Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive

by Daniel J. Siegel

This doesn’t mean you have to live with bugs in the house, it just means that it is important to attune to, or resonate with the emotional experience inside the child before changing the external behavior. Attuning to your child’s emotions can mean getting down on his level, having an open and receptive demeanor, looking at what he has brought to show you, and expressing curiosity and enthusiasm in your tone of voice. “Let me see, wow! They’re colorful little beetles, aren’t they? Thank you for showing them to me. Where did you find them? I think they’ll be happiest living outside.” Not only would this have supported the parent’s relationship to the child but also, because the child would have experienced that his ideas and emotions were of value to his parent, he would have felt a stronger sense of himself. When a parent resonates with the child’s emotions, the child’s experience of himself is that he is “good.” Emotional connections create meaning for the child and affect his understanding of both his parent and himself.