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

by Daniel J. Siegel

In fact, to help our kids feel okay about exploring and interacting with their world, we have to let them struggle sometimes and, yes, even fail. When they’re little this might mean holding ourselves back while we watch them grapple with putting a shoe on a foot or opening a yogurt container.

You’re going to show up for your kids emotionally, to be sure, and you may even support them by helping them problem-solve. That’s an important step in creating security because they know you are there for them. But that doesn’t mean that you prevent or fix all of their problems. Instead, you walk beside them through their pain, helping them see that they are strong enough to handle a difficult situation and come out okay. That’s how they’ll learn to feel safe taking chances.

Apologize if necessary. Laugh together. The sooner she knows that everything’s back to normal between you two, the quicker the relationship can begin to grow and deepen again.

Take time to reflect not only on your experiences with and desires for your own kids, and on the science and philosophy behind the work described here, but also on your early experiences with your own caregivers. Then you can get clearer on where you are now, and thus be a better parent for your kids—one who provides them with the safety and security that prepares them to go out in the world.

“Seeing” children in this way means focusing less on a child’s specific behavior or the external observable events of a situation, and more on the mind beneath the behavior, or what’s happening inside.

Science suggests—and experience supports—that when we show up for our kids and give them the experience of being seen, they can learn how to see themselves with clarity and honesty. When we know our kids in a direct and truthful way, they learn to know themselves that way, too. Seeing our kids means we ourselves need to learn how to perceive, make sense, and respond from a place of presence, to be open to who they actually are and who they are becoming.

That triad of perceiving, making sense, and responding can form a three-link bridge connecting parents and children so that kids feel seen,

Life is hard and complex, and having the intention to create clear and consistent connection is the best we can offer—repairing when it doesn’t go well, and maintaining the mindset to show up as best we can as life unfolds.

Perceiving, making sense, and responding are a fundamental way we establish caring connections in life.

Show up with presence, and with the intention to let your kids feel that you get them and that you’ll be there for them, no matter what. That’s what it means to see—really see—your child.

If you can pay attention to what’s happening in your own mind, and with your own emotions, you’ll have a much better chance of handling yourself in a way that feels good to both you and your kids.

What’s more, when you respond with mindsight, you’ll be teaching your kids how loving relationships work. Attuning, helping a person feel felt, is the basis of a healthy relationship.

When we define our kids like this, using labels or comparisons—or sometimes even diagnoses—to capture and categorize them, we prevent ourselves from really seeing them in the totality of who they are. Yes, we are human and our brains organize the incoming streams of energy flow as concepts and categories. It’s just what our brains do. But part of our challenge is to identify such categories and liberate our own minds from their often constraining impact on how we see our child.

Remember, they will internalize the messages you send, so if you tell them or give them the feeling that you “don’t want to hear it,” that will become part of what they know about their relationship with you.

Shame can be direct and involve statements that are dismissive and, if coupled with anger, even humiliating for a child. Shame can also be indirect. This can happen when a child is in an emotionally intense state and we do not attune in that emotional moment even though he or she is making an effort to connect.

We can learn a great deal about our kids simply by slowing down and observing them.

But again, really seeing our children often requires more than just paying attention to what’s readily visible on the surface. Sometimes we have to take a deeper dive to see what’s taking place beneath the external world of their actions and behavior. We want to observe their activities and listen to what they tell us, for sure. But just as with adults, it’s often the case with children that there’s more going on beneath the surface than they let on. As parents, then, part of our responsibility is to dive deeper, below what seems obvious.

Diving deeper means being willing to look beyond your initial assumptions and interpretations about what’s going on with your kids. It means taking an attitude of curiosity rather than immediate judgment.

Nighttime can be a gold mine when it comes to going deeper with your kids. There’s something about the end of the day, when the home gets quiet and the body feels tired, when distractions drop away and defenses are down, that makes us more apt to share our thoughts and memories, our fears and desires. The same goes for kids. When they get still and settled, their questions, reflections, wonderings, and ideas can emerge, especially if you’re snuggled in close and not rushing them.

If you have an emotion or need, and your caregiver ignores it or dismisses it as unimportant, turning their attention away from your need, then it makes perfect sense that you would begin to live more from a left-hemisphere-dominant approach to the world, dismissing your own emotions (and everyone else’s) as less than important. When you haven’t been seen, the circuitry that allows you to tune into other minds and acquire that type of insight doesn’t appear to develop as fully, and you can eventually stop seeing yourself.

Ask yourself these questions, paying attention to any thoughts and emotions that arise. See yourself and your own responses, taking each question one by one, slowing down to give extra thought to any that spark a stronger reaction within you. To what degree did you feel truly seen by your parents, as we define it here (i.e., they perceived your internal landscape deeply, then offered a response that matched)? Do you currently have relationships in which you have more meaningful conversations, where you discuss matters having to do with your memories, fears, desires, and other facets of your inner life? What about with your kids? Do you interact with them in ways that introduce them to and honor their inner worlds? Do you model what it means to pay attention to your own mind and emotions? How often do they feel truly seen by you? Do they feel like you embrace them for who they truly are, even if it’s different from you or your desires for them? Do your kids ever feel shamed for having and expressing their emotions? Do they believe that you’ll show up and be there for them, even when they’re feeling distressed or behaving at their worst? What’s one step you could take right now, today, to do a better job of truly seeing your children and responding to what they need? It might have to do with chasing the “why” when something happens you don’t like, or creating space to go deeper. Or maybe you want to do a better job of taking an interest in something they care about.

When I get overwhelmed with big feelings, no one is going to help me. In fact, I’m going to get in trouble. These repeated interactions actually often increase the frequency and intensity of the dysregulation and anxiety.

Soothing comes from joining. And joining comes from our being present. That’s how we show up to soothe.

In other words, when we use connection and relationship to soothe our kids, and they thereby learn to inwardly soothe themselves, we’re not only giving them a tool that will help them remain calm in high-stress situations. We’re doing that, for sure. But we’re also, through the power of neuroplasticity, promoting change within the hardware of their brains that will allow them to develop significantly greater resilience,

When children leave the green zone, losing control and entering either the chaotic red or the shut-down blue, then they are dysregulated. We can call this state “flipping your lid” because the prefrontal cortex, the upstairs brain, becomes disconnected from the reactive lower parts of the brain that hijack our thoughtful, regulated self. This disconnection is the basis of how the brain in that moment is no longer integrated—the linkage of differentiated parts is temporarily suspended. In that disintegrated state kids need someone, namely you, to step in and co-regulate so they can move back into the harmony of integration and regain control of their emotions, bodies, and decisions.

Validating, assuring, identifying, and expressing empathy are all powerful ways to use words to help soothe a child (or an adolescent or even an adult for that matter). But the vast majority of the soothing process takes place nonverbally.

Pay attention to how you might be coming across to your kids, even when you say nothing at all.

From the moment they’re born, holding small children can do wonders, especially when they’re experiencing distress. A recent study found that the amount of comfort and physical contact infants receive affects not only their current emotional state, but their actual molecular profile. Researchers looked at four-year-olds who had experienced a higher-than-typical amount of distress as infants and received less soothing physical touch in response. Results showed that these children, four years later, were behind their peers in terms of biological development. Not only that, the researchers found that these negative effects could actually alter the children’s biochemistry and affect genetic expression—the

repeated experiences shape the brain’s creation of a mental model as it constructs a generalized schema of all the experiences the child has had with that particular individual. Mental models are a part of our state dependent memory system. This attachment mental model is activated with the present moment experience, and in this way might be of security with one parent or insecurity with another.

A world without rules and boundaries is a world of chaos, which is frightening. Children need to know what’s expected of them. They need to know what’s okay, and what’s not. It helps them feel that the world is predictable and safe. Plus, kids need to internalize and get used to hearing the word “no.” That gives them practice at putting on the brakes and stopping themselves. The world, after all, is certainly not going to tell them yes all the time. And they certainly can’t just do whatever they want, whenever they want, without some pretty serious natural consequences.

Of course set limits; saying yes to who your child is doesn’t mean you should let her throw her fries at the restaurant. It doesn’t mean you have to let it slide when she hits her baby brother, or speaks disrespectfully to you. It means you’re prizing the relationship, even when you’re addressing misbehavior. Setting boundaries is part of loving our children.

Bodily movement has a direct effect on brain activity. In fact, the body is sending the brain information all the time, including regarding emotions. You know this from times your stomach hurt when you felt anxious, or your teeth clenched when you were angry, or your shoulders tensed when you were on high alert. That’s the body sending messages, whether we’re consciously aware of those emotions or not.

A person’s emotional state can completely change when the body moves vigorously. Anger, frustration, tension, and other negative emotions are released so that emotional balance can return. To put it differently, movement soothes the body and the emotions it experiences.

You can offer your kids your P-E-A-C-E: your presence, engagement, affection, calm, and empathy.

Presence means an open state of awareness, a receptive way of being that invites connection.

Keep in mind, presence is also about being attuned enough to your child, and to the situation, that you can recognize moments when he doesn’t want you to be with him, physically.

But the more you can model for your child how to say what you feel without going on the attack or losing control, the more she will learn about both emotional management and relational respect.

In a caring, securely attached parent-child relationship, empathy springs from parental attunement and allows the child to feel felt.

Life is beautiful, full of wonder and meaning. And it’s also painful and extremely difficult at times.

When you experienced distress as a child, who was there for you? What specific memories do you have of a parent or caregiver showing up and providing you with their P-E-A-C-E? If you did receive this type of attunement when you were upset, what aspects of it would you want to give to your own kids? If this kind of nurturing was missing from your childhood experience, how did you learn to cope with that absence? Did you most often simply remain upset until you just cried it out? Did you learn to deny your feelings and ignore their importance? How do you handle your own difficult moments now, as an adult? Do you have someone who supports you as you deal with challenging experiences? Do you have a difficult time returning to the green zone once you’ve left it? When you’re angry, upset, or disappointed, are you more likely to experience a red-zone emotional flood (where your emotions take over) or a blue-zone emotional desert (where you shut down and ignore what’s going on inside you)? How present are you for your kids when they’re hurting? Do you provide them with your P-E-A-C-E? Can they count on your being there with your presence, your engagement, your affection, your calm, your empathy? Or are they sometimes left to deal with their difficulties alone? Are there times you get so caught up in your kids’ emotions that you amplify their distress? In other words, are you co-escalating, instead of co-regulating? Take a moment and think specifically about each of your kids, indi...

And kids with a disorganized attachment pattern will likely have the most difficulty of all when it comes to enjoying the benefits of secure attachment. If they are led to believe, based on their interactions with a caregiver, that people are dangerous and unreliable, then that perspective may ruthlessly impose itself on their lives, preventing them from experiencing many of the advantages that children with secure attachment get to enjoy.

Children without caregivers who show up to provide the Four S’s often demonstrate challenges with close relationships, difficulty reasoning under stressful conditions, or anxiety about trying new things or leaving their comfort zone. That’s why it’s so important that we help kids develop a secure attachment.

As explained in the COS book The Circle of Security Intervention, a child’s circle widens when her parent offers two foundational “spaces”: a launching pad and a safe harbor. The circle of security involves supporting a child’s exploration by offering her a launching pad from which she can take off, while also remaining a haven of safety, a place she can return to in a storm.

Kids whose emotional needs are quickly, sensitively, and consistently met will not fall apart if someone isn’t there for them all the time. If you let your frightened five-year-old sleep in your bed sometimes, that doesn’t mean he’ll need to be there for the rest of his life. In fact, the research shows just the opposite. Kids who believe that their caregivers will show up for them over and over again develop the independence and resilience that give them the self-confidence to step beyond their comfort zones. They will explore more courageously, and venture farther out, than children who haven’t received that kind of attention and care.

The research shows that when a child feels safe enough, she will venture to independence as she is developmentally ready, and that pushing her to that stage when she’s not ready—where she experiences the opposite of safety—can backfire, actually causing greater dependence.

It is indeed important that parents remain the authorities in the relationship—you’ve heard us say so throughout the book. But our position, based on science and experience, is that parents can maintain authority while prioritizing the relationship and maintaining self-control.

Our point is simply that authority is not inherently linked to force or severity. You can maintain your kids’ respect and remain the authority in the house even when you never raise your voice.

Did you know that not all stress is bad for you? In fact, researchers talk about a phenomenon called positive stress, which occurs when we feel pressure to perform in a way that motivates us without overwhelming or engulfing us. It might make us study hard for a test, or be more productive, or perform well under pressure. Positive stress can mobilize and even invigorate us, nudging us to accomplish tasks we might not otherwise be able to.

In fact, that’s an essential part of tolerable stress: Whether it has a beneficial or adverse effect depends largely on whether the person receives the support to handle it, and on how long the individual must tolerate the pressure.

Yes, children have to learn at some point that the world can be a painful place. But they just learned that from the experience itself, and as the regulatory circuits of the brain are developing in the first three years, parental attunement to the internal experience is important to help them build the ability to regulate their own internal states.