no roadmap for filling it. This shift from external control to self-direction feels overwhelming rather than exciting for many children.

2. Do kids with ADHD get bored more easily?

Yes, children with ADHD often feel bored more easily than ‘neurotypical’ kids. Children with ADHD have lower dopamine levels, which affects how they experience time. Minutes pass more slowly for them, making periods of inactivity feel much longer. When they seek exciting activities or take risks, they’re actually trying to boost brain chemicals to make time feel ‘normal’ again.

3. Why don’t summer activity lists work?

Activity lists assume what works for one child will work for yours, ignoring individual interests and developmental needs. They often pack in so many activities that children never dive deep into anything meaningful. Over-scheduling creates stress and overwhelm instead of the engagement parents hope for.

4. What does child-led learning look like in practice?

It means taking what genuinely captures your child’s attention and building on it together. You become a guide on the side rather than directing from the front. For example, a child interested in fire trucks might naturally explore drawing them, reading about them, learning about community helpers, and maybe even a visit to a fire station. 

5. How should I respond when my child says they’re bored?

Instead of immediately offering solutions, try responding with “Oh, yeah?” in a non-judgmental tone. Let the moment breathe. You might say, “We don’t have to do something every moment. It’s okay to just be. Sometimes you’ll have an idea, but if not, that’s fine too.”

6. What are the benefits of child-led learning?

Research shows improved performance and persistence when children have autonomy over learning. It increases creativity and critical thinking, strengthens intrinsic motivation, and leads to better long-term retention. Children remember what they learn from genuine interest rather than external requirements.

7. How do I discover what actually interests my child?

Watch them during free time. What do they choose when no one directs them? What activities do they return to repeatedly? Ask open-ended questions like “What’s something you’ve been wondering about?” rather than “Did you have fun?” These patterns reveal authentic interests better than any test.

8. Is it okay to let my child be bored?

Absolutely. Boredom provides valuable information about what your child needs – more challenge, rest, or deeper exploration of genuine interests. Creative people need periods of unstimulated time for their best work to emerge. The same is true for children’s growth and self-discovery.

References

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01

Eastwood, J. D., Frischen, A., Fenske, M. J., & Smilek, D. (2012). The unengaged mind: Defining boredom in terms of attention. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(5), 482–495. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612456044 

Grolnick, W. S., & Ryan, R. M. (1987). Autonomy in children’s learning: An experimental and individual difference investigation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(5), 890–898. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.52.5.890

Guay, F. (2021). Applying Self-Determination Theory to Education: Regulations Types, Psychological Needs, and Autonomy Supporting Behaviors. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 37(1), 75-92. https://doi.org/10.1177/08295735211055355 (Original work published 2022)

Lumanlan, J. (2023, July 9). What to do when my child says: “I’m booored!”?. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/bored/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2020, December 17). Doing Self-Directed Education. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/freepeople/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2020, April 3). How to keep your child busy (and learning!) while you work. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/schemas/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2018, February 11). What is the value of play?. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/play/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2016, September 26). How to “scaffold” children’s learning to help them succeed. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/005-how-to-scaffold-childrens-learning/ 

Lumanlan, J. (2016, September 18). How to encourage creativity and artistic ability in young children – Interview with Dr. Tara Callaghan. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/captivate-podcast/004-how-to-encourage-creativity-and-artistic-ability-in-young-children/ 

Lumanlan, J. (n.d.). Needs list. Your Parenting Mojo. https://yourparentingmojo.com/needs 

Mahoney, J. L., Harris, A. L., & Eccles, J. S. (2006). Organized activity participation, positive youth development, and the over-scheduling hypothesis. Social Policy Report, 20(4), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2379-3988.2006.tb00049.x

Pekrun, R., Goetz, T., Daniels, L. M., Stupnisky, R. H., & Perry, R. P. (2010). Boredom in achievement settings: Exploring control–value antecedents and performance outcomes of a neglected emotion. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102(3), 531–549. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019243 

Renninger, K. A., & Hidi, S. (2016). The power of interest for motivation and engagement. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315771045 

Rubia K. (2018). Cognitive Neuroscience of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Its Clinical Translation. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 12, 100. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00100

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25(1), 54–67. https://doi.org/10.1006/ceps.1999.1020

Schiffrin, H. H., Godfrey, H., Liss, M., & Erchull, M. J. (2015). Intensive parenting: Does it have the desired impact on child outcomes? Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(8), 2322–2331. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-014-0035-0

Schwartz, B. (2004). The paradox of choice: Why more is less. HarperCollins. https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-psychology/198

Thornton, L., & Brunton, P. (2014). Bringing the Reggio approach to your early years practice (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203935378

Whitebread, D., Coltman, P., Jameson, H., & Lander, R. (2009). Play, cognition and self-regulation: What exactly are children learning when they learn through play? Educational and Child Psychology, 26(2), 40–52.

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1. Emotional awareness is internal (recognizing feelings), while social-emotional skills are action-oriented (using emotions to navigate relationships).
2. Social-emotional skills include five core competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and decision-making.
3. Two-year-olds may express big feelings through tantrums; parents can help by naming feelings, offering comfort during meltdowns, and using books to discuss emotions.
4. Three-year-olds are beginning to develop social awareness; they recognize others’ feelings and understand that different people can have different feelings about the same situation.
5. Four-year-olds may identify complex emotions beyond happy/sad/angry and begin managing feelings independently through better communication and impulse control.
6. Five to six-year-olds might demonstrate empathy in action, understand multiple emotions simultaneously, and can follow rules in group settings.
7. A child’s age doesn’t always align with their emotional capabilities – the best guide to what your child should be able to do is what your child can do.

Emotional awareness is an important step in helping children thrive — but it’s only one of a set of skills many children will go on to develop to understand and regulate their emotions. Once children recognize and name how they feel, they start developing more complex skills. These skills help them manage those feelings, connect with others, and respond effectively to the world around them.

In our previous post, How to Teach Emotional Awareness to Children, we explored the importance of emotional awareness and different strategies to nurture them. But being aware of emotions is just the beginning. Now, we’ll build on that foundation and look at what to expect as your child’s emotional development progresses from toddlerhood to kindergarten.

In some ways, I find it very difficult to offer an age-by-age guide.  The study of what we consider to be ‘age-appropriate’ is fraught with cultural assumptions about what children ‘should’ be able to do and when.  It tends to pathologize any behavior that doesn’t fit these guidelines, which means that when children resist our requests, the problem is always their resistance and never our request.

We may want them to ‘share’ and ‘play nicely’ because it helps to spare us from the feeling of embarrassment of being judged by other parents (or our own parents), and we hope it will meet our need for ease when we don’t have to referee their squabbles.

This guide will help you understand key emotional development milestones, what social emotional skills look like by age, and how you can support your child at every stage.  I’ll also offer thoughts on what to do when your child is not yet able to regulate their emotions that help, rather than hurt them.

From Emotional Awareness to Social-Emotional Skills 

Here’s where things get really exciting. If emotional awareness is like learning the alphabet, social emotional skills are like writing poetry. Both are essential, but they serve completely different purposes in your child’s development.

Emotional awareness is largely internal and cognitive. When your three-year-old says, “I’m sad because my toy broke,” they demonstrate emotional awareness. They can identify what they’re feeling and why. 

Social emotional skills, on the other hand, are action-oriented and interpersonal. These skills involve using emotional awareness to get along with others, solve problems, and make decisions that consider both their own needs and other people’s needs.

Think of it this way: emotional awareness asks “Why am I feeling this way?” while social emotional skills ask “What am I going to do about it, and how will it affect others?”

As children grow, they go from just noticing feelings to using social and emotional skills in everyday situations. You’ll eventually see them do things like share, take turns, use words when they’re upset instead of hitting, comfort a sad friend, and wait patiently for their turn.

What Are Social Emotional Skills?

According to leading experts in the field, social emotional skills can be organized into five core competencies. Think of these as five interconnected tools that work together like a Swiss Army knife for navigating relationships and managing life’s ups and downs:

Social emotional skill core competency #1: Self-awareness

This is your child’s ability to accurately recognize their own emotions, thoughts, and values, and understand how these influence their behavior. It’s the difference between a child saying “I’m bad” versus “I made a mistake and I feel disappointed in myself.” When your seven-year-old says, “I get really nervous before tests because I want to do well,” they’re demonstrating self-awareness.

This also includes understanding your own strengths and areas for growth. A child with strong self-awareness might say, “I’m really good at helping friends feel better, but I have a hard time when things don’t go as planned.” This kind of honest self-reflection helps children make better choices and ask for support when they need it.

Social emotional skill core competency #2: Self-management

This involves effectively regulating emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in different situations. Imagine a child who calms down by counting to ten when they’re angry, takes deep breaths when they’re nervous, or asks for a hug when they feel stressed. It also means working toward self-chosen goals (which may be different from the goals you would want them to choose!).

Self-management isn’t about suppressing feelings or always being “good.” It’s about finding healthy ways to express emotions and bounce back from setbacks. A child showing strong self-management might feel frustrated when they lose a game but still congratulate the winner, or feel disappointed about a grade but use that feeling to motivate studying differently next time.

Social emotional skill core competency #3: Social awareness

This means the ability to understand how other people feel and see things, even if they come from different backgrounds. It helps a child notice when a friend looks sad and asks what’s wrong, or see that a younger sibling might need help with something that seems easy to them.

Social awareness also means recognizing the unwritten social rules in different settings. A child with good social awareness understands that the way they talk with friends at recess is different from how they speak during a family dinner, or that their teacher’s frustrated tone might mean the class needs to settle down, even if no direct instruction was given.

Social emotional skill core competency #4: Relationship skills

These involve establishing and maintaining healthy, rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. This includes everything from sharing toys and taking turns as a preschooler to navigating peer pressure and resolving conflicts as a teenager.

Strong relationship skills also mean knowing how to repair connections when things go wrong. A child might apologize sincerely when they’ve hurt someone’s feelings, listen carefully when a friend is upset with them, or suggest a compromise when siblings disagree about what game to play. These skills help children build lasting friendships and feel confident in social situations.

Social emotional skill core competency #5: Thoughtful decision-making

This means making kind and smart choices about how to act and treat others. These actions are based on what’s right, safe, and respectful. When your child invites a new classmate to join a game even though their friends don’t want to, they’re showing thoughtful decision-making.

This also involves considering the longer-term effects of choices, not just immediate consequences. A child demonstrating this skill might choose to tell the truth about breaking something even though they’ll get in trouble, or decide not to share a mean joke because they realize it could hurt someone’s feelings later.

These five competencies don’t develop in isolation. They’re deeply interconnected. Children need self-awareness to practice self-management. They need social awareness to build relationship skills. All of these work together to support thoughtful decision-making.

Social Emotional Development Milestones by Age

Here are the social emotional development milestones in early childhood and how you can best support your child at each stage:

Click here to download the Social Emotional Development Milestones: Ages 2 to 6

Social emotional development milestone for 2-year-olds

At two, toddlers are just beginning to understand that they have feelings, and they don’t always know what to do with them. 

During the toddler years, emotions feel BIG. A two-year-old’s disappointment about the wrong color cup can feel like the end of the world. This intensity is normal and necessary. They’re learning that emotions are temporary and manageable.

Common milestones for 2-year-olds:

• Expresses verbal references to emotions
• Their frustration tends to erupt suddenly in the form of tantrums
• Notices when others are hurt or upset
• Likes to explore and is more independent

How to support social emotional skills at age 2:

• Name their emotions for them, in the form of questions (since we can never be sure how another person is feeling until they let us know): “Are you feeling upset because the toy broke?”
• Offer comfort, not correction, during meltdowns.  Kids need to know we can handle their big feelings and just like us, they won’t remember a lesson someone tries to teach them when they’re feeling overwhelmed.
• Use books and toys to talk about feelings.  These don’t have to be special books – just pause during pivotal moments in any story, wonder aloud what the character might be feeling, and offer a hypothesis from a feelings list.
• Model calm behavior during stressful moments: like saying aloud: “I’m feeling really overwhelmed.  I’m going to take a deep breath.  Would you like to take one with me?” (If you need help to respond with more calm and confidence, and break patterns you don’t want to pass on to your children, the Calm Parent Toolkit can help.)
• Encourage them to try new emotion regulation strategies of their own, and celebrate their effort.

Social emotional development milestone for 3-year-olds

Three-year-olds start to become more socially aware. They begin to recognize emotions in others and may offer hugs or comfort when someone else is upset or in pain.  They begin to understand that different people can feel differently about the same situation. A child might realize that while they love scary movies, their friend finds them frightening.  (This also means that they finally understand that when they hit another child, their own fist isn’t the only thing that hurts!)

Common milestones for 3-year-olds:

• Understanding emotions better and knowing what kinds of situations can lead to upset felings
• Shows concern for others by asking, “Are you okay?”
• Imitates emotional behavior in play (a child might make their doll cry and then comfort it with gentle pats, or they might play “angry monster” and then transform into a “happy helper.”)
• Begins to play cooperatively in short bursts (with lots of ruptures and plenty of solo play along the way)

How to support social emotional skills at age 3:

• Help them label feelings in themselves and others.  Make sure to use real feelings words, not ‘fake’ feelings like “I feel like you never clean up your toys.”
• Discuss strategies with your child that they think might help them to re-regulate when they feel upset, like taking deep breaths, getting a hug, or squeezing a toy.
• Use pretend play to explore emotions and social roles.  This can be a great chance for you to learn about their feelings if they don’t say anything when you ask direct questions.
• Young children often don’t realize that their feelings will change in a few minutes!  Use the construct: “I’m feeling happy” or “Are you feeling exuberant?” (rather than “I’m happy”).  Adding the ‘feeling’ helps to communicate that feelings are temporary rather than permanent states.  
• Parents tend to talk about feelings more with girls (and math concepts more with boys).  If we want boys to feel comfortable sharing their feelings, we have to model that language for them – this is especially important for male parents and caregivers.

Social emotional development milestone for 4-year-olds

By age four, many children can identify complex emotions beyond basic happy, sad, angry, and scared. They might recognize feeling “frustrated,” “disappointed,” or “excited.” This expanded emotional vocabulary gives them better tools for communication.  

We aren’t trying to develop the largest possible vocabulary for the sake of having the largest possible vocabulary.  Rather, experts recognize that when you can understand your feelings more precisely, you’re better able to understand what needs you’re trying to meet.  Then you’re better able to meet those needs – a need for indulgence may well be effectively met by a big scoop of ice cream; a need for connection with others may be more effectively met by a call to a friend.

Four-year-olds may begin to manage emotions more independently. They can handle small disappointments and may start solving some of their social problems. They are also developing the critical skill of impulse control.

Common milestones for 4-year-olds:

• May engage in more imaginative play
• Can differentiate between real and imaginary (although will sometimes ‘lie’ because they are describing something they wish had happened)
• Expresses feelings in words more often than actions (saying “I’m feeling mad!” instead of hitting, or “That makes me feel sad” instead of just crying)
• Takes turns and shares more easily, since they know that not having an item right now doesn’t mean they’ll never get it back
• Begins to resolve minor conflicts with peers
• Asks to play with children if none are around
• Likes to help – with tasks they choose (which might not always be the tasks you choose!)
• May change their behavior based on where they are – e.g. knowing that there are different expectations on their behavior at school/home/grandparents’ house

How to support social emotional skills at age 4:

• Create opportunities for cooperative play with peers, staying close if your child needs support during play
• Use emotion-rich vocabulary in everyday conversations (“I’m feeling disappointed that our meet-up got canceled,” “I’m feeling really encouraged because I got help with a difficult project today.”)
• Validate their feelings when they’re having a hard time.  They need to be understood by you before they can consider your perspective and needs.
• Encourage problem-solving: “What could you do when you feel frustrated?”
• Role-play challenging social scenarios to help the child know what to expect
• Give them meaningful responsibilities and acknowledge their contributions

Social emotional development milestone for 5 to 6-year-olds

In kindergarten and early school age, children are ready for group learning and friendships. They understand social rules better and can use emotional skills in more complex ways.

Five-year-olds often show developing empathy in action. They might comfort a friend who’s hurt or share a toy with someone who looks left out. 

Six-year-olds start understanding that they can experience multiple feelings at once – excited about a playdate but nervous about meeting new kids.

Common milestones for 5 to 6-year-olds:

• Follow rules or take turns when playing games with other children – but they may still want to play by their own rules at times!
• Works more cooperatively in group settings
• Uses self-talk to manage frustration (e.g. “I want to play with the train, and it’s not fair that Jane still has it.”)
• Shows empathy and apologizes with meaning – although this may happen on their slower schedule, and not immediately after the incident

How to support social emotional skills at age 5 to 6:

• Have regular family discussions about emotions and relationships.  When your child brings home stories about friend disagreements, create space to hear their feelings and needs, and try to hypothesize what might have been the other child’s feelings and needs.
• Use collaborative problem-solving: “Let’s figure out what to do about this together.”
• Create opportunities for structured group play with gradually decreasing adult supervision.  Try to be in the next room rather than hovering over them, and just step closer when you hear difficulties arise.
• Practice perspective-taking: “How do you think your friend felt when that happened?”  You can also practice this by taking your child’s perspective: “I wonder if you felt excited when you saw the glitter, and didn’t think to check that the cap was on properly before you shook the jar?”
• Many children can have conversations about meeting both people’s needs with their adult caregiver by now, and if this language is used regularly in the home they will likely begin to use it with siblings and peers
• Introduce mindfulness practices appropriate for young children

Social-Emotional Development Red Flags in Children

While every child develops at their own pace, certain patterns may signal that additional support could be beneficial. 

If your child often shows some of these behaviors and you don’t see other children struggling in the same way, it’s a good idea to talk to a pediatrician or parenting coach:

• Persistent, intense tantrums that continue beyond preschool years or occur multiple times daily
• Limited social interest or difficulty connecting with peers and family members
• Emotional recognition challenges, including the inability to identify basic feelings in themselves or others
• Excessive aggression toward others that doesn’t respond to consistent guidance
• Extreme social withdrawal or avoidance of eye contact and interaction
• Rigid behavioral patterns that cause significant distress when routines change
• Delayed emotional regulation skills compared to same-age peers

Helping kids build social-emotional skills early on can make a big difference in their lives. Many behaviors that worry parents are just a normal part of growing up. We can also consider that often their resistance is the best strategy they have available to them to meet their needs.

When we ask a young child to do something they don’t want to do, they may resist by having a tantrum, stalling, refusing to participate, or by stomping their feet as they do what you’ve asked.  It can seem like they have to learn to regulate their emotions, because we ‘need’ them to do what we asked. 

The academic research follows this approach too. Parent-Child Interaction Therapy practitioners teach parents to use Time-Outs to change children’s behavior. The practitioners say it is justified because our children depend on us for love and care.  Withdrawing our love and care gets many children to change their behavior (the ones who resist are often diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder).

Instead, we can consider why the child is resisting our request.  They are resisting because our request is blocking them from meeting their need – perhaps for connection, play, or autonomy.  When we see their need for connection and our need for ease, we can shift from a strategy. Instead of “Learn to regulate your emotions and put your shoes on yourself,” we can use: “I can see you have a need for connection before we separate for the day.  How about I help you put your shoes on, which will meet my need for ease as well?”

Before, it might have seemed like the only option was that the child learn to regulate their emotions.  When we understand our child’s most important needs and meet these more often, we often find they – and we! – have far fewer problems with emotion regulation.

Final Thoughts

Emotional development is not linear. Your child might soar in one area while needing more time in another. Understanding these milestones simply gives you a roadmap to better support your child as they grow into emotionally aware, socially skilled individuals.

The goal isn’t to raise a child who never feels negative emotions. It’s to raise a child who can work through emotions with skill, compassion, and resilience.

Remember that children’s resistance to our requests often signals an unmet need rather than a lack of emotional regulation skills. When your four-year-old melts down about putting on shoes, they might need connection before separating for the day. When your three-year-old refuses to share, they might need to feel secure in their ownership before they can consider others’ needs. Instead of focusing solely on getting them to regulate their emotions to comply with our requests, we can look deeper at what need their behavior is trying to meet.

This approach shifts us away from seeing emotional outbursts as problems to be fixed and toward seeing them as communication about important needs. When we meet children’s core needs for connection, play, and autonomy more consistently, we often find that both they and we have far fewer struggles with emotional regulation. A child who feels truly seen and understood is much more likely to develop the social-emotional skills that will serve them throughout their lives.

Most importantly, trust your child’s individual timeline. Some children will naturally develop strong empathy early while taking longer to master impulse control. Others might excel at self-awareness but need more support with social situations. These differences don’t indicate problems. They reflect the beautiful complexity of human development. Your loving presence and patient guidance matter far more than hitting every milestone right on schedule.

Ready to Put These Skills Into Practice?

Understanding these milestones is good, but what happens when your child’s big emotions lead to challenging behaviors? When your two-year-old has a meltdown about the wrong color cup or your four-year-old hits their sibling during a frustrating moment, it can feel overwhelming to stay calm and supportive while still setting boundaries.

Many parents want to support their child’s emotional development, but they often struggle when those big feelings turn into tantrums, defiance, or aggression. They end up yelling, bribing, or giving in – none of which helps their child learn to manage emotions effectively.

When you have effective limit-setting tools, along with an understanding of how to meet your child’s needs and your own – you create a safe environment for both of you to practice your social-emotional skills. Instead of getting derailed by challenging behavior, you can stay focused on helping your child learn to navigate their big feelings, and finding strategies that meet both of your needs.

Do you want to respond to your child’s next meltdown with confidence instead of panic? Sign up for the Setting Loving (& Effective) Limits workshop now. Click the banner to learn more.

Frequently Asked Questions About Children’s Emotional Development

1. What’s the difference between emotional awareness and social-emotional skills?

Emotional awareness is internal – a child recognizes and names their feelings. Social-emotional skills are action-oriented and involve using those feelings to navigate relationships. If emotional awareness is like learning the alphabet, social-emotional skills are like writing poetry. One helps children identify “Why am I feeling this way?” while the other addresses “What will I do about it, and how might it affect others?”

2. What are the five core social-emotional competencies children develop?

The five interconnected competencies are: self-awareness (recognizing your own emotions), self-management (regulating emotions effectively), social awareness (understanding others’ feelings), relationship skills (building healthy connections with diverse people), and thoughtful decision-making (making choices based on what’s right and respectful). These work together like a Swiss Army knife for navigating relationships and life’s challenges.

3. How can I support my two-year-old’s emotional development?

Name their emotions for them: “Are you feeling upset because the toy broke?” Always question rather than telling a child how they feel, and offer comfort, not correction, during meltdowns. Use books and toys to talk about feelings. Model calm behavior during stressful moments. Remember that big feelings are normal at this age – a wrong-colored cup can feel like the end of the world to them. This intensity helps them learn that emotions are temporary.

4. What social-emotional milestones should I expect from my three-year-old?

Three-year-olds become more socially aware and begin recognizing emotions in others. They understand what makes people upset and may ask “Are you okay?” when someone seems to feel sad. They imitate emotional behaviors in play and can understand that different people have different feelings about the same situation. They’re beginning to play cooperatively for short periods, which builds their relationship skills.

5. What social-emotional milestones should I expect from my four-year-old?

Four-year-olds may identify more complex emotions beyond basic happy/sad/angry, if you’ve modeled this language for them. They express feelings in words more than actions, take turns more easily, and begin resolving minor conflicts with peers. They engage in imaginative play, can tell real from pretend, and adjust behavior based on settings. They may also show a desire to help and play with others.

6. How can I help my five-year-old develop better social-emotional skills?

Have regular family discussions about emotions. Use collaborative problem-solving: “Let’s figure this out together.” Create opportunities for structured group play with gradually less adult supervision. Practice perspective-taking: “How do you think your friend felt?” Teach conflict resolution steps. Read books featuring characters navigating social situations. Introduce age-appropriate mindfulness practices.

7. What are some red flags in social-emotional development I should watch for?

Look for persistent, intense tantrums beyond preschool years, limited social interest, difficulty identifying basic feelings, excessive aggression that doesn’t respond to guidance, extreme social withdrawal, rigid behavioral patterns causing distress when routines change, or delayed emotional regulation compared to peers. While development varies by child, trust your instincts if these behaviors persist.

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References

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1. Why does emotional awareness matter? It’s key for brain development, social skills, and how children learn to handle life’s challenges.
2. Children with emotional awareness and emotional intelligence build better relationships, achieve more academically, and enjoy better physical and mental health.
3. Even before speaking, infants show emotion by communicating through crying and facial expressions, and begin recognizing others’ emotions around 6 months.
4. How can I help my child identify emotions? Use strategies like being curious about facial expressions, connecting emotions to body sensations, and building emotional vocabulary.
5. How do I help my child understand emotions? Teach cause-effect relationships between events and feelings, validate all emotions while guiding behavior, and meet your child’s needs.

Have you ever worried when your child laughs after they hurt you or another child? Or been shocked when they suddenly hit their sibling, apparently out of the blue? Emotional awareness enables us to understand our inner experiences, as well as the inner experiences of those around us.

Children learn through emotions, which also guide their play activities and relationship development. Young children lack the ability to express their emotions through words because emotions exist as a human-made concept to explain internal processes. That’s something they learn over time, with our help.

Emotional awareness isn’t just a “nice-to-have” skill. It’s a key part of how children connect with others and deal with life’s ups and downs. In this post, we’re going to look at what science tells us about how children’s emotional worlds develop, and more importantly, how you can guide your child through this process.

Why Emotional Awareness is Important in Early Childhood

The link between emotional awareness and brain development

During this time, your child’s early years are critical for brain development. The emotional centers of your child’s brain are developing rapidly during this stage. Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child found that responsive, emotionally supportive interactions between you and your child directly influence how these neural circuits develop.

Teaching our kids to name and process emotions helps their brains grow in healthy ways. This promotes important skills such as planning, attention, and self-control.

How does emotional awareness impact a child’s social skills?

When kids learn to understand their own emotions and other’s emotions, they’re much more likely to get along well with people. When children develop emotional intelligence, it helps them form friendships, play cooperatively, and handle disagreements without acting out or shutting down.

Children who are able to say what they’re feeling (“I’m feeling upset,” “I’m feeling nervous,” “I’m feeling excited”) help others to understand their experience.  It also helps them to understand the experience of others.  This makes it easier for them to share, wait their turn, and work through problems with their peers. When kids don’t understand how emotions work—either their own or someone else’s—they may act out, become withdrawn, or struggle to make and keep friends.

Other important things that affect how kids develop these skills include:

• Temperament (how they’re naturally wired to respond to the world),
• How well they understand that others can feel differently than they do, which develops with age,
• Neurodivergence, such as Autism, which can affect how well we can perceive others’ emotions, and
• Their language development, which helps them talk about their feelings.

Even though some kids are naturally more shy or get frustrated more easily, parents can still make a big difference in children’s ability to understand their own and others’ emotions.

What Are the Long-Term Benefits of Emotional Intelligence?

Here are three long-term benefits of emotional intelligence:

Benefit of emotional intelligence #1: Develop and sustain social relationships

Emotional intelligence is key to building and keeping good relationships. When we understand our own emotions and recognize emotions in others, it’s easier to handle social situations and get along with people.

This directly impacts our social relationships in many ways:

• Better communication: Emotionally intelligent people are better at saying what they feel and need. They’re also more effective at really listening to others. They are better able to read both verbal and non-verbal cues, picking up on subtle signals that others might miss. This reduces misunderstandings and creates space for more meaningful conversations.
• Conflict resolution: When people disagree, those with emotional intelligence are better able to stay calm and try to see the other person’s point of view. They don’t make the problem bigger, and de-escalate the conflict by working to find a solution that helps everyone.
• Deeper connections: Understanding emotions helps us connect with others. When we acknowledge someone’s feelings and show that it matters to us too, we can form stronger bonds with them.
• Trust building: Emotional intelligence helps us be consistent, reliable, and honest in our interactions. These qualities form the foundation of trust in relationships.
• Social awareness: People with strong emotional intelligence know how to act in different social situations. They understand the rules of social behavior and can adjust how they act to make others feel comfortable and respected. Developing emotional intelligence isn’t just about improving ourselves. It also helps us connect better with everyone around us.

Benefit of emotional intelligence #2: Academic achievement

Emotional intelligence doesn’t just shape our social world. It also plays a surprisingly significant role in academic success. Research shows that students with stronger emotional skills often perform better in school.

They typically demonstrate the following:

• Better focus and attention: They can regulate emotions that might otherwise distract them from learning, helping them stay engaged during lessons and study sessions.
• Reduced procrastination: Academic pressures can trigger stress, which can lead to procrastination as a way to avoid uncomfortable emotions. Emotionally intelligent students recognize these feelings early and develop strategies to cope.
• Enhanced problem-solving: When faced with challenging academic material, these students manage frustration better. They’re better at handling frustration and can push through challenges.
• Better relationships with teachers and peers: Students who understand emotions get along better with others. This can help them build a more supportive learning environment.

Benefit of emotional intelligence #3: Better physical and mental health

Emotional intelligence doesn’t just influence our relationships and academic success. It also has profound connections to both our physical and mental well-being. Research has shown that the ability to understand and manage emotions plays an important role in health outcomes.

Here are some of its health benefits:

Mental health

• Reduced anxiety and depression: People with higher emotional intelligence can identify negative emotions earlier and have more effective coping strategies.
• Greater resilience: Emotionally intelligent individuals recover more quickly from setbacks and challenges. They’re more likely to seek support when needed and use adaptive coping mechanisms rather than turning to harmful behaviors.
• Better stress management: They can recognize when they’re stressed and stay calm under pressure. This may help to protect their mental health and reduce the risk of long-term stress-related issues.

Physical health

• Better immune function: Chronic negative emotions and stress can suppress immune function. Those who manage emotions effectively tend to have stronger immune systems.
• Healthier behaviors: Emotionally intelligent people are more likely to engage in self-care. This can be in the form of exercise, proper nutrition, adequate sleep, and avoiding harmful substances.
• Improved cardiovascular health: People who feel more positive emotions, like joy and gratitude, often have healthier hearts and lower risk of heart problems over time.

Emotional intelligence helps us in many ways—not just in making friends, but also in having healthy minds and bodies.

What Are the Emotional Development Milestones?

When we understand how children grow emotionally, we can support them more effectively. Milestones can be somewhat helpful in understanding how children develop, although we should be cautious about considering these to be hard lines.  Many children struggle with emotion regulation, especially when they’re tired and/or hungry.  Use developmental milestones as a guide rather than hard lines that will be crossed at a particular point in your child’s life.

Here’s a brief overview of the emotional development milestones in early childhood:

Emotional developmental milestone of infants (0-12 months)

Even before your baby can speak, they already communicate emotions through crying, facial expressions, and body language.

Research shows that around 6 months, babies begin recognizing emotional expressions. This emotional recognition is important for social referencing—the process where babies look at their parents’ facial expressions to make sense of uncertain situations.

When you comfort your crying baby or smile while playing, you’re showing them their feelings are important and that others will respond to them. This helps build secure attachment which is linked to healthy emotional development.

Emotional development milestone of toddlers (1-3 Years)

As language develops, your toddler begins naming emotions. “Happy,” “sad,” and “mad” usually appear around age 2. During this stage, they also begin to imitate their surroundings and start displaying early signs of empathy and self-conscious emotions. They may appear upset when others cry or show self-conscious reactions when receiving adult feedback about their behavior.

At this stage, toddlers become more independent and show their own unique personalities. They enjoy pretend play and play next to other kids, but not always with them. They also start learning how to control their emotions in social situations – but their ability to do this very much varies with their capacity at a particular time.  If they feel tired or stressed, their ability to control their emotions will be much less than when they’re better resourced.  Just because you’ve seen your child restrain themselves from hitting another child on one day doesn’t mean they’ll be able to do it on another, when they’ve had a difficult day.

Emotional development milestone of preschoolers (3-5 Years)

By preschool, they begin to talk about more complex feelings and begin to understand that people can feel different emotions. They might say they feel “embarrassed” or “proud” and start to comfort friends who are hurt or sad. While they may show guilt, they don’t fully understand why someone else might feel guilty yet.

As their emotional awareness grows, children also start to experiment with managing their feelings but this process is far from smooth. You might see them trying to hide frustration, laugh when they’re nervous, or claim they’re “not sad” even when tears are streaming down their face. These are signs that they’re beginning to notice their internal experiences, even if they don’t yet have the skills to regulate them effectively. This is where adult guidance becomes crucial: helping them name their emotions, make sense of them, and find safe ways to express what’s going on inside.

Knowing the stages of emotional development gives us a helpful guide, but just knowing the steps isn’t enough. Each child will go through the stages at their own pace, so your child may be ‘ahead’ or ‘behind’ these milestones.  What a child should be able to do is what the child in front of you is actually doing.  They are already doing the best they can with the tools they have.  That said, there are some strategies we can use to support them in developing their emotional awareness, and their emotion regulation skills.

How Does Neurodivergence Impact Children’s Emotional Development?

Neurodivergent children—including those with ADHD, autism, sensory processing differences, or learning differences—may experience and express emotions differently than neurotypical children. Their brains process sensory information, social cues, and emotional regulation in unique ways that require tailored support.

Sensory Processing and Emotions

Many neurodivergent children have heightened or reduced sensitivity to sensory input, which directly affects their emotional experiences.  A child with sensory processing differences might become overwhelmed by the texture of clothing, leading to what looks like a tantrum but is actually sensory distress. Understanding these connections helps parents respond with compassion rather than frustration.

Executive Function Challenges

Children with ADHD or autism often struggle with executive function skills, making it harder to identify, process, and regulate emotions. They might have intense emotional reactions that seem disproportionate to the situation, not because they’re being dramatic, but because their brain’s emotional regulation system works differently.

Communication Differences

Some neurodivergent children may struggle to verbalize their emotions or may express them through behavior rather than words. A child who seems defiant might actually be communicating anxiety or confusion. Creating alternative ways to express emotions through pictures, movement, or sensory tools can be helpful to parents and children (as long as the child has the option to not participate if they prefer).

How to Help Children Identify Emotions

Here are 3 strategies you can use to help children identify their emotions:

Identifying emotion strategy #1: Beginning to recognize emotions through facial expressions

Emotion recognition is often the first step in emotional awareness. It involves noticing that an emotional response is happening.

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett’s work tells us that it can be difficult to recognize emotions from an arrangement of our facial features.  Different people’s faces look different when they’re expressing the same emotion, and each of us also uses expressions differently.  Sometimes when I purse my lips I’m feeling frustrated, and other times I’m feeling angry: how could another person possibly know which one I’m feeling if I don’t tell them?!

We also see that relying on facial expressions gets us in trouble when our children laugh after they hit us.  We interpret that laughter as ‘fun/enjoyment,’ but actually it can often mean ‘ashamed.’

Rather than teaching children that specific facial expressions are linked to specific emotions, we can teach them to notice that a person seems to be experiencing an emotion, and helping them to wonder or ask the other person what’s happening by doing things like:

• Pointing out facial expressions in books: “Look, that character is smiling! How do you think they’re feeling now their cake is finished?”
• Observing facial expressions in people: “Liam is crying.  I’m wondering what’s going on for him.  Should we check?”
• Playing games where you act out different emotions, like the ones that come with the Grok card games.

Identifying emotion strategy #2: Connecting emotions to body sensations

Emotions aren’t just experienced in our faces – they live in our bodies too. We can teach children to notice how emotions show up in their bodies:

• How their heart might race when they’re excited or scared
• The way their shoulders might tense when they’re angry
• The heaviness they might feel in their stomach when they’re worried
• The lightness they might feel in their chest when they’re happy

You can start by observing what you see: “I’m noticing that your shoulders are up high and your fists are clenched and I’m wondering if you’re feeling angry?”

Identifying emotion strategy #3: Build an emotion vocabulary

Many children default to simple terms like “good” or “bad” to describe how they’re feeling. Expand their emotional vocabulary by:

• Introducing new emotion words during daily conversations.
• Labeling your own emotions precisely: “I’m feeling frustrated because the computer isn’t working” rather than just “Ugh!” (or yelling at the child later).
• Use a feelings list that helps children identify emotions they experience when their needs are met and when they’re unmet (multiple languages and printable options available!)
• Noticing emotions in children’s books: you don’t have to buy any special books for this.  Just use any story you’re reading, and when you get to a turning point in the plot, ask: “I wonder how that character is feeling right now?  What do you think?”  If your child makes a basic happy/sad/mad guess, try using another word to expand on it: “I think the character might be feeling happy – or maybe even elated, which means really really happy!”
• Playing emotion games: Make learning about emotions more fun by playing emotion charades or matching games where kids have to pair facial expression with emotion words.
• Daily check-ins: Make it a habit to ask “How are you feeling right now?” during transition times like after school or before bedtime.

After kids learn to name their feelings, the next step is teaching them awareness of why they feel that way. While identification answers “What am I feeling?” emotional awareness addresses the crucial “Why am I feeling this way?” question that helps emotions make sense.

By developing emotional awareness, kids can go from saying “I’m mad!” to “I’m feeling mad because I wanted to pour my own milk and you did it for me.” This shift from labeling to emotional awareness is where emotional intelligence develops.

6 Strategies in Teaching Emotional Awareness to Children

Here are 6 ways on how to teach emotional awareness:

Click here to download the 6 Strategies in Teaching Emotional Awareness to Children

Emotional awareness strategy #1: Teaching the cause-and-effect relationship

Help children connect events to their emotional responses:

• “Are you feeling disappointed because we had to cancel the beach trip?”
• “I see you jumping up and down – are you feeling proud right now?  You worked hard on your drawing.”

Simple cause-and-effect talks help children understand that emotions happen for a reason, not just out of nowhere.  (Note: this is a key lesson for parents to learn as well!)  Notice that the observations are phrased as questions, not statements.  We can never be sure how another person is feeling unless they tell us.  They may communicate this non-verbally, using a nod or a grunt.

It’s important not to make a child responsible for your own feelings.  “You yelled, and now I feel angry” isn’t what we’re going for here.

Emotional awareness strategy #2: Validating children’s emotions

Validating children’s emotions is a critical strategy for parents; my conversation with Dr. Caroline Fleck shows you exactly how to do it effectively using the Validation Ladder:

• Be present: Give your child your full attention without waiting for your turn to speak or planning what you’ll say next
• Accurately reflect: “What I’m hearing is that you feel frustrated because your tower keeps falling down. Is that right?”
• Contextualize or equalize: “Given that you’ve been working on this for a long time, it makes sense you’d feel upset when it doesn’t work” (contextualize) or “Building with blocks can be really tricky. I get frustrated with puzzles sometimes too” (equalize)
• Make a proposal: “I’m wondering if you felt that mix of disappointment and anger when the blocks fell?”
• Express true empathy: Share genuine reactions to what they’re experiencing (“That sounds really frustrating!”)
• Take action: Consider what you will do differently to support your child (“I’m wondering if you felt more frustrated because we were rushing to clean up. Maybe next time I can give you a longer warning before dinner time?”)

Emotional awareness strategy #3: Use “I’m feeling…”

Instead of the sentence construct: “Are you upset?”, instead try using “Are you feeling upset?”.  Kids often think that their feelings last a really long time.  One time after my daughter had calmed down from an episode of anger, I asked her: “How long do you think you felt angry?”

She thought she had been angry for hours – actually it was more like 10 minutes.  Using “I feel tired” and “Do you feel frustrated?” helps children to see that feelings come and go; they aren’t permanent states.  If they just wait a few minutes, a new feeling will come along.

Emotional awareness strategy #4: Expanding your emotion vocabulary

Move beyond basic emotion words as children grow. Help them develop more nuanced emotion words:

• Instead of just “happy”: content, joyful, pleased, delighted, grateful
• Instead of just “sad”: disappointed, lonely, discouraged, heartbroken
• Instead of just “angry”: frustrated, irritated, annoyed, furious

Studies show that kids who have strong language skills are better at understanding and talking about emotions.

Modeling is a great way to grow this vocabulary. For example: “I’m feeling a little overwhelmed today because we have so many errands to run. That means I have a lot on my mind.”

Print a feelings list and refer to it when a more nuanced word would be helpful.

Emotional awareness strategy #5: Creating an emotion-friendly home environment

The best way to help children develop emotional awareness is to create a safe space where they feel okay sharing any feeling. This means:

• Avoid brushing off their emotions with phrases like “You’re OK” or “It’s not a big deal.”
• Modeling healthy emotion identification and expression yourself
• Taking time to listen and validate emotional experiences
• Offering comfort and support during difficult emotions without rushing to fix the problem

Emotional awareness strategy #6: Meeting your child’s needs

Our emotions are the body and brain’s response to whether our needs are met. When children engage in difficult behaviors, it’s always an attempt to meet a need.

If a child melts down after daycare, they may not be “misbehaving”. They might just need comfort, food, or quiet time.

Meeting those needs helps the emotion settle and teaches them that feelings are manageable. That’s why it’s important for parents to know what their kid’s needs might be.

When a child’s needs are consistently met, they develop a sense of emotional security. This secure foundation allows them to explore emotions without fear, because they trust that someone will be there to help them through it.

Ready to Transform Your Daily Struggles Into Cooperation?

Parenting often feels like going through an unpredictable storm. One minute everything is calm, the next you’re facing a tidal wave of yelling, refusal, or sudden outbursts. You’re doing your best to stay patient, but the constant power struggles and emotional chaos can leave you drained and unsure of what your child really needs. The truth is, behind most challenging behavior is a child overwhelmed by emotions they don’t yet know how to manage and a parent desperate for tools that actually work.

The challenging behaviors you’re seeing – the morning battles, mealtime fights, and bedtime struggles – aren’t signs of a “difficult” child. They’re your child’s way of communicating unmet needs when they don’t have the emotional vocabulary or regulation skills to do it differently.

It can be tempting to teach them to stop expressing their big feelings, especially when these come out as hitting and hurting others.  It is important to know how to set limits on children’s behavior.  But there are much more effective tools we can use to support them in regulating their emotions and creating the calm home environment we so desperately want.  The Setting Loving (& Effective!) Limits workshop will help you make a big shift in the emotional climate of your home in just a few days.

Parent Lucy shared: “I feel significantly more confident as a parent: more calm and centered. I have more empathy and patience for my children for sure. I’ve noticed that both of my children are genuinely more at ease as well.”

Ready to move from daily battles to genuine cooperation? The Setting Loving (& Effective!) Limits workshop is available right now – you don’t have to wait to make the changes you want to see!

Click the banner to learn more.

Final Thoughts

Helping your child develop their emotional awareness and gain emotional intelligence is one of the most powerful things you can do as a parent. By recognizing emotional milestones, supporting your child in identifying and being aware of emotions, you’re helping them build emotional intelligence that will benefit them throughout their life.

What strategy will you try first with your child today?

Frequently Asked Questions About Children’s Emotional Development

1. Why is emotional understanding important for my child’s development?

Emotional understanding helps your child’s brain grow in healthy ways. The emotional centers in your child’s brain develop rapidly in early years. When you help your child understand feelings, you support their ability to plan, pay attention, and stay in control. Children who understand emotions also connect better with others, handle disagreements without acting out, and build stronger friendships.

2. What are the long-term benefits of emotional intelligence?

Children with strong emotional intelligence tend to develop and maintain better relationships throughout life. They also achieve more in school because they can focus better and handle frustration when learning gets tough. Another major benefit is improved physical and mental health – they experience less anxiety, recover more quickly from setbacks, and often make healthier choices. These advantages help them thrive both now and later in life.

3. When do babies start developing emotional awareness?

Babies communicate emotions through crying, facial expressions, and body language from birth. Around 6 months, they begin recognizing emotional expressions in others. This helps them with social referencing – looking at their parents’ faces to understand uncertain situations. When you respond to your baby’s emotional needs, you’re teaching them that their feelings matter and building secure attachment, which supports healthy emotional development.

4. What emotional milestones should I expect in my toddler?

Around age 2, toddlers begin naming basic emotions like “happy,” “sad,” and “mad” as their language develops. They show early empathy by getting upset when others cry and display pride when praised. Toddlers become more independent and develop their unique personalities during this stage. They enjoy pretend play and play near other children (parallel play), and start learning to manage their emotions in social settings.

5. How can I help my child identify their emotions?

Help your child notice facial expressions in books or play emotion charades together. Teach them to connect emotions with body sensations, like a racing heart when scared or tight shoulders when angry. Build their emotional vocabulary beyond “good” and “bad” by introducing specific feeling words during daily conversations. Print a feelings list (either words or the picture-based version for young kids) point out the feelings characters experience in books, and do regular emotion check-ins to make identifying feelings a natural part of your routine.

6. What’s the difference between identifying and understanding emotions?

Identifying emotions answers “What am I feeling?” while understanding addresses “Why am I feeling this way?” When children understand emotions, they move from simply saying “I’m mad!” to “I’m mad because you poured my milk when I wanted to do it myself.” This connection between events and feelings helps emotions make sense. Understanding that emotions happen for reasons is where true emotional intelligence develops.

7. How can I create an emotion-friendly home environment?

Create a safe space where children feel comfortable sharing any feeling. Model healthy emotion identification by naming your own feelings: “I’m feeling a little overwhelmed today.” Avoid dismissing their emotions with phrases like “You’re OK” or “It’s not a big deal.” Take time to listen and validate their emotional experiences. Offer comfort during difficult emotions without rushing to fix the problem. Remember that meeting your child’s needs helps to create a calmer emotional climate in your home.

8. Why do children have emotional outbursts, and how should I respond?

Children’s emotional outbursts often signal unmet needs. For example, a meltdown after daycare might mean they need comfort, food, or quiet time—not that they’re “misbehaving.” Respond by trying to identify and meet the underlying need. This approach helps the emotion settle naturally and teaches children that feelings are manageable. When children know their needs will be consistently met, they develop emotional security and learn to explore feelings without fear.

References

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Below are practical alternatives that acknowledge and honor your child’s efforts and achievements, while building authentic connection and supporting their developing sense of self.

Click here to download the list of 55 Ways to Support, Encourage, and Celebrate Your Child Without Praise

Express Genuine Appreciation

1. Share the specific impact their action had on you: “Thank you for setting the table. It made preparing dinner much easier for me.”
2. Express authentic gratitude for their contribution: “I appreciate your help carrying the groceries.”
3. Acknowledge their thoughtfulness (without labeling it as such): “You remembered to bring a pen [when we’re rushing to the grocery store]! Thanks so much for thinking of that for me.”
4. Share how their actions benefited others: “Your sister smiled when you shared your toys with her.”
5. Simply say “thank you” or “thank you for doing X” without adding evaluative language.

Notice Without Judgment

6. Describe what you observe without evaluating: “I see you used lots of blues and greens in your painting.”
7. Point out details that caught your attention: “You’re balancing on one foot while building that tower.”
8. Make neutral observations about their process: “You’re really focusing on lining up those blocks exactly.”
9. Comment on changes you notice: “I remember when that was difficult for you, and now you’re doing it more easily.”
10. Acknowledge effort without judgment: “You worked on that puzzle for a long time.”

Use Descriptive Language Instead of Evaluative Language

11. Replace “good listening” with “Thanks so much for doing what I asked.”
12. Instead of “I’m proud of you,” try “You accomplished something challenging.”
13. Rather than “good job sharing,” say “You gave half your cookie to your brother.  He’s smiling now.”
14. Instead of “you’re so smart,” try “You found a creative solution to that problem.”
15. Instead of “beautiful drawing,” try “You used so many different colors in your picture.”

Ask Meaningful Questions

16. Inquire about their experience: “How did it feel to climb all the way to the top?”
17. Ask about their process: “How did you figure out how to solve that problem?”
18. Invite them to reflect on challenges: “What was the trickiest part of doing that?”
19. Show curiosity about their thinking: “What made you decide to use that color?”
20. Ask what they might do differently next time: “If you were to build that again, would you make any different choices?”
21. Encourage self-evaluation: “Are you satisfied with how it turned out?”

Connect Through Shared Experience

22. Reminisce about related experiences: “Remember when we first tried making bread together? What do you notice about how this loaf is different from that one?”
23. Share your own similar experiences: “I also find it challenging to wait my turn sometimes.  It seems like it helps both of us to have plans for how we can use waiting time.”
24. Engage in side-by-side activities without commentary or evaluation.
25. Offer your supportive presence during difficult tasks without taking over.
26. Participate in their world on their terms: “I’d love to hear more about how you build these structures.  Would you like to show me?”
27. Show genuine interest by giving your full attention when they share something important to them.

Create Connection Through Physical Presence

28. Offer a hug, high five, or other physical connection (respecting their preferences).
29. Sit quietly beside them while they work on something challenging.
30. Make eye contact and smile genuinely when they look to you for connection.
31. Use touch thoughtfully to communicate “I’m here” during difficult moments.
32. Create physical rituals like special handshakes that build connection.

Provide Emotional Support

33. Validate feelings: “It can feel frustrating when things don’t work out how you planned.”
34. Offer empathy during struggles: “That looks really challenging.  I’ll be here if you see a way I can help.”
35. tand witness to difficult emotions without trying to fix them.
36. Express confidence without pressure: “You’ll figure out what works for you.”
37. Reassure them that struggling is part of learning: “Everyone finds new things difficult at first.”
38. Remind them you care regardless of outcomes: “No matter what happens, I’m here for you.”

Support Autonomy and Growth

39. Offer resources without taking over: “Here’s a tool that might help, if you’d like to use it.”
40. Acknowledge their right to make choices: “You decided to wear your Crocs today.  Shall I also bring your rain boots in case it rains later?”
41. Respect their timeline: “Your brain is still learning how to do it.  It’ll get easier with time and practice.  Today you did X, which is progress from last week.”
42. Honor their decisions: “You chose to take a break when you felt frustrated.”
43. Recognize when they’ve taken responsibility: “You brought your library books without a reminder today!”

Help Children Recognize Their Learning

44. Encourage reflection: “What did you learn from trying that?”
45. Point out progress over time: “Last month this was challenging, and you kept working at it.  Now it seems like it’s a bit easier.  Does it seem that way to you, too?”
46. Ask them to notice changes in their abilities: “What can you do now that you couldn’t do before?”
47. Wonder together about next steps: “I wonder what you might try next time?”
48. Help them identify strategies that worked: “Which approach worked best for you?”
49. Invite them to document their learning journey through photos or journals.

Celebrate Achievements Authentically

50. Express genuine excitement: “Wow! You did it!”
51. Join in their joy without making it about your approval: “You look really happy about finishing that!”
52. Mark milestones without judgment: “You’ve been working toward this for a while, and it’s finally done!  How do you feel?”
53. Acknowledge persistence: “You kept trying different approaches until you found one that worked.”

54. Respect when they don’t want to share or celebrate something.
55. Create rituals that are meaningful to your child for honoring important moments (without performance pressure).  These could include:
    • A weekly ‘story of growth’ dinner conversation where each family member shares something they worked through
    • Photo journaling progress over time that the child can review
    • Inviting the child to share their accomplishment with a loved one they choose
    • Having the child teach others their new skill
    • Adding beads to a ‘journey necklace’ representing challenges overcome
    • Recording audio or video of the child explaining what they’ve learned in their own words

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1. Sibling relationships are important because they’re a child’s first peer relationship.  They set the foundation for all future social interactions, affecting development from risk behaviors to healthcare access.
   
2. While many assume fighting is “just what siblings do,” constant conflict isn’t inevitable. Some anthropologists suggest sibling rivalry may even be a Euro-centric cultural invention.
   
3. Sibling fighting stems from unmet needs, developmental differences in navigating relationships, and perceived unfair treatment by parents.
   
4. What’s the best way to handle sibling fights? Create a pause before reacting, focus on feelings rather than blame, and have problem-solving conversations later when everyone is calm.
   
5. How can parents foster positive sibling relationships? Dedicate predictable one-on-one time with each child, teach problem-solving skills, and frame sibling bonds positively.

Have you ever found yourself playing referee for the third time before breakfast? 

As a parent of multiple children, those moments when siblings are genuinely enjoying each other can feel like magical but rare occurrences in a sea of “That’s MINE!” and “MOM! He’s looking at me!” 

If you’re exhausted from constantly mediating conflicts and wondering if your children will ever truly be friends, many other parents of siblings are right there with you. You might dream of peaceful family dinners that aren’t interrupted by arguments, or car rides that don’t dissolve into backseat battles over who’s crossing the invisible line. 

This post will guide you through practical approaches to reduce the fighting and help your children build the kind of relationships that will support them throughout their lives.

Why sibling relationships matter

Sibling relationships are incredibly important for child development. They serve as a child’s first peer relationship and set the foundation for their future relationships. How siblings interact with each other is how they learn to engage with people their own age – from friends at school to future colleagues and romantic partners.

Research shows that sibling relationships impact many developmental outcomes including:

• • Risk behaviors in adolescence: Siblings can significantly influence each other’s choices around risky behaviors. Older siblings often serve as role models, with younger siblings sometimes following their lead. 
  • Gender development and relationship competence: Through their interactions, siblings help shape each other’s understanding of gender roles and how to relate to others. These early relationship experiences become templates for future friendships and romantic relationships. Siblings practice important social skills like perspective-taking, empathy, and conflict resolution.
  • Health outcomes: Children in supportive sibling relationships tend to have better immune function and fewer stress-related health issues. The chronic stress from high-conflict sibling relationships can take a physical toll. Additionally, siblings often influence each other’s eating habits, physical activity levels, and attitudes toward health behaviors, creating patterns that can last into adulthood.
  • Access to healthcare as adults: As people age, siblings often become important sources of support for accessing healthcare. Adult siblings frequently help each other navigate the healthcare system, share information about health resources, provide transportation to medical appointments, and offer emotional support during health challenges.

Is sibling rivalry normal?

Many parents assume fighting between siblings is ‘normal.’ We often hear phrases like “that’s just what siblings do” or “all siblings fight.” But does this have to be the case?

What we permit, we promote. When we allow sibling fights to continue without intervention, we’re actually encouraging this behavior to continue. This doesn’t mean jumping in every time, but strategic intervention sends the message to our kids: “I think we can do better than this.  I think we can find ways to meet both of your needs.”

Anthropologists who study sibling relationships around the world have suggested that sibling rivalry might be a Euro-centric invention. In many cultures with strong family values, the idea of fighting over possessions isn’t common because children don’t have “their own” things – everything belongs to the family.

Why do siblings fight?

Understanding why siblings fight is key to addressing the problem. Here are the most common causes:

Sibling fight cause #1: Unmet needs

When children engage in difficult behaviors, it’s always an attempt to meet an unmet need. Our job as parents is to be “needs detectives” to uncover what that need might be.

Common unmet needs include:

• Need for connection with parents: Your child might start a fight to get your attention – even if it’s negative attention!
• Need to be known and understood: Children want to feel seen for who they really are.  If this need isn’t met they can feel generally frustrated, and siblings’ behavior can push them over the edge
• Need for fairness and justice: This doesn’t have to mean that everyone gets exactly the same, but rather that everyone’s specific needs are met.

Sibling fight cause #2: Developmental differences

In many non-Eurocentric cultures, siblings have clearly defined roles based on age or gender. Older siblings may have caretaking responsibilities for younger ones. These established roles can actually reduce conflict because everyone knows their place.

In Eurocentric cultures we value more equal relationships, which can be harder to navigate – especially for young children. Every day, they have to figure out how to interact with each other without established norms guiding them.

Sibling fight cause #3: Perceived unfair treatment by parents

Children don’t like it when they think their parents are treating them unfairly.  They notice discrepancies, even when parents think and say that they treat all children alike. 

Parents often try to address this by making sure that each child gets exactly the same as the other (equality) – but then they’re surprised when this doesn’t address the fighting.  Instead of equality, think equity: each child gets what they need to thrive.  When that happens, they won’t resent the other child getting something different from them.

How to handle sibling fights

When siblings are in conflict, try these strategies:

Sibling fighting strategy #1: Create a pause before reacting

One of the most important things parents can do is create a pause between their child’s behavior and their response. Instead of rushing in when you hear fighting, take a deep breath. Transfer a hair tie from one wrist to another, or look at encouraging phrases you’ve posted around the house.

Remind yourself that you don’t have to completely fix the situation right now or teach your child a lesson at this moment. All you need to do is make sure everyone is safe.

Sibling fighting strategy #2: Focus on feelings and needs

When entering the situation, instead of saying “Stop hitting your sister!” or “Give that back, he had it first!” try something simple like: “Sounds like you’re both having a hard time right now, huh?” This acknowledges what’s happening without immediately taking sides or rushing to fix the problem. 

Then, pause.  Breathe.  Sit together.  Offer a hug, if either child would like one.  Just be present without needing to fix anything or make anyone learn a lesson in that moment.

When everyone is re-regulated, help children identify their underlying feelings. You may find that they’re ready to move on at that point!

This approach creates space for children to move from reaction to reflection, teaching them that all emotions are acceptable while helping them develop the vocabulary to express themselves in more constructive ways.

Sibling fighting strategy #3: Have a problem-solving conversation later

Later, when everyone is calm, approach the older child and say something like: “Hey, I noticed we’ve been having a hard time when your toys are out in the living room. Would it be OK if we chat about it?”

Notice this approach:

• Uses “we’re having a hard time” not “you’re doing something wrong”
• Invites the child into the discussion rather than forcing it

During this conversation:

1. Ask what’s going on for them: “What’s going on for you when your sister knocks over your tower?”
2. Validate their feelings: “It makes sense that you’re feeling frustrated about having to start all over again. Starting over when you’ve already put in effort is tough.”
3. Ask them to consider their sibling’s perspective: “What do you think your sister was trying to do?”
4. Identify everyone’s needs: “So it sounds like you wanted space to build, and your sister wanted to help and be close to you.”
5. Brainstorm solutions that meet everyone’s needs: “I wonder what we could do that meets everyone’s needs?”  Strategies might include:
   1. Giving the little sibling a few toys to play with
   2. Offering a small part of the build for them to lead
   3. Offering play time with a parent to the little sibling while the older one builds

6 Ways to foster positive sibling relationships

Building strong bonds between siblings doesn’t happen by chance—it requires intentional parenting strategies and consistent support. While sibling conflict is normal and even developmentally appropriate, parents play a crucial role in shaping how children learn to navigate these relationships. 

Here are six approaches to help siblings get along that can transform your home from a battleground to a training ground for lifelong friendship:

Positive relationship strategy #1: Dedicate one-on-one time

Spend predictable one-on-one time with each child where they get to decide what you do together. Even just 10 minutes daily can make a huge difference.

Make this “Special Time” predictable so they know it will happen regularly. This reduces their fear that they’ll never get your attention again, which can lead to fighting for attention.

Positive relationships strategy #2: Teach problem-solving skills

Parents can have a huge role in helping children learn problem-solving and conflict resolution skills. 

Parents might think that they should leave young children to figure their disagreements out by themselves, but kids under 10 usually need adult support.

Parents can support siblings by helping them to understand how they each feel, what they each need, and help them come up with solutions that meet both of their needs.

Use the “I do it, We do it, You do it” approach:

• First, you model problem-solving by giving them the words and asking the questions over a period of several months
• Then, you work together as they start doing some of it themselves, particularly when the fight isn’t so severe and they aren’t completely dysregulated
• Finally, you hand it off: “I think you have all the tools you need to solve this together.  I’m here if you need support.”

Positive relationships strategy #3: Talk about siblings positively

The words we use matter tremendously. When you’re talking with one child, always start by validating that child’s experience.  Make it clear you get what’s hard for them.  Then try to help them see things from the other child’s perspective:

“I can see you’re having a really hard time with this.  You don’t like being spoken to like that, or being hit.  I want you to feel safe in our house [validation].  I think your sibling has a hard time in the mornings because they like to wake up slowly, and you’re often ready to go right after you get out of bed.  I wonder how we can make mornings a little bit easier for them?” [taking the other’s perspective]  

Positive relationship strategy #4: Acknowledge each child’s unique experience

Parents often want the older child to be sensitive to the fact that the younger child “doesn’t know yet.” While this is valid, we must also acknowledge how hard that must be for the older child.

If we don’t acknowledge their experience, resentment builds: “I just keep being expected to put up with this behavior.”

This compounds when the older child has to wait for everything because the younger sibling ‘can’t wait,’ and doesn’t get to spend time connecting with caregivers as much as they used to. 

Try to empathize with the child who is struggling.  It’s OK to say: “It’s really hard to be an older sibling sometimes, huh?”

Positive relationship strategy #5: Create physical solutions when needed

Some practical strategies you can try:

• When your Spidey Senses tell you that things are heating up, move closer.  Your supportive presence may be enough…if not, you’ll be present to stop hits if things head in that direction
• Change locations to help reset emotions – even just moving to another room can help calm everyone down
• Create a designated “peace table” or special spot in your home where children go to solve problems
• Use physical barriers when needed (like baby gates) to create separate spaces while still allowing interaction

Positive relationship strategy #6: Talk openly about differences in treatment

Talk openly about why you might treat siblings differently. When children understand the reasons why you’re treating them differently, it becomes less of a big deal. 

For example, if one child needs extra help with homework, explain this to the other child.  Then mention how you make sure to attend their soccer practice like they’ve asked, because that’s meaningful to them.

What’s more important than treating each child the same is treating each child in a way that meets their needs.

Final thoughts

Building strong sibling relationships takes time and intentional effort, but the rewards are enormous. By focusing on meeting each child’s needs, teaching problem-solving skills, and modeling positive conflict resolution, you can help your children develop relationships that will support them throughout their lives.

Remember that progress might be slow at first, but keep at it. As parent Adrianna shared, “I literally dreaded parenting. I counted down the minutes until I got a break. What a difference to really look forward to things I used to dread.”

The skills your children learn navigating their sibling relationships will serve them in every relationship they have throughout their lives. That’s worth the effort!

Turn sibling battles into cooperation without losing your cool

Are you tired of mediating endless conflicts between your children? Exhausted by behaviors that leave you feeling frustrated and questioning your parenting choices? There’s a different way—one that doesn’t involve constant punishment or giving in to every demand.

Join my Setting Loving (& Effective!) Limits Self-Guided Workshop and discover a more effective approach to setting limits. You’ll learn the real reason why your kids are resisting you (and what to do about it!) and how to nurture cooperation while maintaining your sanity.

As parent Amy said: “Our kids have been so much more helpful and we have all been so much happier without all the power struggles. What a change!”

The skills you’ll learn don’t just apply to sibling conflict—they’ll transform how you handle all challenging behaviors!

Take the first step toward a more peaceful home where siblings know how to work through disagreements and everyone feels heard and respected.

Click the image below to learn more.

Frequently Asked Questions About Sibling Relationships

1. Why are sibling relationships important for child development?

Sibling relationships serve as a child’s first peer relationship and set the foundation for all future social interactions. These connections teach children how to engage with people their own age, resolve conflicts, and develop empathy. Research shows sibling relationships significantly impact developmental outcomes including risk behaviors in adolescence, gender development, relationship competence, and even health outcomes later in life.

2. Is sibling rivalry normal, or should I be concerned about constant fighting?

While occasional conflicts between siblings are normal, constant fighting isn’t inevitable. Many cultures don’t experience the same level of sibling rivalry as families in Eurocentric cultures. What we permit, we promote—when we allow fights to continue without strategic intervention, we’re actually encouraging this behavior. 

Rather than accepting “that’s just what siblings do,” step forward and support them while they’re young, and they’ll be able to handle disagreements by themselves before you know it.

3. What are the main causes of sibling fighting?

Sibling fighting typically stems from three main sources: unmet needs (like connection with parents or wanting to be understood), developmental differences in navigating equal relationships (unlike cultures with clearly defined sibling roles), and perceived unfair treatment by parents. Understanding the underlying causes helps address the real issues rather than just managing surface behaviors.

4. How should I respond when my children are fighting?

Create a pause before reacting by taking a deep breath or using a physical reminder like transferring a hair tie from one wrist to another. When you enter the situation, focus on feelings rather than blame with simple acknowledgments like, “Sounds like you’re both having a hard time right now.” Ensure safety, but avoid trying to completely fix the situation in that heated moment.

5. What’s the best way to help siblings develop problem-solving skills?

Use the “I do it, We do it, You do it” approach. First, model problem-solving by providing the words and helping them to understand each other’s feelings and needs, and strategies that will meet both of their needs.. Then, work together as children start doing some of the problem-solving themselves. Finally, hand it off to them: “I think you have all the tools you need to meet both of your needs!” This gradual approach builds confidence and competence.

6. How can I make sure I’m treating my children fairly without treating them the same?

Talk openly about why you might treat siblings differently based on their unique needs and stages. When children understand the reasons behind different approaches (like one child needing extra homework help), negative reactions decrease. Listen to their perspectives and invite their input—they might have solutions that would make situations feel fair to them while still meeting everyone’s needs.

7. What practical strategies can I implement to help siblings get along better?

Create a “peace table” or designated spot for solving problems, ensure children are at the same physical level during conflicts (both sitting or both standing), change locations to reset emotions, and use physical barriers when needed to create separate spaces while still allowing interaction. Also, dedicate predictable one-on-one time with each child to reduce competition for your attention.

8. How should I talk about the sibling relationship to promote positive connections?

The words we use matter. When you’re talking with one child, always start by validating that child’s experience.  Make it clear you get what’s hard for them.  Then try to help them see things from the other child’s perspective.

References

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1. Children procrastinate to avoid negative feelings like anxiety, fear of failure, or uncertainty.
2. Teaching children self-forgiveness and self-compassion reduces shame and guilt, which actually helps prevent future procrastination rather than enabling it.
3. Teaching children to break tasks into small, manageable pieces makes starting easier.
4. Visual exercises like ‘paper doll chains’ help children understand how today’s actions affect tomorrow’s reality.
5. Creating the right conditions (clear expectations, reduced distractions, gentle accountability) helps children develop better habits, while overly strict approaches can increase anxiety and avoidance.

“Just five more minutes of Minecraft first!” your child pleads as you remind them—for the third time—about the science project due tomorrow. Despite having two weeks to work on it, here you are again, facing a night of rushed work and mounting frustration. Sound familiar? If you’re nodding your head, you’re part of the vast community of parents watching your children struggle with procrastination—and feeling powerless to help.

Procrastination is a challenge that affects people of all ages, including children. Whether it’s delaying homework, putting off chores, or avoiding responsibilities, procrastination can create stress, lower confidence, and lead to poor outcomes. As parents, we want to support our children in developing healthy habits, but we often struggle with how to do so effectively.

Based on insights from my interview with Dr. Fuschia Sirois, a professor at Durham University, expert in procrastination research, and author of Procrastination: What it is, why it’s a problem, and what you can do about it, this blog post will explore the roots of procrastination, its emotional underpinnings, and practical strategies to help children navigate and overcome it.

Understanding procrastination: more than just laziness

Many people mistakenly believe that procrastination is simply a result of laziness or poor time management. However, research shows that procrastination is deeply connected to emotional regulation.

Dr. Sirois defines procrastination as the unnecessary, voluntary delay of an intended task despite knowing that it may cause harm. Unlike mere delay, which can sometimes be strategic, procrastination happens when emotions—such as anxiety, uncertainty, or fear of failure—drive avoidance.

Children, like adults, may procrastinate because:

• A task feels overwhelming.
• They are afraid of making mistakes or failing.
• They experience uncertainty about what is expected.
• They are distracted or overstimulated.
• They lack motivation because the task does not feel meaningful.

Instead of seeing procrastination as a flaw, we should understand it as a response to negative emotions.

Why children procrastinate

Procrastination often begins in childhood and can be influenced by parenting styles, academic pressures, and a child’s own temperament.

1. Emotion regulation difficulties

Children who struggle to manage their emotions are more likely to procrastinate. When a child hasn’t yet developed strong skills for regulating emotions, they often avoid tasks that trigger uncomfortable feelings. For example, when homework creates anxiety or boredom, instead of working through these challenging emotions, they might delay starting their assignment.

2. Perfectionism and fear of failure

Some children put off tasks because they fear not meeting high standards.When a child struggles with perfectionist tendencies, they may delay starting rather than risk doing a “bad” job. The child might think, “If I can’t do this perfectly, I shouldn’t do it at all.” What parents often don’t realize is that this avoidance isn’t laziness—it’s an attempt to manage intense emotional discomfort.

3. Social pressures and shame

Kids may also procrastinate due to perceived social judgments. If they think others will see them as “not smart enough” or “not good enough,” they may avoid tasks to protect their self-esteem. This connection between shame and procrastination creates a cycle where children delay work to avoid potential judgment, which provides temporary emotional relief but ultimately reinforces their fears and anxiety about performance. Rather than risk embarrassment, children choose avoidance as a strategy.

4. Task ambiguity and uncertainty

Children often procrastinate when they do not fully understand a task. Lack of clear instructions or expectations can make starting an assignment feel impossible. When a child stares at an assignment sheet or project description and feels confused about what’s being asked, their natural response is often to put it aside rather than risk doing it incorrectly.

5. Habitual avoidance and instant gratification

If children are used to avoiding uncomfortable tasks by turning to distractions (e.g., screens, play), they may develop a habit of procrastination, reinforcing the cycle over time. This pattern is particularly evident in struggles with screen time and video game management that many families experience. When children encounter discomfort with schoolwork or responsibilities, digital entertainment offers immediate escape and gratification.

6. Bedtime procrastination

Many children delay bedtime, even when they know they’ll feel tired the next day. This often happens because they feel like they haven’t had enough fun during the day, they want to avoid tomorrow’s responsibilities, or they use screens or activities to distract from stress.

How parents can help children stop procrastinating

As parents, our role is not to “fix” procrastination but to help children build the skills they need to manage it. Here are some effective strategies.

1. Focus on emotion management, not just time management

Since procrastination is largely about avoiding negative emotions, helping children identify and regulate their emotions is key.

• Explore the emotions behind procrastination. Instead of asking “Why aren’t you doing this?” try “How are you feeling about this task?” to help children identify feelings of shame or anxiety.
• Validate their feelings. If your child is anxious about an assignment, acknowledge their feelings: “I can see this feels overwhelming for you.”
• Help them reframe challenges. Instead of “This is too hard,” encourage a growth mindset: “This is tricky, but I can take it step by step.”
• Practice calming techniques. Breathing exercises, short breaks, or a fun transition activity can help lower stress before starting a task.
• Model healthy emotional regulation. Children learn how to handle difficult emotions by watching us. When you’re struggling with a task, avoid hiding your feelings or simply avoiding the task without explanation. Instead, verbalize your emotions and demonstrate constructive ways to work through them.

2. Teach self-compassion and forgiveness

Children who procrastinate often feel guilty and self-critical. Teach them self-compassion:

• Instead of “I’m lazy,” encourage “I’m learning how to handle difficult tasks.”
• Model self-forgiveness: “I didn’t finish my work today, but I’ll make a plan to do it tomorrow.”

Self-forgiveness has been shown to reduce future procrastination, as it helps children move forward without being weighed down by shame.

3. Break down tasks into smaller steps

Overwhelming tasks can trigger avoidance. Help your child break assignments into tiny, manageable pieces:

• If they need to write a report, start with just brainstorming ideas.
• If they have chores, focus on one step at a time (e.g., “Put away five toys” instead of “Clean your room”).
• Use visual checklists to help them see their progress.

4. Make future tasks feel more immediate

One reason children procrastinate is that they see their future selves as distant and different from their current selves. A useful trick is to help them visualize their “future self”:

• Ask: “How will future you feel if you do a little now vs. waiting until the last minute?”
• Use the paper doll chain exercise, where each paper doll represents “you” across different days. This helps children see that tomorrow’s self is still them, facing the same challenges if they don’t start today.

5. Create a supportive environment

Addressing the external factors that drive procrastination can make it easier for children to develop more productive habits and face challenging tasks with confidence.

• Set clear expectations (“Homework starts at 4 PM”).
• Reduce distractions (a quiet workspace, limited screen time).
• Use gentle reminders (visual timers, post-it notes).
• Create accountability (“Let’s check in on your progress after 15 minutes”).
• Avoid overly strict parenting styles that can increase anxiety and shame around performance. (replacing “You need to get an A on this test or no screen time for a week” with “Let’s focus on your study process and understanding the material”)
• Create a bedtime wind-down routine like reading books, dimming lights, or playing calming music.

6. Encourage “good enough” work

Perfectionism can paralyze children. Teach them that done is better than perfect:

• Set “quick drafts” or “sloppy copies” as the goal.
• Praise effort, not just results (“I love how you tried a new approach”).
• Remind them that mistakes are part of learning.
• Embrace imperfect progress by showing that small, imperfect steps forward are valuable rather than waiting for ideal circumstances.

Final thoughts: raising resilient, self-motivated children

Helping children overcome procrastination isn’t about forcing them to be productive—it’s about teaching them to navigate discomfort, regulate emotions, and break overwhelming tasks into manageable steps.

By modeling self-compassion, breaking tasks down, creating supportive structures, and helping children connect with their future selves, parents can equip kids with lifelong skills to manage procrastination in healthy ways.

Frequently Asked Questions about procrastination for children

1. How does perfectionism lead to procrastination?

Kids afraid of making mistakes may delay tasks to avoid failure. Teaching them that mistakes help learning can reduce this fear.

2. Can social pressure make kids procrastinate?

Yes, fear of judgment or feeling “not good enough” can cause avoidance. Encouraging self-compassion helps break the cycle.

3. Why does my child struggle to start tasks?

Unclear instructions or overwhelming expectations can make starting difficult. Breaking tasks into small steps makes them manageable.

4. Why does my child procrastinate at bedtime?

They may feel they haven’t had enough fun, want to avoid tomorrow’s tasks, or use screens to cope with stress.

5. Does strict parenting reduce procrastination?

Overly strict rules increase anxiety and avoidance. Clear expectations and gentle accountability work better.

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Parents often ask me: “How can I prepare my child for the real world?” This question emerges in three distinct contexts:

• Navigating external influences like junk food and media;
• Dealing with broader social systems that don’t align with our values;
• Concerns about using traditional disciplinary methods, combined with worries that children won’t learn to function in a world where rewards and punishments are part of life.

In this post, I’ll explore practical approaches to addressing these challenges while honoring our children’s authentic selves.

Food Battles and Body Image

Let’s start with a familiar scenario: You’ve prepared a nutritious meal, but your child is munching on bread while ignoring everything else. You remind them about the protein and vegetables. They take a tiny nibble of chicken but refuse to touch the “green stuff.” As frustration builds, you wonder: “How will my child get the nutrients they need if all they eat is carbs?!”

Behind this concern lies a web of social pressures, including:

• Judgment from other parents
• Comments from relatives about your child’s body size
• Medical professionals evaluating growth curves
• A culture that’s unkind to children with diverse body types.

This creates tremendous stress around mealtimes. It goes far beyond your relationship with your child.

In my conversation with Dr. Lindo Bacon, we discussed how Body Mass Index (BMI) was never designed to measure individual health. It was created to assess population trends, not determine if a specific person is healthy. Now it’s used everywhere from schools to doctor’s offices to public health campaigns.

Even more surprising, research shows that the group with the longest lifespan isn’t those in the “normal” weight category – it’s those classified as “overweight.” And most people in the “obese” category live as long as those in the “normal” category.

So why are we so focused on controlling children’s eating habits? It can seem like the least bad option. The food industry has spent billions perfecting irresistible foods. Frito-Lay employs 500 chemists, psychologists, and technicians to find the “bliss point” in snack foods. Scientists engineered Cheetos with what one food scientist called “uncanny ability to melt in the mouth.” This creates “vanishing caloric density” that tricks your brain into thinking “you can just keep eating forever.”

Marketers bombard children with advertisements for these products. At the same time, you face immense pressure to ensure your kids eat “properly.” If your child refuses vegetables, society tells you it’s your fault and your responsibility to fix it.

One approach many parents find helpful is Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibility model:

• Parents decide what, when, and where food is offered.
• Kids decide how much they eat—or whether they eat at all.

(In the episode we addressed a lot of the questions parents ask about reading books on DoR as they struggle to apply it in their own lives.)

Making foods forbidden tends to increase our desire for them. Instead, we can include them in our daily consumption, and treat them like any other food.  Serve dessert with dinner, and allow your child to decide which to eat first.  If you’re going to allow them to eat a square of chocolate today, does it matter when they eat it?  If they decide they want to eat it for breakfast, they get to meet their need for autonomy as well as for indulgent food.

We can learn what is a serving size of lots of different foods. When our child has eaten a serving of one food and they ask for another, we can say something like: “You’ve already had a serving of apples today.  Our bodies do best when we eat lots of different kinds of foods.  What else would you like?”

The key is that we treat apples the same as chips apples, so no food is ‘better’ than any other.  (The main exception to this would be with neurodivergent children, where you’ve decided that their emotional regulation is more important right now than what they eat.  A feeding therapist may be able to offer support if you and your child would like to make progress on their ability to tolerate and accept a wider variety of foods.)

Screen Time and Digital Media

Just as with food, parents often struggle with technology. Game designers, like food scientists, have engineered digital experiences to be extraordinarily compelling. They offer immediate feedback, achievable challenges, and social connection. They’re designed to meet children’s psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relationships.

Contrary to common belief, research doesn’t show a compelling link between video games and violence. In fact, as video game usage has increased globally, violent crime rates have generally decreased. Countries with higher percentages of young gamers than the US often have lower violence rates.

What’s more important are the cultural messages embedded within games and media. Many popular games reinforce limiting gender roles and social hierarchies. It can be tempting to shield children from these ideas. These ideas are out in the world, so we can’t shield our kids forever. Games can give us a way to discuss the topics and support our kids’ developing critical thinking skills.

Many parents’ most immediate concern is how to stop the battles at the end of screen time.  Seeing this as a gradual journey can help both us and our children. Expecting a child to go from having all screen time managed by you to managing it independently isn’t realistic. Break it down into stages:

• First you manage the timer;
• Then they manage it with your backup;
• Then they manage their time independently, with ongoing conversations about balance.

Social Expectations and Human Development

The cultural messages in video games aren’t isolated phenomenon. They’re reflections of broader social expectations that divide human qualities into rigid categories. For instance, games often portray male characters as warriors and female characters as healers. They reinforce the same limiting patterns that show up in children’s books, movies, and everyday interactions.

Our society often elevates certain qualities over others based on these divisions. Research by Dr. Carol Gilligan shows that boys as young as four demonstrate remarkable emotional intelligence. Between the ages of 5 and 7, they begin to shield these qualities, afraid of being seen as “soft.” Many girls learn between ages 9 and 13 that their authentic voice is “too much,” replacing it with a version that says what others want to hear.

Children naturally resist these divisions. They arrive in the world with both voice and desire for connection. They play freely across gender lines until social conditioning teaches them otherwise. When we force them to choose between these fundamental human capacities, they lose an important part of themselves.

You can help your child to see these influences when you read books or watch movies with your kids. I recently read the New York Times bestselling Fablehaven series to my daughter. In the second book, there’s a scene where the main character, Kendra, warns her friend Alyssa about walking home alone with a new boy (who Kendra knows is actually a disguised goblin). Kendra takes Alyssa aside and says: “Think about it. We hardly know anything about him. You just met him today. He’s not a little guy. Are you sure you want to go walking alone in the dark with him? Girls can get in a lot of trouble that way.”

The next day, Alyssa reveals he kissed her: “I was having so much fun. We talked in front of my house for a while after you drove away. He was being really cute and funny, and then he moved in close. I was terrified. I mean, I hardly know him, but it was also sort of exciting until we actually kissed.”

This seemingly innocent middle-grade fantasy novel was teaching troubling lessons:

• That it’s girls’ responsibility to protect themselves from boys (not boys’ responsibility to respect boundaries);
• That feeling “terrified” during a romantic encounter is normal and should be pushed through;
• That boys should pursue while girls should be pursued.

I paused after I read this passage and we discussed how this narrative reinforces harmful expectations for both genders. It teaches girls to ignore their instincts and boys to adopt an aggressive role they might not be comfortable with. These discussions help children develop critical awareness of messaging they might otherwise absorb without questioning.

Rethinking Discipline

Behind questions about managing challenging behavior often lies the concern:

“How do I discipline my child so they’ll be ready for the real world (and also do what I say)?”

Researchers developed tools like Time-outs after they saw that pigeons and chimps would change their behavior to get rewards and avoid punishments. When you give a Time-out, you’re removing the child from the opportunity to get positive reinforcement (your attention) to discourage unwanted behavior.

This approach may reduce immediate problematic behaviors. But we have to wonder: What is time-out teaching our children about relationships? Many children interpret temporary withdrawal of attention as withdrawal of love, even when we don’t intend it that way.

This misses the crucial understanding that behavior is communication. When we look deeper at “misbehavior,” we typically find unmet needs:

• The child hitting a sibling might be desperately seeking connection
• The child throwing toys might be experiencing sensory overload
• The child refusing directions might be trying to meet their need for autonomy

Consider one parent I worked with whose 11-year-old had been diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder. When she shifted from demanding compliance to asking, “What’s going on? Do you need help?” her son responded with connection rather than resistance. Later, he wrote: “Mom, I’m so sorry I didn’t get us to school on time. I really needed your help. Thank you for giving me grace this morning.”

As she reflected, “My son wasn’t being defiant. His needs weren’t being met.”

The Need for Acceptance

Dr. Marsha Linehan’s memoir Building a Life Worth Living illustrates how parents’ attempts to shape children can create profound harm, even with good intentions.

Dr. Linehan’s mother continually berated her about her weight, her looks, her clothing, and her lack of social graces.  Dr. Linehan was intellectually curious, but her questions were not welcomed by her parents.  She felt completely alone in a family of eight, with nobody who could understand her experience.

This created what Linehan calls “traumatic invalidation.” This is a pervasive misreading of emotions that led her to feel like an outsider in her own family.  What Dr. Linehan needed—what all children need—was acceptance of who she really was.  The irony was that Linehan’s parents tried to shape her behavior because they loved her, and they wanted her to be successful in life.  They wanted to make her acceptable in a world where her only job was to get married to a man who made enough money to maintain a middle class lifestyle.  They appear to have succeeded with Dr. Linehan’s siblings; Linehan’s mental health was the price that the family paid.

Most parents aren’t trying to harm their children; they’re trying to prepare them for what they believe is necessary for success. But in doing this, they communicate: “I’ll give you love and acceptance only when your behavior fits my expectations.” The child learns to cover up their real feelings and needs, and eventually forgets who they really are.

When we think about changing our child’s behavior, we must be clear on why we’re doing it. We might think it’s for their own benefit, just as Dr. Linehan’s mother thought as well. We, too, want our kids to to fit in social systems that dictate appropriate body size, emotional expression, and behavior. But this creates disconnection between us, instead of the validation and acceptance that we all crave. We might have done well in school and work ourselves, and now explode at our kids when they ask us to really ‘see’ them.  Our ‘success’ in life has come at the expense of our mental health, and the same thing may happen with our kids if we don’t make a conscious decision to do things differently.

Bringing It All Together

Whether we’re navigating food choices, screen time, social expectations, or discipline, the underlying question remains:

How do we prepare our children for the real world while honoring their authentic selves?

The thread connecting these areas is the tension between external pressures (from marketers, media, social systems) and children’s innate wisdom about their own needs. Our role isn’t to shield them completely, nor force them to conform, but to help them learn how to to navigate these influences with awareness.

These insights play out in everyday moments. When your child resists getting ready in the morning, instead of assuming defiance, try asking with genuine curiosity: “Why is this hard today?”

Maybe they’re seeking connection or avoiding a problem at school. Understanding the underlying need allows you to address it while teaching valuable life skills.

This approach doesn’t coddle children; it validates them. It teaches them they’re lovable exactly as they are—the foundation they need to navigate our complex world.

To prepare children for the real world, our most powerful tool isn’t protection or control, but connection. We’re working to create relationships where children feel seen, understood, and valued, while developing skills to engage critically with the world around them.

If some of these ideas challenge your current parenting approaches, please be gentle with yourself. We parent from our own histories and with the tools we’ve been given. Your children benefit not from perfect parenting, but from your willingness to learn and grow alongside them.

References

Linehan, M.M. (2021). Building a life worth living. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks.

Moss, M. (2013, February 20). The extraordinary science of addictive junk food. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html

National Center for Education Statistics (1996). Do rich and poor districts spend alike? Author. Retrieved from:

https://nces.ed.gov/pubs/web/97916.asp#:~:text=Districts%20with%20high%2Dincome%20households,to%20spend%20for%20public%20education.&text=districts%20with%20moderate%2Dto%2Dhigh,student%20(%245%2C411%2D%20%244%2C774).

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Maybe you yell at your child, or swat or spank them – or perhaps you cope by either mentally or emotionally walking away from the situation.

Our ability to handle the ups and downs of parenting is dependent upon our ability to regulate our own emotions and our ability to build and maintain healthy relationships, and difficulty with emotional regulation makes parenting tough. Our children aren’t shy about letting us know about their needs (or what they don’t need, like the other half of that bowl of cereal even though they asked for it…).  This can feel really jarring to us because we were socialized to ignore our own needs – to the point that many of us have a hard time even identifying what are our own needs.

But if we regularly overreact when our child asserts their needs, ruptures in our relationship with our child may appear.  And when we’re in full flip-out mode over that bowl of cereal we aren’t modeling successful emotional regulation for our child, so they’re more likely to struggle to develop those skills themselves.

But there’s a lot you can do to regulate yourself more effectively, once you understand the reasons why you feel this way, and learn some simple tools to navigate situations that make you react explosively.

Haunted by the past

Trauma lives in the automatic response system of our brain.  Maybe a particular smell always makes you think of your grandmother or hearing a particular song reminds you of a friend whom you haven’t seen in years.

We might think we have difficulties digesting certain food, but some scientists think that this may actually be linked to a difficult emotional experience we had while eating that food – so maybe we feel nauseous when we smell calamari because they remind us of the fight we had with our spouse at the Italian restaurant.  And it might seem like we’re angry with our child for wasting food (don’t they know about the starving children?  And greenhouse gas emissions?!) which means they need to change their behavior, the actual cause of our explosive reaction lies within us parents.

When we have an oversized response to something – including our child’s behavior – that originates in a traumatic event we experienced at some other point in our lives, psychologists say we’re being “triggered”.  When triggered, people may find themselves reliving a traumatic event – or if this happened so long ago or our brain has blocked these memories, we might not even be able to identify the trigger.

When triggered, your body goes into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode (more about these later). These reactions can be useful during a traumatic event but when the trauma is long-past, changes that occurred in our brains and bodies during and after the trauma leave us with a legacy of health problems from cancer, heart disease, and respiratory disease to drug use and violence directed toward oneself and others.

Parenting is a tough job with often intense emotions. Even if we haven’t experienced trauma we may still have similar reactions to our child’s behavior known as emotional flooding, which is extremely common among parents.  This often flares up when our child does something that reminds us of how our own needs were not met (because they weren’t understood, or were understood but deliberately ignored) as children.  I hear from parents all the time who snap when their child argues, refuses to cooperate, doesn’t use appropriate manners, makes a mess, and wastes food – all of which we were likely punished for doing as children. Like trauma-related triggers, emotional flooding can make us unable to behave rationally.

Body and mind disconnect

You may have heard the brief history of the separation of body and mind that I described in my recent podcast episode on The Physical Reasons You Yell At Your Kids.  For thousands of years in Western culture the body has been thought of like a machine with parts that needed to be maintained so the overall whole looks and functions acceptably, and occasionally replaced when they broke down.  This view sees a separation between body and mind that intensified as we began to view brains essentially as computers that process information rationally – unless they’re defective or broken in some way.

Disconnection between mind and body is incredibly common. It is frequently the result of trauma, but it doesn’t have to be a trauma in the objective sense. There aren’t ‘legitimate’ or ‘illegitimate’ traumatic events. For some people, a job loss might be an inconvenience, while for others, it might be a traumatic event. We can’t change how we respond to the event by telling ourselves it wasn’t a big deal because the reaction we’re experiencing isn’t ‘in our head.’ The reaction is being experienced in our mind and our body.

Our automatic stress response

When we are flooded or triggered, our bodies are “thrown into an unnecessary state of survival mode that does not correspond to any actual or significant risk to survival or well-being.” Our bodies are disconnected from the reality of the situation we’re in.

We struggle to recognize our emotions and assess threats: our child leaving half a bowl of cereal uneaten does not represent an actual threat to us, even if we’re reacting as if it does.

Next, our bodies may go into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn mode. This is a response in our body that is designed to protect us from harm. It is instinctual. You’ve probably heard of fight or flight, where we prepare to attack or run, but additional automatic reactions have been identified. Sometimes people freeze; this is the deer in headlights response and can happen when we have no way out of a situation or when we aren’t able to figure out what is happening. The fawn response can be thought of as the people pleasing response and is often developed to protect us in a situation where we hope we can appease the person threatening us to prevent them from harming us.

The commonality across all of these responses is that they are automatic, and when these are activated our amygdala, which is sometimes referred to as the guard dog of the brain, springs into action to keep us safe.  That can prevent us from using our rational decision making process: our brain believes that we don’t have the luxury of being rational, so that part of our brain shuts down in favor of the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response. Because the traumatic memories are disassociated in our brains, the memories, smells, tastes, sounds, and feelings are all disconnected. This is why people often don’t understand their reactions – and it seems like it’s the half-eaten bowl of cereal that’s the problem, when actually the problem lies deep within us.

It’s also worth noting that people who have experienced discrimination or persecution based on their race, religion, gender, or sexual preference may not have the luxury of knowing that they are safe.  The threats their bodies are trained to identify and respond to are not relics of the past that no longer serve them. The fear that their child’s behavior could provoke a tragic response from threats outside the home is not unfounded.

If we spend years living with a threat, our body may be stuck in a state of heightened alert. We may have anxiety, high blood pressure, or permanently tense muscles. This can have devastating health effects. While it is impossible to blame any one aspect of discrimination to the overall health of marginalized groups, there’s a goodd eal of evidence that the ongoing trauma caused by racism has negative health impacts on both children and adults.

For some of us, the over-active guard dog that’s still trying to protect us may need some retraining. As a result of past circumstances, it may still jump into action every time someone walks past on the sidewalk and isn’t actually trying to break into our house, and the chronic stress associated with this isn’t good for us – or for our relationship with our child.

Reconnecting our minds and bodies

To respond (rather than reacting) we have to reconnect our minds and bodies.

Slowly, research is changing the Western understanding of the mind-body connection. We now know that the mind and body are not separate entities, and the connection between them is important for health and wellness. Meditation, which takes many forms, has been associated with positive effects on physical and mental health and wellness. During meditation, people reconnect their minds with their bodies by observing what they’re experiencing through their senses (which are located in the body!) right now in the present moment.

One thing that can have an impact is to have physical experiences that directly contradict how our body is programmed to react. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps Score, gives the example of martial arts and yoga. In the martial arts, you learn and practice ways to protect and control your body, so you know and you feel that you are not helpless, this can help overcome the trauma that taught you you are helpless.

How to stop reacting explosively to your child’s behavior

There are two main approaches we can use to effectively regulate our emotions.

Top down emotional regulation involves changing our thought processes by developing deeper insight into their behaviors and past experiences. I don’t want to give the impression that this type of therapy is wrong or problematic – in fact, the insight we get from understanding why we feel a certain way can sometimes help us to be less impacted by situations we used to find difficult to navigate.

But many people find that there simply isn’t any space between their child’s behavior and their explosive reaction for them to choose the response they decided during therapy would be more constructive.  This is why we might fully comprehend that the way we’re reacting to our child’s behavior isn’t helpful (or aligned with our values as a parent), but still not be able to stop ourselves from doing it in the moment.

I worked with one parent who said it was like she was floating above herself yelling at her child – knowing she would be trying to repair the relationship in just a few minutes – but still unable to stop herself in the moment.  The top-down (brain-based) approach is more effective when it operates in conjunction with bottom-up (body-based) actions.

Bottom up emotional regulation involves taming the autonomic nervous system-actions our body takes without any direction from our rational brain-our heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and digestion.

Using the bottom up strategy can be summed up with a word you’ve heard me say many times: mindfulness. With basic activities like breathing, moving, and touching, we can affect our body’s “involuntary” functions and improve our ability to remain rational and regulate our emotional responses. In getting out of the stories our brain is telling us about how we can’t cope with the situation, we realize that we can cope in this moment.  That there isn’t an emergency.  By working with our brain in this way, we can improve our emotional regulation.

This is something that can benefit all of us. I think everyone I know has lapses in emotional regulation – including me. It’s amazing how a little bit of growth in this area can have a really dramatic impact on our lives and families, and that’s why I created the Taming Your Triggers workshop.

This 10-week online workshop will help you understand the strong reactions you have to the little frustrations of parenting–unfinished cereal, backtalk, messes, and the insistence on having the “right” cup for their milk even if it is in the dishwasher and unavailable.

If you often find yourself triggered or flooded by your child’s behavior, you’ll find yourself in good company.  We’ll dig deeply so you can find the causes of your triggered feelings and understand these to bring the insight you need.  Then we’ll develop skills to create space between your child’s difficult behavior and your explosive reaction so you can respond to them effectively.

In the workshop you’ll learn:

• The real sources of your triggered/flooded feelings (which aren’t in your child’s behavior!);
• How to feel triggered less often;
• How to repair your relationship with your child on the fewer occasions when it does still happen.

The workshop is recommended by a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who counsels individuals who have experienced trauma and it’s not an exaggeration to say that participants who have engaged deeply with the content have experienced dramatic results.

Here’s what one real parent said about her experience:

“I can honestly say this is the most important and significant accomplishment I’ve had in my personal life… maybe ever.”

“Where do I start saying how this workshop has helped me? It has helped me to identify that I was even being triggered in the first place. I thought I was just an anxious person and there was no other way. Because of this workshop, I can now identify when I am triggered and step away from my narrow perspective, understand the root of the trigger from my past, and see the bigger picture including what my partner or child might be feeling and perceiving in that moment from me.

The whole workshop was really well structured to both give me insight and help find solutions that work for me. Now I understand much more about how the intergenerational trauma that has happened in my family is impacting my relationship with my son. And I had always known I had issues with my mom, but not the extent to which it affected me on an hourly basis – that module of content dropped a bomb on me that I never saw coming. I’m so glad that I learned tools in the workshop so I don’t have to be ruled by that any more. I also learned what hypoarousal is – I saw that I probably spent 50% of my time in this state and had no idea it was even a thing.

I still get triggered and give in to impulse every once in a while now, but FAR less often. What I’ve learned in the workshop has improved my relationship with both my child and husband and even my relationship with myself. I can honestly say this is the most important and significant accomplishment I’ve had in my personal life… maybe ever. I wish there was a way to fully convey the value that parents who are experiencing these feelings will get out of this workshop.

– A.H.

Your powerful feelings are not random and it’s not your fault that you’re having them – but even though it’s not your fault, you can still do a lot to help you navigate them more effectively. By boosting your own coping skills, you’ll increase the sense of calm in your home and become not only a model of emotion regulation, but of being imperfect, and recognizing that imperfection, and taking steps forward anyway – which gives our children ‘permission’ to do the same in their own struggles.

You’re not failing them…you’re helping them.

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In this post I’m going to discuss six of the most significant causes of parental anxiety including the newest cause -COVID-19 – which amplifies the other five.

Cause #1 – Unwanted Opinions

We fear our children being seen too spoiled, too selfish, too nice, too overweight/underweight, too addicted to screens, too active, too lazy, too loud, too quiet, too stubborn, too obedient —shall I go on?

We struggle to identify the “just right” qualities we hope our children will develop and waste untold amounts of mental and physical energy trying to manipulate our children into developing these “just right” qualities that we can’t even fully  identify.  And the primary way we evaluate our children’s qualities is through what other people think of them – at school; at the doctor’s office; in the checkout line at the supermarket.

Everyone has an opinion on parenting.  It’s impossible to please them all, and we shouldn’t even try.  We  have to find our own North Star so we can set goals that are uniquely right for our family, so that when the little everyday challenges arise, we’re not just reacting to them based on how we feel in that moment.

I know how hard it is to look behind the headlines and figure out what is true, what is important, and what it means to you.

Once you find your parenting North Star, you’ll be able to get to the root of the problems you’re having with your child and have a plan to confidently address these, which means you can stop feeling overwhelmed by the constant barrage of competing opinions from relatives, friends, and the media.

Cause #2 –Isolation

Loneliness is both very widespread and seriously problematic in Western Society. Parents of young children are particularly vulnerable to isolation and loneliness.

According to psychologist Aisling Leonard-Curtin, loneliness and isolation of parents can lead to anxiety, depression, and parental burnout.

Drs. Moïra Mikolajczak, whom I’ve interviewed for the Your Parenting Mojo podcast, and Isabelle Roskam have researched parenting burnout and how to address it. They’ve  noted that burnout is much more common in Westernized cultures than in other places around the world.

If you can believe it, Western parents with 1 or 2 children were more likely to experience burnout than African parents with 8-9 children.

This is at least partly because of the very different beliefs about raising children. The African phrase “it takes a village” to raise a child means that we need social support to raise a child. The task is too enormous for one or two people to do on their own. In the non-Western World, there is much more social support, whereas in the West, parents are largely left on their own. Compounding the problem, parents in Western cultures often feel they are solely responsible for making sure their children develop strong cognitive and social/emotional skills in addition to being healthy and happy.

When we feel that we’re on the hook for all of it, no-one else can help, and we’ll be judged if we get it wrong, it’s not surprising that we feel anxious about our children.

Cause #3 – Media Sensationalism

The media in general grabs onto any parenting issue that can be sensationalized to draw interest. Rather than presenting nuanced findings from research, correlations and anecdotes are presented as scientific fact. Creating controversy is how they expand their audience, but slight correlations or surprising results from small studies have to be discussed in more nuanced ways. Unfortunately, that practice would be bad for the business of generating clicks for advertising views.

The debate about screen time for children is a perfect example of how the media creates anxiety for parents. Headlines, like “Scientists finally know what screen time does to your toddler’s brain,” promise definitive information and try to guilt parents with assertions about screen time slowing brain development. The truth about screen time is far more nuanced, but that’s less likely to inspire heated Twitter debates or 20 million shares on Facebook.

Compounding the problem, scientific research and expert opinions on parenting have changed substantially in the last hundred years. Best practices in psychological research have definitely improved since the days when pregnant mothers were advised to “avoid thinking of ugly people,” to avoid producing unattractive children.

Unfortunately, the combination of poor research and media sensationalism gives some people the impression that all expert advice is worthless as evidenced by the constant, dramatic shifts seen in the media. Parents absolutely need a reliable resource for research-based information regarding child development and parenting.

Cause #4 – You’re not on the same page as your partner

When I interviewed Dr. Laura Froyen, she explained that parenting and discipline is one of the most common areas where couples disagree. Making matters worse, seeing parental conflict about parenting can be very upsetting for children. It can lead to self-blame, guilt, and insecurity.

On the other hand, children learn about conflict resolution and problem solving within their family. If parents can work together as a team, to resolve conflicts and solve problems, children will learn that people who love each other can disagree and work through their problems respectfully.

Many of us grew up in homes with poor examples of conflict and as a result learned that it is uncomfortable and best avoided. Dr. John Gottman, a prolific couple’s researcher identified four conflict starters as the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” These argument inciters are:

1. Criticism
2. Defensiveness
3. Contempt
4. Stonewalling

The presence of these four characteristics of conflict is closely related to marital dissatisfaction and potentially even marital breakdown.

Gottman’s research shows that successful couples don’t avoid conflict; they actually welcome it as an opportunity to connect with their partner, to experience acceptance and understanding within a significant attachment relationship.

Getting on the same page with your partner may seem impossible if you are coming from extremely different backgrounds, and when you and your partner don’t know how to discuss disagreements without the Four Horsemen becoming involved.

It can be very difficult to overcome communication habits that have become ingrained, but with the right information and participation by both parties, it is possible.  While it’s true that the only person you can really change is yourself, it’s much easier to make progress if your partner isn’t knowingly or unknowingly doing things that trigger you and take you back to square one each time.

Cause #5 – Parenting is hard!

If you’ve made it this far into the post, you probably don’t need much elaboration on this.  Children are demanding!

Food, messes, safety, potty training, bedtimes, and sibling rivalry create a never-ending drain on our energy.

Then there are the tantrums!

Somehow toddlers seem to have magical powers that help them discern the moments when you are the most exhausted, anxious, busy, or distraught–that impeccable sense of timing should serve them well someday, but that’s little comfort when you’re just trying to get out of the grocery store without a giant canister of cheese curls.

We know young children are learning and developing at an incredibly fast pace, and it is really hard for parents to keep up!

One path forward here is to understand a little more about your child’s development.  Research has shown that parents who understand more about their child’s development have more positive interactions with their children.  This may well be because parents who understand developmental milestones don’t put unrealistic expectations on their children.

For example, 56% of parents surveyed by the organization Zero to Three thought that children under age 3 should be able to resist the urge to do something that the parent has forbidden, but actually this ability often develops between the ages of 3.5-4 – or even later for some children.

If we are continually expecting our children to comply with our wishes when their brain structures don’t yet allow them to do this, we’re making parenting even more difficult for ourselves.

Cause #6 – Parenting and the pandemic

COVID-19 has amplified almost every anxiety-producing aspect of parenting young children.

How can we make sure our children are ‘doing okay’ or exceling cognitively, socially, and emotionally when socialization is limited and schools are closed?

Where can we turn for support when some relatives are isolating and those willing to take the risk to come to our homes and provide childcare pose a risk that we’re not comfortable taking?

What is the truth about the risks posed for children? Are they immune to the virus? (Of course, they aren’t, but the message is out there nonetheless.) Will it have any impact on them? Can they spread it to adults? Are they less likely to contract the virus? Will the virus cause long-term problems for them even if they don’t get terribly sick? If a vaccine emerges, will it be safe enough to give to them? Will it be worse for them to get the virus, or miss out on school?

How are we supposed to co-parent effectively with our partner when we’re together ALL the time?

And how can we do all this while we’re working remotely as well?

One way is to shift from a mindset of scarcity (“there is never enough of me to go around; I can’t do it all…” to a mindset of abundance (“I am enough.  There is enough of me to go around.”). 

Yes, we need to advocate for better social safety nets.  And while we still don’t have them, we can shift our own mindset, which changes the way we feel about the situation and the way we respond to others.

What is the solution?

Parents need unbiased information and non-judgmental support. Combined, these two components combat the conflicting advice, the isolation, and the media sensationalism. With solid information and strategies, parents can approach the incredibly difficult task of parenting from common ground as a team, using strategies that are grounded in a clear understanding of their children’s brain development.

To help, I’m bringing back my popular Finding Your Parenting Mojo membership. If you love the research-based information you hear on the Your Parenting Mojo podcast and read on the blog but struggle to apply the ideas in your real life with your unique family, then the membership is designed for you.

New this year, I’ve restructured the membership to make it even more immediately useful to you.  When you join, you get immediate access to three or 12 modules of content (depending on which option you select).  You can download a Guide to walk you through a series of activities, or watch a video presentation or listen to an audio read-through.  No matter how you learn, I’ve got you covered.

There are pre-recorded Q&As available to watch immediately – not hours-long calls that you have to wade through to find the nuggets of useful information, but a series of 5-10 minute videos with each one addressing a different challenge – so you can find exactly the support you need for your specific problem, and fast.

You’ll also connect with like-minded parents in a supportive private community, and can opt to join a small group of parents to help you bring your learning to life by taking small but meaningful steps toward your goals.

In the first module of the membership, we’ll create some breathing room by developing tools to dramatically reduce the number of tantrums at your house. We’ll introduce a Problem Solving Conversation Tool to help you find solutions to those problems that seem to recur again and again so you can get out of that negative cycle.

In the second module, you’ll learn to parent as a team with your partner.  You’ll figure out where you need to become more aligned in your approaches, and where it’s OK to disagree.  And you’ll gain some new tools to approach these conversations with your partner in a way that doesn’t get their back up but instead invites them to share how they’re really feeling, so you can do the same.

During the third module, you’ll set a family vision and goals based on your unique family values, and you’ll learn how to align daily interactions with long-term goals.  Because if you’re trying to raise a child who is independent but you step in and take over every time they struggle, there’s a misalignment between your goals and what your child is actually learning about how the world works.

These three modules form the core content, and you can choose to start with just those.  Or you could take your family life  to the next level and use your new tools and skills to address topics like raising healthy eaters, navigating screens, and supporting siblings. In each module, you’ll make a plan with goals that are both based on research-based ideas and aligned with your values.

One parent who is in the membership recently said “I think one thing I love about your work is it just makes it OK to hang out, enjoy and do what you want to with your family. Just be together, talk to each other, share yourselves and do what you need. No need to worry…You’ve cured my anxiety about all things parenting.”

Click here to learn more about the Finding Your Parenting Mojo membership, and to sign up.  Enrollment is now open!

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Remember playing the telephone game at school and summer camp? The leader would give a message like, “There’s supposed to be a storm tonight with thunder and lightning.” Everyone whispered the message to the person next to them and by the time the statement got to the last person in line, it was something like, “The reporter was wearing sneakers with glow-in-the-dark laces.”

It’s a fun game for summer camp, but when it happens in real life, it’s a serious problem.

Contradictory messages about screen time

The telephone game is what I think of when I see all the contradictory messages for parents about screen time. Screen time is an issue many parents struggle with, so sensationalizing it is sure to draw an audience. This is why so many of the headlines are incredibly dramatic. Headlines promise answers to the question that haunts parents — how bad is screen time for my children – especially when they’re getting so much of it while schools are closed?

In reality, dramatic headlines usually lead to stories with inconclusive information, misinterpretation of scientific data, or controversial opinions. The more disconnected an article is from solid research, the more opportunity there is for manipulation and misunderstanding. Writers, especially those who are not experts in the field they are writing about or familiar with best practices in research, depend upon the researchers to present their findings clearly. Unfortunately, all research, and research papers, are not equal.

The authors of one tiny research project which studied only 47 children concluded that “further study” was needed to look at screen time and brain development. Based on this research, we got headlines like, Scientists finally know what screen time does to your toddler’s brain. That article asserts that “more screen time leads to slower brain development.”

But when we actually look at the research behind the article, we can see that children who watch more screen time have some structural differences in the white matter of their brains.  We don’t know how much more screen time needs to be watched for these differences to occur, and the researchers also acknowledge that many of the differences disappear once socioeconomic status was taken into account.  Because the results were correlational, the changes in brain structure could have been caused by something entirely unrelated to screen time, and actually related to socioeconomic status.  It hardly seems like we “finally” know what screen time does to our child’s brain at all.

Screen time is hard to study – like most aspects of early childhood – because there are so many variables at play. Considering the complexity of the issue, it’s irresponsible to present the correlational results from one tiny study as a definitive answer.

What do the experts say about screen time?

One way I combat all the misinformation is to focus on statements made by the experts. When it comes to children, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is one of my most trusted resources. There’s an episode of Your Parenting Mojo called Understanding the AAP’s new screen time guidelines.

In short, there was a change in the AAP’s Policy Statement on Media and Young Minds in 2016. Here are the highlights:

• No screen time other than video chatting for infants under 18 months
• Children ages 2-5 should be limited to high-quality programming and they should be exposed to less than 1 hour a day
• Parents and children should view media together
• Have set times and places that are media-free (like at the dinner table)
• Make sure media time does not reduce time spent sleeping or engaging in physical activity

After looking at the AAP statement and some of the research studies that they based their statement on, I had three major takeaways:

1. Media use should not replace activities that children need for proper development (more about that later.)
2. High-quality, developmentally-appropriate media, is best.
3. Even when studies found a relationship between screen time and behavioral functioning or cognitive development, they were not able to demonstrate that screens caused these differences in cognitive development.

For example, if researchers find children consuming more media have more behavioral problems, is the media causing the behavior, or are parents more inclined to allow more screen time when their children have behavioral problems? Is there some other factor at play? We just don’t know.

And how can we use these guidelines in a time when we may feel reliant on screens to keep our children entertained for at least part of the day while we work?

A developmental perspective

Current research is inconclusive with regards to screens and childhood, so I think the best thing we can do is focus on what we do know and apply it to our child’s life. In my interview with Dr. Kristy Goodwin, one of Australia’s leading digital parenting experts and the author of Raising Your Child in a Digital World, we discussed the 7 basic developmental needs children have: relationships, language exposure, sleep, play, movement, good nutrition, and opportunities to develop executive function skills (skills related to setting goals, planning, and carrying out our plans).

Dr. Goodwin has a helpful exercise to help parents figure out how screens should fit into their child’s life. If we think of our child’s day – a 24 hour period as a jar, the top priority is to ensure we are meeting the 7 basic needs. The amount of sleep will vary, but if we go with an average of 12 hours, which is within the recommended range of time for 3-5 year-olds to sleep, it makes the math easier. Next, consider the amount of time required for eating. Again, this will vary from child-to-child, but if we have 3 meals and 2 snacks each day, that might be 2 hours spent on nutrition. Now we need to determine how much time should the child be spending on the other building blocks. Obviously, there’s some overlap. If you are helping your toddler get dressed, you are working on social, executive function, physical movement, and language.

This is where I believe most articles that advise (or shame) parents about screen time fall short.

It makes sense that a single activity, like getting dressed, touches on multiple needs. I think screen time can also overlap with some of these needs. We need to be mindful about the screen time we allow. Of course, screen time isn’t necessary to develop these skills, but it doesn’t have to take time away from them either.

“How much screen time is ok for my child?” isn’t the right question. I prefer to ask: “What developmental necessity is this particular screen time activity building?”

How screen time contributes to the developmental building blocks

Most of the parents I talk to worry about the amount of screen time their children are getting, especially now it may seem like one of the few options we have to keep our child busy while we work.

Some screen time activities overlap nicely with the developmental needs children have. Lisa Guernsey, director of the teaching, learning and tech program at New America says, “What people are really concerned about is not screen time. It’s mindless time, or it’s sedentary time or it’s being alone,” There are ways to use technology and screens that are not mindless, sedentary, or lonely. If we look for those kinds of activities, the conversation around screen time becomes much more nuanced – and productive.

Video chatting with relatives is a nice way to help children build stronger social connections. Even the AAP separates video chatting from other kinds of undesirable screen time – digital babysitters can be enormously helpful right now.  My five-year-old can easily spend an hour video chatting with her aunt or grandparents, which also frees up time for me.

Benefits of reading with children are widely acknowledged. Digital books, or eBooks can widen your child’s reading options almost infinitely. Most public libraries can provide access to eBooks. I use the Libby app to access audiobooks for myself, but Libby can also provide access to eBooks and audiobooks for children; all I needed to get started was my library card. Some books for children are packed with ‘bells and whistles’ to make them interactive. Although interactivity is usually a good thing in media, the AAP warns that these features can decrease a child’s comprehension. It’s best to use books that are more similar to print.

Isolation is frequently listed as a problem associated with technology, but if children are playing a game with a parent, relative, or friend, they might be discussing strategy, collaborating, and taking turns. By sharing the screen with another person, children are developing relationships and language. They may even be working on executive functioning skills if they are working on a building or strategy-based game. Ideally this sharing a screen would mean two people are in the same location using the same screen, but playing a game or reading a book via an app works, too.

Apps and activities where children have the opportunity to create can develop executive function and language skills. My daughter really enjoys watching videos of herself. Recently I took a video of her “reading” a book. When children see themselves doing things like reading, it helps motivate them to read more. Having a grandparent or other relative record themselves reading a book or two each week can be a lovely way to build family connections but that takes away the pressure that both grandparent and grandchild can feel on a face-to-face video call.

There are also apps available that allow children to create their own animated cartoons, and then record a story to go along with the action.  My daughter needed about five minutes of instruction on the basic features before she was off and running.  As she narrates her videos, she is developing her language and story-telling abilities.

If you have an old digital camera kicking around, children can have great fun with those too – children can make slideshows of things around the house that interest them.  More than a few of ours have featured images of the toilet.  Sometimes with its contents.

The internet can make literacy activities more authentic for children. Adults read and write for a purpose. Educators work hard to give students authentic reading and writing experiences. This means they are reading and writing for a real, not contrived, purpose. A child who is reluctant to read on their own might be interested in reading on video if they can then send the video to a relative (or just watch themselves being awesome later.)

Don’t completely neglect ‘passive’ media like videos, although we have to acknowledge that some videos are better than others. If you can’t be with your child while you’re watching, you’ll want to stick with content that aims a little lower so your child can understand the content even without an explanation from you.  If you and your child can watch a video together and talk about it, then you’re developing language and relationships with the video and you can also aim the content a little higher.  I really like the collection of videos on The Kid Should See This, which are created for adults but are child-friendly with a little explanation.

Other videos encourage kids to exercise. Lots of schools use GoNoodle to give students “brain breaks.” These videos that get kids moving are also available to families. Kids can learn dance moves, yoga, and relaxation techniques. Learning Station is a Youtube Channel that gets kids moving. When playing outside isn’t an option, videos can inspire physical activity that is much safer than jumping on the bed.

Play may be the toughest developmental need to meet with technology. That’s because the play that children need is not the kind where they repeatedly push a button or mindlessly tap on things. The play they need should involve creativity and planning. It should also involve manipulating objects.  I don’t know a whole lot about Minecraft, but my understanding is that it’s all about building, exploring, and crafting. That seems like an activity where children could get some of the required play, but I think it could also be used in a way that isn’t effective (and it’s for older children.) If you engage in techno-play with your child, you’ll be able to tell if what they are doing is helpful or not.

In general, if the activity a child is doing on a screen is interactive in some way, it’s more likely to be beneficial. Instead of focusing on the number of minutes your child is using screens, focus on how they are using the screens and what needs are being met.

Screen time in the “new normal” life

As many of us are spending less time with people outside our families and more time at home, screen time has increased dramatically for both adults and children. The CDC website states that it is very important to stay connected to friends and family we don’t live with, and that the safe way to do this during the pandemic is through technology.

We need to give ourselves some grace right now. Pay attention to how online activities are influencing your child’s mood. Encourage activities that seem to be a positive influence, and try to reduce the time spent doing less helpful activities.

Perhaps in the story of our children’s lives, this pandemic will be remembered as the time in their lives when they had the freedom to go a little wild–they stayed in their pajamas all day, played video games, and sat in their parents’ laps while they had Zoom meetings for work. I think whatever positive memories we can create are essential to getting through this time.

Right now screen time is more likely to have a positive impact on mental health than a negative impact. If allowing screen time right now makes you a calmer happier parent, I hope you’ll give yourself permission to let loose.

Putting it all together

Remember that not all screen time is equal. School work and video chats are completely different from mindless videos – which can also have an occasional role to play (don’t we adults zone out in front of mindless videos sometimes??). I’ve seen lots of local places offering opportunities for kids to take virtual painting classes, dance lessons, and even soccer practice online using social media or video chat. Teachers are sharing videos of themselves reading stories. Rather than counting the Screen Time minutes, a much more nuanced approach will both get us through Shelter in Place restrictions and even contribute to our children’s learning and development.

Nusheen Ameenuddin, a Mayo Clinic doctor and chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics council on communications and media, was recently quoted in the Washington Post saying, “I don’t want parents to beat themselves up about anything. These are really extraordinary, unusual circumstances and we don’t expect anyone — even before covid-19 — to follow rules 100 percent.”

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“I don’t want to.”

“Put your shoes away now.”

“No!”

“If you don’t put them away you can’t watch cartoons tonight, and maybe we won’t have dessert either!”

~sigh~ 

(A conversation like this has never happened in your house, right?  Didn’t think so.  Mine either😉) 

When we ask our child to put their shoes away it might seem to us that we are asking them to do an incredibly simple, easy thing that should take a few seconds at most, but often what we’re actually trying to do is to exert some control.  We parents have a bit of a habit of doing this with our children at the best of times, but when everything else around us seems out of control and also our children just won’t put their shoes away, the sense of a loss of control can feel like it’s taking us over and seem completely overwhelming.

And then our child refuses, and we realize that all the conventional parenting advice in the world is about to get us into a very sticky spot.

Conventional parenting advice tells us not to back down.  Don’t give any impression that you don’t know what you’re doing.  Present a united front (with your partner) toward your child.  

And once we’re committed to that approach, we have no choice but to dig in.  And that gives our child no choice but to dig in the trenches too.

We dig; they dig.

It’s hostile.  The shields are up, the swords are out, and a truce seems unlikely.

The problem only gets ‘resolved’ when one person capitulates.

We might realize – possibly even at the point when we said “Put your shoes away now!” where this is going – but feel powerless to stop it.  Because what’s the alternative?  

Our child will walk all over us and they will NEVER help around the house and our in-laws will think we’re terrible parents and…

Let’s pause for a minute and take a deep breath.

The key idea that I want to convey today is one that I know you’re on board with already: that our relationship with our child is the most important thing in this situation.

And when our relationship with our child is the most important thing – more important than whether they put their shoes away or walk or over us or never help out around the house or what our in-laws think – we can create space to respond differently.

This is called ‘dropping the rope.’

Imagine that conversation again: you ask your child to put their shoes away.  You’re picking up one end of a thick tug-of-war rope.  Your child says ‘no.’ They’re picking up the other end of the rope.  It might seem as though there is now no way out of this situation except to see who can pull hardest.  

But there is.

Drop the rope.

But what do we do instead to prevent our child from walking all over us and never helping out around the house and having our in-laws think we are terrible parents?  

I choose between two potential responses, depending on whether this is a one-off situation (like a spilled drink) or something that happens regularly (like putting shoes away).

How to handle one-off situations

In one-off situations like a spilled drink I use parent educator Robin Einzig’s tool of modeling graciousness.  There’s a long and beautiful post about it here, but the gist of it is that we should “demonstrate and model for them the authentic spirit and intention that we wish for them to possess.”  So if we want them to respond graciously and offer to help clean up when we spill a drink, we should respond graciously and offer to help clean up when they spill a drink.

A slightly less abstract way to think about it is to imagine that instead of being your child, it was your closest friend who spilled the drink.  Would you say “You made the mess; you clean it up!”?  Hand them a rag and stand over them until they did it?  Of course not.  You’d say “oops!” and grab a rag and start cleaning, or if it was a big spill you’d get two and hand one to them.

Another tool to help think about it is to imagine if we were visiting a friend’s house and spilled a drink.  Wouldn’t we already feel mortified without being shamed into cleaning it up?

So in these situations I get two cloths, hand one to my daughter, and start wiping.  She will usually start wiping as well, and before long the mess is gone.  Once the emotional charge of the event has passed, if it seems necessary I might remind her about what can happen when we put cups close to the edge of the table, but not in an “I’ve told you this a million times” kind of tone.

The beauty of this approach is that it results in an “it doesn’t matter who made the mess; we all help to clean it up” attitude.  And don’t we want that in our house?

How to handle regularly occurring situations

In the Modeling Graciousness post Robin also talks about the idea that parents must still “set expectations.”  But how do we do that, exactly?  

I developed a method after interviewing a professor who studies how children in different cultures do chores, and after reflecting that I was starting to feel walked-all-over when my daughter refused to put her shoes away every afternoon.  Modeling graciousness wasn’t helping.

The next time she came home and left her shoes in the hallway, I asked her to put them away.  She said “no.”  

I responded: “Well, in our family we all help each other out.  I’m happy to do it for you this time, and I’ll appreciate your help with it tomorrow.”

[Note the “and” instead of “but,” which would have negated the idea that I’m happy to help.]

It took two days, and then she began putting her shoes away.

Then, after a couple of weeks, we had a few days of backsliding.

I used the same phrase, and waited for her to come and ask for my help with something (which I knew would happen in <5 minutes).

I got down on her level and said, gently and kindly: “Do you remember a few minutes ago I asked for your help putting shoes away?  You didn’t want to help me, and now you’re asking me for my help.  When you help me it makes me WANT to help you.  When you don’t help me, it makes me feel like I don’t want to help you.  I’m going to help you now, and tomorrow I’d really appreciate your help with the shoes.”

She does still occasionally forget, but at that point a quick and kind: “I see shoes in the hallway!” reminder is enough.  

Putting shoes away is now a habit but, more importantly, we have made the habit of helping each other stronger as well.

No rope required.

Want to learn more strategies so you can limits that your child will respect?

• How to define when limits need to be set (using criteria that’s uniquely right for your family!)
• How to use the Three Zones of Behavior to set loving and effective limits that your child will respect
• What to do in difficult situations (when you can’t set a limit, or when the child refuses to comply with a limit you’ve set)

It’s available in two different forms:

• Mid-May to Mid-March each year: Take the course at your own pace
• Mid-March to Mid-May each year: Sign up and take the course with my support in early May!

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Hyenas that save their loudest screams for the most important conference calls.

And these hyenas don’t ever seem to want to play by themselves.

​

Why don’t all those lists of free activities keep my child busy?

I’ve seen so many blog posts online recently containing some variation of “300 Amazing Activities For Your Child!”

Probably some of them were a hit, and some took 10 times as long to set up as they kept your kids busy. Why is this?

It’s because they didn’t engage your child’s current schema.

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​What’s a Schema?

Schemas are patterns of repeated behavior that allow children to explore and develop their play through their thoughts and ideas. It’s sort of like an innate urge to do a certain kind of activity or movement over and over again. These can show up in children’s play just before or around their first birthday.

Some of the most common schemas are: connecting, enclosing, enveloping, orientation, positioning, rotation, trajectory, and transporting.

​Take a look at a list and short description of the schemas here.​

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How schemas are going to help you free up time

The key to using schemas right now is that if we can match the activity we offer our child with the schema they’re currently exploring, they will naturally be drawn to do it. We’re not just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks (doodles with Mo Willems! Cosmic Kids Yoga! Math worksheets!). We’re observing our children and offering activities that they will probably really like.

Which means they’ll play longer.

By themselves.

So review the list of schemas, and ask yourself which you’ve seen in your child’s play. They may have only one, or perhaps several – either is fine!

Once you’ve identified your child’s current schema, choose an activity or two. I put together a set of really small, tightly curated Pinterest boards, organized by schema, so you don’t have to wade through thousands of activities to find one that will work. Just click on your child’s schema below and go right there:

• ​Connecting​
• ​Enclosing​
• ​Enveloping​
• ​Orientation​
• ​Positioning​
• ​Rotation​
• ​Trajectory​
• ​Transporting​

If none of those catch your eye, there’s a longer list of potential activities here. Any activity that seems like it will connect with your child’s schema is worth offering.

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How to present the activity to your child

It’s possible that when you present an activity that matches their current schema exploration, your child will JUMP right on it with no encouragement.

​Here’s my 5.5YO, Carys, reenacting her reaction when I asked if she would like to sort out her crayons and markers. (She’s deep into a positioning schema right now.)

Bingo: I just bought myself an hour of of work time.

You can bet that sorting approximately 5,000 fuse beads is going to be something she returns to over and over again in the coming days; here they are in-progress:

​

​If your child doesn’t immediately latch onto the idea and you’re sure you’ve accurately identified their schema, sit down with them for a few minutes and start the activity. Once your child is engaged, gently withdraw yourself.”I’m just going to check on dinner in the oven,” or “I’m going to be sitting [unstated: working on my laptop] right here next to you.” Gently withdraw yourself, and start on your own tasks.

Whatever you do, do NOT interrupt your child. Don’t ask them how it’s going. Don’t ask them if they need help. Don’t engage them at all until they engage you. If they get stuck, return them gently to the task, offer the smallest amount of help you can, and withdraw again. Rinse and repeat until it’s lunch time or you’ve finished your task or you can see they’re REALLY ready to move on.

Yes, this is supporting their learning (your child’s daycare/preschool teachers are trained in using this methodology).

Yes, it’s going to help you get stuff done.

Win:win.

Learning Membership

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Get tools and strategies to support your child’s love of learning and future-proof their success in navigating whatever comes their way. No special skills needed—just a willingness to explore alongside them.

All the usual stuff applies – sliding scale pricing, money back guarantee.

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I didn’t really even have any words to fully explain it; I had half an idea that something wasn’t fully right but I was too focused on getting over it and moving on to really know that there was anything more that I should understand about this.

During a conversation with my friend, who was not someone I considered to be ‘emotional,’ he told me he felt like he’d been hit by a bus. He described the tightness he felt in his throat all the time, and the constriction in his ribs, and how he felt these were connected to the emotional loss he had just experienced. 

When my friend said he was experiencing physical issues as well (even though his exact experience was different from mine) – as a result of a psychological situation – I found it incredibly validating. 

I wasn’t making it up. 

My body ached, and I was feeling lost and vulnerable and wounded, and it WAS connected to the break-up. The exact same thing was happening to my friend. 

In a way, I hadn’t fully connected how I was feeling physically to the break-up.  And the part of me that was aware of it was embarrassed about letting it ‘get to me.’  After all, I consider myself to be a pretty rational person, and this relationship clearly wasn’t going anywhere so it was for the best that we ended it now.  

And yet…I still had this ever-present aching that I wouldn’t have even thought to try to understand in any greater depth – I didn’t even know I could understand it in any greater depth.  

It was like I didn’t even trust myself to identify my own physical sensations, and that these were trying to tell me something about my experience.

Is it all in your head?

There’s a persistent myth in our society that causes us to disconnect our bodies from our brains; we see them as two separate systems.  When our bodies are sick we go to our general practitioner. When our minds feel unwell we go to a psychiatrist. And since both of these doctors usually avoid discussing each other’s issues, we ourselves don’t see the connection between what’s happening in our bodies and our minds.

This issue is, of course, compounded by the stigma that says when physical ailments are connected to psychological factors, they are less valid than other ‘real’ ailments. We don’t even connect physical problems like heart disease and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease to psychological challenges we might have faced decades before, even though the links between the two are well-understood by scientists and doctors. The implication is that if we are suffering physically because of something psychological, it’s our own fault. We aren’t tough enough.

We are supposed to be in control of our emotions. 

Of course, being ‘in control’ of our emotions looks a lot like pretending they don’t exist.

This belief encourages us to separate our minds from our bodies, and it ignores what centuries of wisdom and modern science prove: the mind and body are inextricably linked.

Yoga has more than 5,000 years of history. To the yogi, the fact that your mind can influence the functioning of your body is obvious. 

Thanks to a growing body of research, the medical profession is gradually realizing that “the causes, development, and outcomes of an illness are determined by the interaction of psychological, social, and cultural factors with biochemistry and physiology.” 

When I think about what science has proven about the long-term effects of childhood trauma on our health, I’m amazed that there was ever a time when the connection between our minds and our bodies was brought into question.  It is even possible to map the places in the body where we feel different emotions. 

Many of us were taught to apply logic to our feelings; to cognitively understand them so we can ‘fix’ them.  This can be helpful, but it ignores an entirely different avenue that’s available to us to process our emotions in a way that is sensational, emotional, and intuitive.

Continuing the body/brain divide: applying logic to emotions

In their book The Whole-Brain Child, Drs. Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson talks about the problem of ‘dis-integration.’ When the different areas of our brain – like the logical reasoning and emotional areas – aren’t integrated, we aren’t able to think rationally about our problems. As parents, he says, we can learn some simple techniques to help our children’s brains integrate. When our children’s brains are integrated, they will be more able to manage their emotions.

Everything that we experience impacts the ‘wiring’ in our brain structure. Children’s brains develop rapidly, but it doesn’t stop when they reach adulthood. Your brain is still developing as well.

According to Siegel and Bryson, well-being is dependent on our ability to stay in a place of balance between chaos and rigidity. When we’re cut off in traffic, or when our child is pushed out of the way on the playground, it feels chaotic. The rules are being broken. Our world isn’t predictable. As a result, we may swing as far away from the chaos as possible and become very rigid. Suddenly we’re angry about people who forget a turn signal or children who are running too fast.

We need to get back to a place of balance, or flow, where we are flexible, adaptive, and stable.

Brain development, of course, is very complex, so Siegel and Bryson simplify it. They tell us that the left side of the brain is focused on logic and order, while the right side is more emotional and whimsical. The left side is verbal, while the right side is non-verbal and experiential. Children develop first on the right side of the brain. Their language isn’t yet developed, so they are more dependent on feelings and images. 

To manage big emotions, we need to help our children integrate the different areas of their brains. We want children to find the balance between emotions and logic; between chaos and rigidity.

One of the main strategies Siegel and Bryson recommend using with young children is called “name it to tame it.” To use this strategy, parents engage their children in telling the story of an event that the child found upsetting. This takes the event from a completely emotional, experience-based memory and applies order to the experience. As the child tells the story, they sort out the order of events and put the experience into words. They draw the experience from being entirely right-brained and chaotic using words and logic. Now they are able to have an integrated perspective and approach the situation more logically.

Telling the story of an event helps us make sense of the world and our place in it.

Should emotions be tamed?

When children are thinking about an event purely in terms of the emotions they experienced, the emotions are overwhelming. When we help them put the event into words, they are able to make sense of the emotions. 

I do think that storytelling is an incredibly valuable tool to use with children, but the way the “name it to tame it” strategy is presented presumes the superiority of reason and logic over being with the physical sensations and emotions. The authors are apparently unknowingly buying into the terms of a patriarchal society, in which emotion is inferior to reason and logic. Emotions need to be ‘named and tamed’ so we can get back to communicating on a ‘rational’ basis again. 

To explain my thinking, I want to put us on the same page with regard to the word ‘patriarchy,’ since this is commonly conflated with the idea of ‘man-hating.’ When I’m speaking of patriarchy, I’m referring to an underlying force in our society. 

This is the force that defines human characteristics as either masculine or feminine, equates male with masculine and female with feminine, and then and prioritizes the masculine over the feminine.

Patriarchy tells us that experiencing emotions is feminine; communicating using logic is masculine. 

Looking inward and understanding intuitively are feminine; looking outward and taking an active stance are masculine.

Tenderness, kindness, and nurturing are feminine; confidence, discipline, and being assertive are masculine.

Both boys and girls experience the force of the patriarchy as they grow up. This isn’t an idea that says all men are bad or pits women against men. It’s the idea that our culture isn’t working for us as humans. Feelings are not feminine. Thoughts are not masculine. Feelings are human. Thoughts are human. And one isn’t superior to the other.

While “name it to tame it” has been shown to help people to regulate their emotions, the assumption that the physical experience of the emotion, as well as the emotion itself, have nothing to tell us, is flawed.  In fact, the dissociation between our brains and our physical sensations and emotions creates enormous problems for us as we age. The longer we ignore the signals our body is trying to tell us, the harder the body tries to work to convey its message.  We feel distressed – and we can’t tell why!

Using mindfulness to understand big feelings

So what can we as parents do to help our children learn to manage their feelings and yet still teach our children that what they feel in their bodies and minds has just as much to tell them about their experience as what they can put into words? 

How can we support our children in understanding the knowledge of their bodies and emotions that they intuitively already possess (remember, these skills develop before the logical/verbal ones!)?

How do we help our children with their big feelings without subtly teaching them that logic is superior to feelings and all the patriarchal baggage that goes with that idea?

Rather than trying to tame emotions, I think we teach our children to notice their emotions. We teach them that experiencing their emotions – even when they feel difficult – is a useful practice.  The book Dancing With Life by Phillip Moffitt provides some guidance that I find helpful with my daughter – as well as for myself.

When something goes wrong for a child, their feelings can spiral out of control. What starts out as, “I don’t want to brush my teeth,” becomes, “it isn’t fair that I have to brush my teeth, and it isn’t fair that I have to share a room! My sister annoys me. No one else has to share a room. I just want to have my own room so my sister can’t break all my stuff the way she broke my necklace. I loved that necklace! I’m never going to get another necklace as beautiful as that one and my sister broke it!”

While we might feel that the child is overblowing their frustration, we need to accept that these kinds of things are a big deal in a child’s life – just like your struggles are a big deal to you. We can express empathy by saying, “It is really frustrating when we have to do something we don’t want to do. I don’t like it either.” 

Then we can use mindfulness-related techniques by asking them where they feel the frustration in their bodies (is it a rock in their stomach?  A tightening in their throat?). We aren’t necessarily trying to stop them from feeling frustrated. We want them to put 5% of their focus on naming the emotion, and the other 95% on just being with the experience of frustration in their body.  

Then as they practice this over time, they will begin to notice the rock in their stomach or the tightening in their throat, they can think “Oh, I know this.  This is frustration. When I’m frustrated I can…[insert tools that we’ve previously discussed with our child, like taking a break, asking an adult for help, or trying a different approach to the issue].”  The felt physical sensation and the emotion become important tools our children can use to better understand themselves, not just things that have to be named and tamed on the way to logically reasoning the problem away.

Introducing emotional and body awareness to children

This technique will take time to practice (perhaps your whole lives!). Don’t be surprised or discouraged if they say – or scream – that they don’t know what they’re feeling; after all, up until now we haven’t been using this language and might not even have known that it was important ourselves.

There are some things parents can do to support this new way of approaching big feelings.

Ask the child where in their body they feel ‘good’ feelings. Ask them where they feel excitement, pride, and surprise. Ask about where they feel embarrassment, nervousness, and jealousy. 

Some children will struggle to find the words they need to answer your questions. You can have them point to places where their body feels different. Another strategy is to ask yes or no questions. Do you feel it in your feet? Do you feel it in your knees? Do you feel it in your stomach? By following the same logical sequence when you ask these questions you’ll be teaching them how to do a body scan, which is a key tool that parents can use too to better understand the body-mind connection.

Talking to your child about feelings when they are calm is also important (and may initially be more effective than trying to do it in the moment).  When your child comes running to you with stiff limbs that are vibrating with anger because another child ripped a page out of their sticker book, you can first empathize and then work to fix the book, and while you’re doing that you can chat about what they experienced when they felt angry and how fast their experience of this emotion shifted.

Books provide a great opportunity for discussing emotions. Not only do they show situations that children can relate to, but in many cases illustrations support the idea that we experience feelings in our bodies. Characters might have red faces or even smoke coming out of their ears when they are angry. They might be slumped over when they are very sad. They stand up straight when they are proud.  You don’t need any special books to work on this but if you’d like one, we found Listening to My Body to be particularly useful.

You can also work with your child to learn to describe different sensations. You can offer choices of ways to describe a sensation. Is the feeling big or small? Is it hot or cold? Is it sharp or dull? You can invite your child to draw a picture of what their body feels like.

By allowing and encouraging your child to acknowledge their emotions and explore them, you’re encouraging them to use their whole self, not just their rational mind, to process their emotions, which takes the ideas presented in The Whole-Brained Child to the next level. Siegel and Bryson encourage teaching children to develop the left – logical – side of their brains so they can tame their emotions. I’m also in favor of using our right-brained tools to help us better understand ourselves.

When we teach our children to sit explore their emotions and understand how their bodies are functioning, we’re developing the right side of the brain. If we’re focused on applying logic and pulling emotions from the ‘messy’ right side of the brain into the ‘orderly’ left side of the brain, we’re implying that one side is better than the other. To truly use a whole-brain approach, we need to develop both sides of the brain equally and see the value and validity of both the rational and the emotional.

Many of us are just learning about patriarchy and the fact that we (women) have likely been ignoring the signals that our bodies have been trying to tell us for years – or even decades – by now.  By uncovering this information now, and by helping our children to understand the connection between their bodies and their emotions, we are equipping them for a lifetime of understanding themselves in a way that was never even an option for us.  Our children won’t have to question their own emotions or wonder why they have these physical sensations that are trying to tell them something but they just don’t know how to figure out what.

In a way I’m almost jealous of my daughter for this – but I’m also incredibly grateful that she will get to live her life more fully than I have been able to do.  My hope is that we will support each other in developing this understanding together.

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For parents of preschoolers, this news may be surprising.  After all, our young children have an incredible thirst for knowledge – so much so that it can drive us nuts:

Mommy, why is your water bottle green?

Because I picked a green one at the store.

Why?

I liked that color better than red, and I needed a new water bottle.

Why?

Because it’s good to have water with you whenever you go somewhere.

Why?

Because water keeps your body healthy.

Why?

Because water helps carry nutrients and oxygen all around your body.

Why?

Because we’re alive, so we need oxygen and nutrients.

Why?

Because all living things need food, air, and water.

Why?

That’s just how living things are.

Why?

[Silent mental parental scream…]

But I often find that when I understand a bit more about why my child is doing something, it doesn’t drive me nuts in quite the same way as it did before.

First, rule out a simple need for your attention and engagement

There are times when a preschooler asks ‘why’ because they want to want to continue to have your attention and converse with you, and aren’t sure how to do it.  If you think this is the case, you can say “It sounds like you really want to keep talking with me about [topic], is that right?”  If they say “yes,” you can then ask them what they want to know, and scaffold their ability to have an actual conversation about it.

Curiosity

But there are other times when the child really does want to know about something and once you get the limit of your ability (or willingness) to answer, you can write the question down and say “Let’s try to figure that out when we have more time!”  This is the spark that leads to learning and if you have a goal of raising an adult who has an intrinsic motivation to learn then these questions are the beginning of that process.

Curiosity is the critical jumping-off point of learning. We retain information better when we are curious – which is why schools try to manufacture curiosity. When we read to try to answer our questions, we comprehend better, so teachers have students brainstorm questions they want to answer before reading a text as a way to try to ‘activate interest’ in a topic that otherwise holds no interest for them (because they didn’t choose it, and who really enjoys learning things that don’t interest them?).

Psychologists also advise that teachers frame tasks in ways that are artificially, not authentically, interesting or ‘flashy.’ For example, they may try to drum-up interest in the Pythagorean Theorem by having students calculate the distance Captain James T. Kirk needs to set on the transponder beam on the Federation Starship Enterprise to pick up dilithium crystals directly below on the planet’s surface, given that Kirk only knows the distances of the ship and the crystals from a third point where his scouting party is stopped.  Unfortunately, manufactured curiosity doesn’t endure the way genuine interest does.  It might get the student to the answer on this particular occasion, but the underlying method is much less likely to be retained.

Interest

Sometimes children just ask ‘why’ out of habit (or because what they actually seek is a connection to you, not the answer to their question), but if you do decide to record their questions to investigate later, you may start to notice some trends – perhaps an interest in in animals, the human body, the way people act, motion, food, or something else.

Many times the ‘why’ questions show what is called situational interest, which is when people display interest in something because of the situation where they happen to be in.  Book authors might use the structure of a mystery to create suspense, and then add details that are engaging to the reader which attract and hold your child’s attention. Teachers often set up artificial mysteries to entice children to learn about a topic they must cover in the curriculum, but children will be most engaged by authentic mysteries – things they really wonder about and want to understand better.

Over time, situational interest may lead to personal interest. These are the interests that endure because the child enjoys learning about them. Researchers don’t yet understand why some situations spark personal interest and others don’t, but tailoring learning to your child’s personality may help.

Learning and basic understanding

When students pursue their interests, learning follows, which leads to a basic understanding. You may have heard the saying, “you don’t know what you don’t know:” without a basic understanding, you don’t even realize how much more there is to understand.

When students lack basic understanding on a topic, their interest doesn’t develop any further and they’re never able to get to a point where they become intrinsically motivated to learn more about it. Researchers found that students who decided not to major in science did not understand basic scientific principles even though they had received several years of instruction in science.

People who lack basic understanding on a topic also can’t ask the kinds of questions that lead to deeper learning. Two major elements of successful learning are expectancy and value. Before learning a new task, children think about how well they expect to do at a task and how much they value the outcome.  One study showed that the hypotheses students form about the level of success they will have predicts their actual level of success even better than their prior grades in that subject!

More learning

In the ‘more learning’ phase of the motivation and learning model, the environment and guidance are important.  Meaningful projects and collaboration help maintain interest. Students in this phase are asking themselves:

“How am I doing?”

“Why do I enjoy this?”

Students determine how much effort they want to put into learning based on their answers to these questions – although they are most likely asking and answering them subconsciously. When students believe they are succeeding because of their own efforts, that they have the ability to continue succeeding, and that they’re enjoying either what they are learning or how they are learning it – or both! –  they are more likely to progress to the next phase of learning and motivation.

To encourage learning and motivation, parents need to know when to intervene and when to let go using a process called scaffolding. If a child is left to struggle too much, they may determine they are not capable of success, but intervening too early may cause children to attribute success to the outside assistance of their parent rather than to their own efforts.  It’s a fine balance, and one that requires the parent to be attuned to their child’s personality and signals.

Your child may choose to revisit specific experiences (books, museum visits, films…); with our grown-up linearly organized brains, this can seem like a waste of time.  But actually this ‘spiral learning’ is an effective way to integrate learning and extend understanding of a topic – at any age.

Competence

Competence – along with autonomy (the child has chosen what they’re learning about) and relatedness (they’re learning along with people with whom they have an emotional connection) – is a key element of something called self-determination theory.  When competence, plus autonomy and relatedness are high, the child becomes intrinsically motivated to learn: they want to learn for learning’s own sake.  They aren’t trying to get good grades or win a competition (although these may end up being handy fringe benefits); they are just really enjoying the process of learning itself.

Of course, our whole lives aren’t – and can’t be – organized around situations that provide competence, autonomy and relatedness.  There are times when we’ve just got to learn something because we have an end goal in mind – which can provide its own source of motivation.  I’m reminded of an anecdote from Ben Hewitt’s fabulous book Home Grown, in which his wife Penny observes their sons Finn and Rye – who have never attended school or taken a test – spending hours studying for their hunting licenses.  Hewitt notes: “Much of the information in the [state-supplied] books was fairly useless, at least for two boys who already knew they should dress in layers and never look down the barrel of a loaded gun.”

Penny whispers “Look at them!  They’re learning how to memorize useless information in order to pass a test, just like in school!”

In this case, the children’s desire to achieve a goal – the hunting license – provided ample motivation to study in a situation where autonomy to choose the material studied was absent.  In this case Finn and Rye had selected a subject where they already possessed competence – but it is also possible that their interests could one day lead them to a topic (canoeing, maybe?  advanced wilderness medicine?) where their existing competence is low but their autonomy (they chose the topic) is high.  It’s really only in school where children regularly encounter situations where competence and autonomy may both be low – and their relatedness will depend on their relationship with their teacher’s skill and personality.

Flow

Flow is when everything seems to come together to “create a special state of absorption and enjoyment in what one is doing.”

In a state of ‘flow’ an individual has a high level of intrinsic motivation and enjoyment.  What does flow look like?  It has several components; the ones most relevant to us are:

• Challenge-Skill Balance: the challenge is appropriate for the individual’s level of skill and their level of confidence;
• Clear Goals: The individual in a flow state knows exactly what they need to do. They set their own goals and act accordingly;
• Unambiguous Feedback: As they work, they get ongoing feedback from the task itself (not the teacher) that gives them clear information they can use to assess their progress and adjust their approach if needed;
• Loss of Self-Consciousness: Individuals in a state of flow aren’t concerned about how they appear to others. They are completely absorbed in the task at hand. They are not concerned with how their performance ranks in relation to other students;
• Time Transformation: Some people experience flow as slowing or stopping time; for others, time seems to pass more quickly.  Flow brings the individual fully into the present.

Flow is considered the optimal state for learning – and the best way to promote it is to maximize competence, autonomy, and relatedness.  So let your child choose what they learn, and support them in developing their own competence rather than trying to teach them what you think is important (the best part about this is that it’s actually really fun!)

Need some help in supporting your child’s intrinsic motivation to learn?

Parents have an important and challenging role in guiding their child’s learning and motivation. We need to introduce them to information and experiences they wouldn’t discover on their own. We need to notice our children’s interests and support their exploration. Simultaneously, we need to allow them to have autonomy in making decisions about their learning.

Once you have some practice it’s not necessarily difficult but it can be a new skill set for parents who may be used to a more instructional teaching method where you already have relevant knowledge – or a sense of being completely lost where you don’t know much about the topic of your child’s latest fascination.  That’s why I’ve created a learning community for parents who are interested in inspiring their children to pursue their passions and become life-long learners.

It turns out that despite our strong desire to encourage our children to learn and be successful, parents may be unintentionally starting the gradual decline of motivation to learn. When our children ask those endless ‘why’ questions that can drive us nuts, many of us find ourselves shutting it down in exasperation. And when we do respond with a “well, photosynthesis works like this…” kind of answer, your child may learn that it’s not worth the hassle of asking in the first place.

This process continues in school, where children quickly learn that it’s the teacher’s job to ask questions, and students are rewarded for supplying the (correct) answer.  Unfortunately, this leads to what researchers Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman have called The Creativity Crisis – while IQ scores are consistently inching up, we are becoming less and less creative.

And what underlies creativity?  The ability to ask questions.

So what can we do?

We need to start early.

We need to listen to our children, and follow their lead.

We need to be the “guide on the side, not the sage on the stage.”

But how do we guide our children to a place where they find the joy and motivation to learn and succeed?

This is what we’ll explore in the Your Child’s Learning Membership.

In the first three months of the membership you’ll learn how to effectively support your child through each stage of the learning process.  You’ll be able to:

• Identify your child’s true interests (harder than it sounds!)
• Help you guide your child as they develop their interests.
• Facilitate your child’s learning by connecting them with resources they need to answer their questions.
• Document your child’s learning.
• Support your child in deepening their understanding.
• Communicate what they have learned to communities who care.
• Support your child in learning to solve real problems that have meaning to real people.

You’ll receive a Guide to read at the beginning of each month, and we’ll have a group call each month where you can ask questions and get live coaching from me.

Throughout the membership you’ll join other parents who are learning these skills alongside you in a private Facebook group, and after the first three months of core content we’ll continue to support each other in the group as you practice your new skills, and ask questions to get you unstuck as you’re working with your child.

The group will reopen to new members 6-12 months after the original members join, and I will rerun the initial intensive study – possibly varying the topics based on group interest, and you’ll be welcome to work through this material again. With every exposure to the ideas, your understanding will deepen – mirroring the process of the learning you’re supporting in your child.

I am really excited to begin this journey with you!

This membership is designed to support all parents of children old enough to ask questions. Whether you are committed to homeschool, public school, private school, or still deciding, this membership will help you to become your child’s ‘guide on the side’ in learning – and in life.

Get tools and strategies to support your child’s love of learning and future-proof their success in navigating whatever comes their way. No special skills needed—just a willingness to explore alongside them.

All the usual stuff applies – sliding scale pricing, money back guarantee.

Click the banner to learn more!

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When we read articles about children who achieve so much so early, it’s tempting to try to figure out what her parents had done to help her rise to success at such a young age. Gitanjali mentions loving science and recalls playing with science kits at age three. At nine she and her parents published a book together. She plays three instruments and three sports. She’s also attending a STEM school.

Is this what I should be doing for my daughter? Should I be buying her science kits? Signing her up for music and sports activities? Should we be writing books together? Even if my child doesn’t achieve this much this young, will what I’m doing prepare her for acceptance into elite universities if she decides she wants to do this?

Dr. Roberta Golinkoff and Dr. Kathy Hirsch-Pasek, co-authors of the widely respected books Becoming Brilliant and Einstein Never Used Flashcards, argues that traditional school curriculum neglects to prepare kids for the future. It doesn’t sound like the learning Gitanjali did was traditional, though. Will it prepare her for the future? Is the path her parents chose one that would work for others? What do children really need to succeed in life – and how should we even define ‘success’?

The Six Skills Children Need (And Four Levels of Mastery)

Golinkoff and her co-author, Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, identified six core skills that kids will need to succeed in the 21st Century. These “6Cs” will help kids become scientists, entrepreneurs, and people who lead change-making organizations. These are the skills they’ll need to thrive in their rapidly changing world. These are the areas where we should focus our energy in supporting our children’s learning.

There are four levels of mastery within each of the six “C” categories pictured in the table below; many (most?) people never make it to the final level of these areas. It’s a bit like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – even though many people never arrive at self-actualization, the top of Maslow’s hierarchy, the model is still useful because the hierarchy is a tool to use to prioritize needs. The 6Cs are a tool to use to help identify strengths and growth areas, so we can see where we’re doing well and where our skills still need development. And I say ‘our’ skills because we may identify some areas that we need to improve on these skills as well.

Learning is a journey! I’m still on my journey. You are still on your learning journey, and so is everyone else. Our job is not to ‘teach’ our children, but to provide guidance – and we don’t need any fancy tools – or even a lot of specialized knowledge to do this.  Let’s look at how you can incorporate every one of the 6Cs into a basic household chore that may currently seem like an activity that should be rushed through so you can get to the real learning activities: and that’s laundry.  (Yes: laundry!)

How to Create Learning Experiences at Home

I’m confident that you have plenty of opportunities to work on laundry-related tasks with your child. Probably far more opportunities than you’d like! Toddlers and preschoolers can do quite a bit when it comes to laundry, and it is a great opportunity to incorporate all of the 6Cs.

1. Collaboration: Showing Children How to Work Together

The first skill area is collaboration. The scale of collaboration goes from working alone to building together. Simply by including your child in this chore, you are teaching collaboration. The two of you are working side-by-side on a task. Your child can help you put clothes into the washing machine, take clothes out of the dryer, give you pieces of laundry to fold, and open drawers for you to put things away.

Self control falls under the umbrella of collaboration. Natural consequences will demonstrate the importance of self-control when working on laundry. For example, if your child is jumping on the bed where you are folding laundry and knocks a pile of folded laundry over, the chore is going to take longer to complete. They need to maintain control over their bodies to get this job done! As they continue to participate in this household chore, they will recognize that this is part of running a household. Everyone has to contribute, and in time you will move beyond a “back and forth” level of collaboration to working alongside each other and building projects together.

2. Communication: Teaching Children to Give, Receive, and Share Information

By the time a child can do anything with laundry, they are probably able to do more than just express “raw emotion,” but the next level, “show and tell” is just getting started. You can model this for them if they are still in the early stages of learning to talk. Children are learning about the give and take of a conversation. If you say, “Look, this is your red shirt,” and they make a noise of some sort, respond to them as though they have made an interesting point. “Yes, you did wear this shirt yesterday in the park. “You’re right, there are some yellow letters on it, too.” When you respond to them, you are demonstrating that their voice matters. You are introducing the basics of a back-and-forth conversation.

To be able to communicate at a more advanced level, they need to have lots of words. Clothing is a nice concrete way to introduce lots of vocabulary. Children are usually fascinated by clothing. Adult clothing is so big! Clothing is so colorful! It’s so warm when it comes out of the dryer! Any kind of back-and-forth conversation you can engage in is moving your child toward the “dialogue” level of communication so you can begin to tell stories where you both fill in relevant details.

3. Content: Giving Children a Strong Knowledge-Base

When I think of teaching content, I think of traditional school skills, facts, and general knowledge. When it comes to laundry, there are lots of opportunities to discuss these in conjunction with the other skills. Content for preschoolers would include labeling objects, colors, directional words, letter identification, and counting. Directional words and phrases come out naturally while working on laundry—at the bottom, on top of, inside, underneath, next to, and the very complicated—inside-out. You can name the articles of clothing, the colors on them, and practice counting as you sort, fold, and distribute laundry.

Pre-reading skills are also part of content. Phonemic awareness is the technical term for wordplay, like rhyming, alliteration, and counting syllables, that will eventually help them read new words. Noticing things like the blue shirt has a picture of a ball will help your child start recognizing beginning sounds. You can also get very silly and makeup rhyming words for different articles of clothing to start working on phonemic awareness.

There is less opportunity to get really deep on content with laundry than there is on other topics where your child has a real interest in diving deeply into their passions, make connections across them, and then demonstrate their expertise to others (often even to adults!).

4. Critical Thinking: Asking and Answering Questions With Your Children

Believe it or not, the laundry provides lots of opportunities for critical thinking! For starters, do you sort your laundry? Deciding whether to put the laundry into piles of light and dark is a great way to start teaching critical thinking. Next, there’s the question: is there too much in the washing machine? By talking through how you make this decision, you are showing your child how you think critically.

If your child is asking “why” questions, working through these with them is a great way to encourage critical thinking. Curiosity is a wonderful trait! You want to nourish their curiosity; that’s what’s going to drive them forward on their learning journey! When they ask why you are putting the clothes into the drawer, you can ask them why they think we do this. The next why-question is where you have to start thinking. Why do we keep the clothes in the drawer? So many parents stop these conversations with their kids, and that’s really tragic. It’s such a wonderful opportunity to engage with kids. Golinkoff says that the continued desire to find out more is more important than what they learn. Try to answer as many why questions as you can if your children are asking and listening – and don’t just answer by providing The Answer, but instead challenge them to share their opinions and ask what evidence they have to support their opinions (“Why do you think that?”). Before you know it, you’re at the highest mastery level for critical thinking.

5. Creativity: Inspiring Children to Problem Solve in New Ways

Speaking of creativity, you can find ways to be creative and innovative about laundry; you probably already do this. For example, if you want to get your favorite shirt into the washing machine, but it’s full, you have a problem to solve. You have options.

By talking through your thinking process, you are modeling the creative problem-solving process. Maybe it would sound something like this, “Drat! The washing machine is full! I really want to wear this shirt tomorrow, but it needs to be washed. I could do another load of laundry after this, but I don’t want to. I guess I could wear a different shirt, but I really want to wear that one because [whatever your reason is]. I wonder if I can make room in the washing machine? Oh look, I won’t need to wear these pants for a long time. I only wear them on special occasions. I’m going to take these pants out. Now there’s room for my shirt!” In that short little monologue, you just modeled identifying the problem, identifying and evaluating multiple solutions, and choosing the one that worked best for you. This is already going on inside your mind, you just have to slow down enough to verbalize your thoughts.

You can also ask what ideas your child has for solving the problem, and if you accept their idea they learn that they have a voice, and that their voice will be respected when they share ideas – a critical step toward developing and sharing visionary ideas with others.

6. Confidence: Building Independence and Bravery in Children

The final C is confidence. Collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, and creativity have all been building up to confidence. By engaging in this very useful task with your child, carrying on conversation, learning colors or counting, asking questions, and demonstrating creative problem-solving in action, they have already learned so much!

Confidence is most easily taught by us stepping back, rather than teaching.  Yes, the first time your child folds a t-shirt it probably won’t be folded the way you like it done.  Early on, simply “barrelling on” and making a contribution that’s seen as valuable is enough.  Over time, your child will see how you fold t-shirts and copy you, or may ask you to teach them how to do it.  They may take a calculated risk that you won’t care much if they mess it up and the payoff for rushing through the job (cartoon time?!) is worth the risk of getting caught.  Or perhaps they might decide it’s not worth the risk…  Either way, they’re on their way toward being willing to try something that might work or might not, and being OK with failure, and using failures as a springboard to success.

As you may have guessed, these same principles can be applied to many household tasks—making beds, organizing toys, cooking, and grocery shopping. You don’t need to buy expensive toys or programs to give your child a great education.

Your Child’s Learning Mojo

The research on the skills children need to be successful is so clear – and is in such direct opposition to conventional wisdom. We are always so worried about our children being ‘behind;’ we think they need workbooks, special toys, and flashcards (even though Einstein didn’t use them!). The skill of content is covered extensively in school even though children can essentially look up any fact that interests them rather than needing to memorize it, but where will they learn the other skills?

I’m creating the Your Child’s Learning Mojo membership and community to help parents support their child’s learning in ways that work and are based on sound research. We’ll begin by identifying your child’s interests (sounds so simple, but if you ask them they’re liable to throw out random topics rather than a topic of true interest) and discussing ways to develop that interest.

We’ll help you to stop being the “sage on the stage” who has to provide all the answers to your child’s questions and become the “guide on the side” who connects them with resources to answer their own questions. We’ll learn ways to document and communicate your child’s learning in authentic ways so they can remember both what they learned and how they learned it. The most effective learning occurs in a spiral rather than a straight line, and revisiting what we’ve learned in the past is foundational to deepening our learning in the future.

We’ll accomplish this by forming a learning community ourselves. Each month for the first three months, I’ll send you a Guide that will provide a deep dive into these topics and more. We’ll have a group call each month, so you can ask me about anything you want to know. You will also have access to a private Facebook group where our community of learners can ask questions, connect to resources, and be inspired by our children’s work.

We know that learning lasts when there is ongoing support. After the group study period of the membership, we’ll continue to support one another in the Facebook Group as we work with our children, and new cohorts of learners will be added to the group. Each time a new cohort joins, I’ll repeat the core content and add new material to it each time, and you’d be welcome to deepen your own learning as often as you like.

Want to learn more about how you can support your child’s intrinsic love of learning?

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