The Power of Showing Up: How Parental Presence Shapes Who Our Kids Become and How Their Brains Get Wired

by Daniel J. Siegel

Showing up means what it sounds like. It means being there for your kids. It means being physically present, as well as providing a quality of presence.

Showing up means bringing your whole being—your attention and awareness—when you’re with your child. When we show up, we are mentally and emotionally present for our child in that moment. In many ways, there is no other time but now—this present moment of time—and you are in charge of learning how to show up in ways that will both greatly empower you as a parent and promote resilience and strength in your child. It’s this power of presence that enables us to create an empowered mind for our children—even if we mess up on a regular basis.

As we’ll soon explain, the longitudinal research on child development clearly demonstrates that one of the very best predictors for how any child turns out—in terms of happiness, social and emotional development, leadership skills, meaningful relationships, and even academic and career success—is whether they developed security from having at least one person who showed up for them.

Predictable care that supports a healthy and empowering relationship embodies what we call the “Four S’s”—helping kids feel (1) safe—they feel protected and sheltered from harm; (2) seen—they know you care about them and pay attention to them; (3) soothed—they know you’ll be there for them when they’re hurting; and (4) secure—based on the other S’s, they trust you to predictably help them feel “at home” in the world, then learn to help themselves feel safe, seen, and soothed.

Neuroplasticity explains how the actual physical architecture of the brain adapts to new experiences and information, reorganizing itself and creating new neural pathways based on what a person sees, hears, touches, thinks about, practices, and so on. Anything we give attention to, anything we emphasize in our experiences and interactions, creates new links in the brain. Where attention goes, neurons fire. And where neurons fire, they wire, or join together.

the experiences you provide in terms of your relationship with your child will literally mold the physical structure of her brain. Those connections in the brain in turn influence how her mind will work. In other words, when parents consistently show up, their children’s minds come to expect that the world is a place that can be understood and meaningfully interacted with—even in times of trouble and pain—because the experiences you provide shape the ways the brain processes information.

Showing up thus creates in our kids neural pathways that lead to selfhood, grit, strength, and resilience.

This is how they learn that even when mistakes are made and harsh words spoken, we still love each other and want to make things right again. That message, when consistently delivered, leads to a feeling of safety. Remember, the key is repair, repair, repair. There’s no such thing as perfect parenting.

They should know, at their core, that when they are hurting, and even when they’re at their worst, we will be there. We have to let them learn that with life comes pain, but that lesson should be accompanied by the deep awareness that they’ll never have to suffer alone.

Your job as a parent is not to prevent them from experiencing setbacks and failures, but to give them the tools and emotional resilience they need to weather life’s storms, and then to walk beside them through those storms.