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June 27 - July 19, 2025
It’s that behavior is not the problem—even though it sure feels like it is if you’re trying to get that “impossible child” into the car to go to the supermarket or the preschool. Behavior is just a message.
Reacting to the behavior rather than meeting the need (hidden in plain sight), all three of us have learned, may result in short-term compliance but misses an opportunity for long-term change.
In parenting, it’s not your actions but the lens through which you see your actions that we’re finding to be of most importance. If you were expected to be “perfect” growing up, for example, you take this expectation into your parenting. If you want to make sure your children never feel the pain you once felt, this may also place an unhealthy burden on you. Parenting is of course to some extent about what you do. But even more, it’s who you are as you do it.
The debate rages on about what should be the emphasis of early education: social development, emotional intelligence, imagination and creativity, or intellectual prowess? In the United States we still focus mainly on the last, and yet the countries we view as our biggest competitors in the adult marketplace tend to stress play and socializing for the first couple of years of school—and produce higher cognitive and achievement scores in secondary grades.
The more children feel safe and secure within their primary relationships early in their lives, the more relaxed and resilient they will be when facing the challenges and opportunities that will emerge as they get older.
The question this book will help you get in the habit of asking is the question your child will be asking unconsciously: “Is this about your need to be a good parent or about your child’s actual need in this particular moment?”
The antidote to focusing primarily on the future (“What will he need to succeed?”) is what we call Being-With (“What does he need right now?”). This is a state of sensitive attunement where we share in (without fully adopting) our child’s emotional experience, helping the child understand and regulate difficult feelings and staying with him while he gets through it. Being-With means sitting still—not trying to change your child’s experience but accepting it and showing that you’re here with him in it as another human being who struggles with similar feelings.
If your child seems to be playing contentedly by himself, try holding back on joining in, waiting for some sign from him—a prolonged gaze at you, reaching out a hand, or explicitly asking for your participation—before assuming he wants you to do any more than watch.
Knowing the difference between delighting in who your child is and delighting in what she does. Both are important, but it’s essential that a child not grow up believing she’s only as good as her last gold star, home run, or A+. Sometimes “delight in me” needs are best met nonverbally, to avoid the temptation to say “Good girl!” or “Great job!” or “Nice block building!”
Knowing how to share and enjoy your child’s activity without taking over. We’ve seen toddlers deflate in the midst of play they were enjoying when an adult not only plays along but starts to direct the activity or quiz the child without paying any attention to the child’s state of mind or desires.
Saying “Do you want to put the next block on?” or “I think you want me to watch you for a while” sends an important message that you’re available but not intrusive.
Being responsive to overstimulation. For babies, there is a risk that “enjoy with me” moments will become overstimulating.
It’s important to help our children when fear overtakes them even if we know they have nothing to fear.
understand that our feelings are our own but we can get help with them from someone else who cares, it’s important to display what Daniel Stern called a “feeling-shape” similar to your child’s, by matching the child’s feeling with your facial expression, voice, body language, and touch, and avoid imposing any distress of your own evoked by the child’s feelings.
If you say, “I know you’re angry at me” (instead of saying, “I’m wondering if you’re angry or upset with me”) to your toddler, your child doesn’t learn how important it is to try to organize his own feelings by also wondering and then discussing what he feels rather than agreeing to your interpretation of what he’s feeling. It’s the combination of having his own experience while you scaffold his understanding that develops a child’s ability to put himself in someone else’s shoes.
For now, let’s just say it goes without saying that none of us can meet all of our children’s needs all the time.
Recognizing a child’s needs can also acquaint you with your child’s unique temperament and help you anticipate certain needs. For example, the slow-to-warm-up child needs a different kind of caregiving than the resilient, go-for-it child.
When you model rupture and repair, you’re promoting your child’s development of a reflective self and paving her way for good relationships throughout life.
Sometimes parents fear that focusing too much on their child’s emotions will make the child weak or demanding or self-centered. It is possible to spoil a child, by teaching him that the whole world stops whenever he has a feeling. But infants need precisely this message.
It is, however, instructive and helpful to know where we feel uncomfortable, because (1) our children are (surprisingly) so attuned to us that they notice even our mild anxiety about certain needs on the Circle, and (2) our awareness of where we are somewhat anxious will diminish their anxiety about ours while giving us new choices about how to respond that will in turn promote our child’s healthy development.
The trouble with focusing on what it means to be “good enough” as a parent is that it removes the focus from the intention to be bigger, stronger, wiser, and kind and transfers it to some achievement of our own.
Being able to say you’re sorry and mean it is a big issue in rupture and repair. If you yield to a desire to be right all the time, your child won’t build trust in his own perspective. Nor will he learn to trust his own perspective if you leap to conclusions (such as that your child is feeling the way you might feel in a given situation) and misinterpret your child’s feelings over and over.
Here’s what earned security can look like for each of the three core sensitivities: • Esteem sensitive. Trusting relationship without conditions: “I can be average, make mistakes, not share your mind and still feel welcomed, cared for, and connected. When ruptures inevitably happen, I can express my vulnerability (sadness, anger, and fear) and request comfort, trusting you care. Imperfection is acceptable after all.”
Self-esteem is the result of a relationship that says in countless (often nonverbal) ways: “I like being with you because you’re you, no matter what you do.” Self-esteem is more a by-product of Being-With than the result of constant praise.
Esteem-sensitive parents will tend to idealize their child, claiming that he is “wise beyond his years” in ways that are framed as being unique and special. Unfortunately, praise in this form can feel somewhat good (a “positive” within a context of obvious confusion), and the child will then actively seek out ways to be of further support for his troubled parent, garnering more praise.
Secure responses begin with accepting the child’s experience as real and worthy of shared focus. Only then does a shift to solving the problem offer new options for change.
For esteem-sensitive parents, what appears to be commonsense and practical thinking is often a form of shame. Shame has been known to inspire a change in behavior, but it doesn’t bring a change in attitude. In this case it just pushes feelings of anger and sadness further down, away from the very relationship that can help this child resolve her pain.
