Elizabeth is a single mom by choice. She had yearned for a child for a very long time and had to go through many procedures to have Mireille (5), the HSCs featured in the introduction to this chapter. Elizabeth had spent a lot of time fantasizing about the close bond they would have—being on their own, together—and how happy she would make her child. But now Elizabeth finds herself totally exhausted. She feels suffocated by Mireille whose needs seem to be endless. “If I try to gather a moment of space to regulate myself, which sometimes I need to do to avoid becoming punitive or yelling, it intensifies her distress. She will follow me and come into my physical space. I can feel how desperate she is for my comfort, which I’m absolutely willing to give her, just once I’ve calmed myself down.” Mireille also ruminates. When Elizabeth says they can’t go to the playground because it’s raining, Mireille will whine and mope, talk incessantly about how much she’s missing the swings…for hours. She will get a tiny scratch and nurse and complain about it for the entire day.

Mireille protests every limit Elizabeth tries to set, such as no screens during mealtimes and not snacking all day. Elizabeth finds herself often caving on these limits even though she knows this isn’t good for Mireille. They’re late to school every day which is becoming a problem. The teacher reports that Mireille is calmer and more engaged when she arrives on time. Joining the class late is dysregulating. She’s out-of-sorts on those days.

Mireille’s meltdowns are so epic that Elizabeth worries she’s too fragile to tolerate not getting what she wants. She’s afraid that Mireille’s anger in these moments will taint the strong, connected relationship she’s trying to build with Mireille—her number one priority. Further, Elizabeth can’t tolerate seeing Mireille in distress as she (mistakenly) equates it with being unhappy. She focuses all her energy on rescuing Mireille from any discomfort. She hopes that constantly filling Mireille’s cup will make her feel safe, secure and loved, and make her a happy and content child.

By the time Elizabeth comes to see me, she’s beginning to see that this approach isn’t making Mireille more content. In fact, she’s becoming more demanding and the stress in their relationship is growing—the exact opposite of the connection she’s trying to forge with Mireille. That’s how she knew it was time to seek help. Through our work, Elizabeth gained the following insights:

• Mireille is actually a very competent child who is quite resilient. At school and with other adults, she is able to manage disappointment and frustration and regulate her big emotions.

• This demand for constant connection may be what Mireille wants, but this kind of unhealthy attachment is not what she needs. ⁠It’s also not healthy for Elizabeth to feel suffocated by Mireille—to have no personal space, to feel like Mireille is trying to control her, and that she’s feeling AT Elizabeth. This is not enabling her to be the mom she wants to be for Mireille.

• Mireille may want to be in charge, but that’s also something that’s not good for her or what she needs. This dynamic has resulted in unhealthy outcomes for Mireille, like getting to school late, too much screen time and too many sweets. She and Mireille are also locked in protracted power struggles which is causing Elizabeth great despair and worry.

• The lack of limits is what is causing so much stress in the family and is the biggest obstacle to solidifying the close, trusting relationship Elizabeth so badly wants with Mireille.

With this change in mindset, Elizabeth makes the following changes:

This is Part 2 of my blog on being your child’s emotional support parent (ESP), not a “helicopter parent.” In that piece, I describe the complex dynamic that often evolves when you have a very committed, loving, sensitive parent with a child who is not wired to be as adaptable as other kids; who gets triggered easily by the unexpected, and by sensations that are registered at a higher decibel and cause discomfort; and, whose big feelings are hard to manage, especially at such an early age. These parents are acting out of necessity, really survival. They are doing their best and working to the point of physical and emotional exhaustion to provide comfort to their children who are hard to comfort, and to preserve some semblance of family peace and harmony—no small feat—when you’ve got a big reactor in your home. 

Part 2 provides guidance, based on my own parenting journey and my collaboration with hundreds of parents of highly sensitive children, on how to support versus enable your HSC; in other words, how to nurture that special closeness you have with your child while also setting the important limits that are essential for children’s individuation, growing sense of competence, and healthy, independent functioning.

This blog may be the nearest and dearest to me. It speaks to a parenting phenomenon that I have personally struggled with, and continue to work on 30+ years into my parenting journey.

It all crystallized for me when, a few months ago, a mom of a very sensitive, reactive child who gets triggered into discomfort easily, and is thus prone to frequent and intense meltdowns, described herself as her child’s “emotional support animal” and it took my breath away. This so perfectly captured my experience and that of so many of the parents (most often a mom) I work with who have an HSC (highly sensitive child).

This mom is her child’s primary and most desired (demanded) source of comfort. She is the person who is highly tuned in to her child, keenly focused on anticipating anything that might cause him stress, and tirelessly working to head it off. 

We are often called “Helicopter Parents” which has become the catch-all nomer (slur) for any parent who is perceived to be overprotecting their child. It is shaming and judgmental. It is damaging, and not helpful. And it does not capture or take into consideration the more complex and nuanced dynamic that evolves when you have a very committed, loving, sensitive parent with a child who is not wired to be as adaptable as other kids; who gets triggered easily by the unexpected, and by sensations that are registered at a higher decibel and cause discomfort; and, whose big feelings are hard to manage, especially at such an early age. These parents are acting out of necessity, really survival. They are doing their best and working to the point of physical and emotional exhaustion to provide comfort to their children who are hard to comfort, and to preserve some semblance of family peace and harmony—no small feat—when you’ve got a big reactor in your home. 

Just telling parents to stop hovering, to stop “overprotecting” and rescuing, to set limits and not give in to tantrums, is too simplistic and doesn’t acknowledge the very complex systems that evolve in families with big reactors just to cope day to day. 

This blog offers insights from my own parenting experience and my work with hundreds of kindred ESPs (“emotional support parents”) that I hope will be validating, and will also help you find that important, but often hard-to-find, sweet spot of supporting versus enabling your child. In other words, how to nurture that special closeness you have with your child while also setting the important limits that are essential for children’s individuation and healthy, independent functioning far into the future. 

Apologizing to your child when you have reacted harshly to them is very important, for your child, and for you. You are providing a powerful model for taking responsibility for one's actions. It also means that you are willing to step back, reflect and work on your own self-regulation--one of the most necessary and greatest assets that will strengthen your loving and secure attachment to your child. 

But, in my practice, I often see parents apologizing to their children when they have done nothing wrong. A child accuses his mom of playing the game "wrong", meaning he did not like the outcome and lost. Or, dad wasn't first in line at carpool pickup. Or, mom made the pancake the "wrong" way; the shape isn't right. It's not a perfect circle.

In these moments, children are distressed because something doesn't happen the way they expect or want. They have very fixed ideas about the way things should be, and when their expectations are not met, they fall apart. One two-year-old flipped out when her mother wore her hair up. She would insist her mom take it down, which her mom acquiesced to, to relieve the stress.

"You can do hard things.” This motivational mantra (with props, I believe, to Glennon Doyle?) is one I hear invoked often when trying to get kids to muscle through challenges. But it is just as important for parents. Because, it turns out that to help our kids persist at something hard or uncomfortable, we also need to build some muscle, ourselves, as the stories below show.

These not-so-tiny victories are the result of a heavy dose of emotional regulation on the part of these moms and dads. You will see how they were able to thread that seemingly elusive needle of supporting versus enabling their children; how they found a way to be empathetic in difficult moments while not "rescuing" their children, and in so doing created powerful opportunities for them to develop greater resilience and a stronger sense of their own competence—a gift that will keep on giving.

I hope these stories will be an inspiration and will help you find your own way to support your child's healthiest functioning.

Dev is trying to read books to his three-year-old, Zoara. Zoara is running around the room and not settling down to participate. She keeps demanding that mommy (Nurit) come back to read to her. Dev spends 20 minutes trying to get Zoara to change her behavior, then reaches his threshold and storms out of the room in frustration. Zoara starts to scream that she didn't get her books and begs for Nurit who goes to Zoara, settles her down, reads to her and puts her to bed. This has become a pattern: Zoara demanding mommy do bedtime every night and rejecting Dev.

Dev and Nurit know that this dynamic is unhealthy for everyone, but they feel stuck. Dev is so upset in the moment that it's hard for him not to be reactive. For Nurit's part, she has a hard time not going to Zoara when she's screaming for her.

In my work collaborating with families to solve their most vexing childrearing challenges, I have identified a number of consistent parental mindsets that result in moms and dads getting triggered and reacting in ways that are ineffective and often increase the intensity and frequency of meltdowns, power struggles, and other challenging behaviors.

One of the most prevalent of these faulty mindsets is: "I can and need to control my child. I have the power to change his behavior." 

But the fact is that you cannot actually make your children do anything: eat, sleep, use the potty, be kind, not yell or have a tantrum. Children, like all humans, are the only ones who control their words and actions. This is one of the most humbling aspects of parenting that no one warns you about. It is so fiercely counter to how we see ourselves and our role. We are supposed to be able to make our children behave.

Just as I was thinking about what to share in my final blog of 2020, I had a consult with a couple that provided the spark. Mid-session, the mom burst into tears as she shared how ashamed and saddened she was at the relief she experienced upon finding that her son had fallen asleep while waiting for her to come say goodnight. The prospect of having some alone-time instead of the seemingly endless ordeal of trying to get him to go to sleep was a dream come true. But instead of enjoying her much-deserved respite, she was self-flagellating, wondering what kind of mom she was if she was happy to have time away from her child. This was decidedly not the mother she had dreamed of being.

This broke my heart. This is a thoughtful, sensitive, loving mom who is trying to balance caring for a feisty toddler and a 4-month-old while getting ready to return to work after the new year. She is exhausted and depleted, which is further exacerbated by feeling ashamed at wanting relief from her child who is very demanding. She just wants him to be happy. She gives and gives but feels like it’s never enough.

This conversation became the impetus for this blog, as I know from my consults with hundreds of parents during the last nine months that this mom is not alone, and that many of you are probably experiencing these kinds of feelings to some degree. It is a list of some of the most important lessons I have learned about what children really need—things I wish my younger self had understood that would have reduced stress and enabled more joy.

One of the most pervasive pitfalls that result in parents feeling out of control and ineffective in getting their kids to "listen", aka, cooperate, with a rule or limit: REACTIVITY. Your child refuses to hand over the tablet when screen time is over. You get triggered by your child's refusal to comply and launch into an array of threats, bribes, or rewards to convince your child to get with the program. An ugly power struggle ensues. The more you feel yourself losing this battle, the more frustrated and angry you become at your child for creating this highly unpleasant situation. It ends with everybody miserable.  

The inherent problem in resorting to threats, bribery and rewards is that these tactics are all dependent on your child being swayed by your threat, bribe or reward, which means he is in total control of the situation and is the decider about how this encounter will unfold. What if your bribe or threat doesn't work? Your child doesn't care (or feigns not to care) about getting extra books at bedtime if he cooperates; or, alternatively, about having books taken away at bedtime. Where does that leave you? Feeling more exasperated and out of control.

When you are in reactive mode, it is very hard to think clearly and plan your response. To help parents with this perennial challenge, I have come up with a simple strategy to prevent reactivity: taking a mommy/daddy moment to give yourself a chance to think about how to respond in a way that is calm and loving and that leads to greater cooperation from your children.

As if being a working parent wasn’t stressful enough, what do you do when suddenly you are expected to work at home and take care of your kids at the same time? If you are in this predicament, here are some ideas for how to manage the seemingly unmanageable. Of course, you will need to adapt and apply these based on the age of your child and your unique situation.

“No—Daddy reads to me!” Tamisa exclaims when her mom, Audra, plops down beside her, eager to start the bedtime book. Audra, hurt, pleads: “But it’s mommy’s turn and I love reading books with you.” Tamisa responds: “I want daddy!!” Audra slams the book on the floor as she says, “You’re making mommy very sad.” She promptly exits the room as she is shouting to dad that Tamisa is all his.

Playing parental favorites, while very painful for the parent who is experiencing the rejection, is actually quite common. It’s almost always situational, not personal. Some children forge a fierce attachment to the parent who is acting as the primary caregiver—the one doing most of the diapering, feeding, bathing, and comforting. It doesn’t happen solely in families with a stay-at-home parent, but usually occurs when one parent shoulders the bulk of the caregiving responsibility. Children may make a strong association about who they feel safe with and trust and glom on to that person exclusively, even if the other parent is very loving and involved.

Then sometimes, the parent who is less available becomes special in the child’s mind and so the child demands to have that parent to herself.  It is also common for a child to favor one parent over the other after the birth of a new baby. In some cases, the older child comes to rely more heavily on the parent who hasn’t given birth, whom they perceive as more available. Other times it’s the converse, the child clings to the parent who gave birth as a result of the jealousy she feels about the attention the new baby is getting. And sometimes the genesis of the preference is unclear, but it is usually a way to cope with a complex or challenging experience the child is trying to manage.   

In one family I recently worked with, a fierce preference for dad evolved when mom went on her first post-Covid work trip. This was a fierce little guy who has very big reactions to his experiences in the world. To adapt to this event which loomed large for him, he decides that dad—the present parent in that moment— is his person and he is sticking with that. He is also angry with mom when she returns for having left him.

 Regardless of the reason for the preference, it is important for your child’s healthy development (and for a healthy marriage or partnership!) that she develop a close, trusting relationship with both parents. (For single parents, this same favoritism dynamic can occur with other trusted caregivers.) It is also important that she not be in a position to decide who does what when it comes to parenting. So, what can you do?

1.  Be sure your expectations for your child match her age and stage of development. Recognize that young children are driven by emotions, not logic, so irrational behavior is totally normal. The part of the brain that enables us to think about and manage our feelings and impulses is not well-developed until five to six years of age. Expecting more from children than they are capable of can lead to lots of frustration for both parents and children. Having appropriate expectations is critical because the meaning you assign to your child’s behavior influences how you react. If you think your child is purposefully breaking rules, you are much more likely to react in harsh ways that further distress your child instead of calming her. If you see these behaviors in the context of normal development, you are more likely to approach your child with empathy and appreciate these moments as opportunities to teach good coping skills.

2. Tune in to the meaning of your child’s behavior. Getting to the root cause of your child’s actions can help you to respond in ways that are sensitive and effective. A tantrum in the grocery store might be caused by sensory overload, fatigue, or disappointment about not getting a cookie from the bakery. Biting might be a self-soothing strategy, a way to keep others at a distance, or an expression of anger. Understanding the root cause of a behavior can help you come up with discipline strategies that address the underlying issue and help your child build strong coping skills. This means considering some factors that impact behavior: What’s going on in your child’s world—has she experienced a recent move? A new caregiver? A recent loss? Parental stress? It’s also important to think about your child’s temperament. Is she a big reactor or a go-with-the-flow kind of kid? Is he persistent or does he get frustrated easily? How does she react to new people and experiences—does she jump right in or need time to feel comfortable? All of these factors influence children’s ability to cope with life’s natural stressors, such as adapting to new experiences, learning to wait, and managing daily transitions.

“I’M HUNGRY!” shouts 3-year-old, Jolie, every night after her dads, Kyle and Wayne, put her to bed. Their concern that she is not getting enough nutrition, given how little she eats most nights at dinner, wins out. They reluctantly give in, even though they know Jolie “driving the car” is not a good dynamic.

This is reactive parenting—when we get triggered and act on our emotions without thinking through what our children’s behavior is telling us and what response is going to teach them positive ways to cope with whatever need they are trying to meet or challenge they are facing. More often than not, reactivity leads to an escalation of the problem and more stress and frustration for both parent and child. It is one of, if not the, greatest obstacles, to parents’ ability to be the parent they want to be--in control and able to set and enforce appropriate limits while remaining loving and positively connected to their child.

But it is really hard not to be reactive. Parenting is by nature a highly emotional endeavor that stems from our deep love for our children and the accompanying worry for their well-being. The toddler years can be especially challenging given that young children are driven by their emotions and behave in irrational, maddening and often confusing ways that most parents have no roadmap for navigating.

So, what is the antidote to reactivity?

Cherie, a very social and athletic mom who highly values team sports, feels very anxious that her 4-year-old, Martin, is hesitant about playing soccer with the other kids on the playground. He watches on the sidelines. Cherie keeps pushing him to join in, but this leads to greater resistance. So she tries bribery, which results in Martin inching his way toward the soccer field and running around the kids but not playing with them, looking anxious and sad. 

Caring for young children (really, children of any age) is an intensely emotional experience. We love our kids so deeply and want the best for them, so when faced with an incident or behavior that we worry is detrimental to the their well-being, it triggers a reaction which often leads to negative outcomes.  In the case of Martin, forcing leads to a decrease, not increase, in his desire join the play, and erodes his trust in Cherie to be sensitive to and respect his needs. Further, bribery communicates that the goal or desired behavior is so important to the parent that she is willing offer a reward for it—making it about meeting the parent’s not the child’s needs; and when the child can’t meet the need, there is a risk that he feels like a disappointment to his parent—a big burden for a little child. (Bribery can also lead the nasty little phenomenon of your child expecting a reward for everything—cleaning up toys, brushing his teeth.)

Claire Lerner, LCSW

Marriage is hard enough. Adding kids to the mix brings a lot of joy but also more complexity as parenting requires making countless decisions each day about what kids eat, how to get them to sleep, how much screen time to allow, etc. Not to mention the biggie: what the rules, limits and consequences will be for inappropriate behavior (of which there is a lot in the early years.)  

Some couples are fortunate to share similar approaches on childrearing issues. But many parents experience conflict rooted in the fact that they have different perspectives about how to raise kids based on their own upbringings, beliefs and values, and expectations for their children. This kind of tension between parents can have negative effects on children (not to mention the marriage) in several ways: 

Claire Lerner, LCSW

Being the parent of a young child is an intensely emotional experience. There is the pure pleasure of cuddling, nuzzling, playing, laughing, exploring, and delighting in your baby’s daily growth and discoveries. And then there are the challenges—the moments of stress, anger, frustration, and resentment—at not knowing what a baby’s cry means and how to calm her, at the totally irrational demands of a toddler, or at the aggressive behavior of an older child toward a new baby. These experiences naturally evoke strong feelings that can be hard to handle. 

But it is important to tune in to and manage these feelings because it is how you react in these moments that makes the difference in your child’s development. Your response impacts his ability to learn good coping skills and guides his future behavior. Imagine a 2-year-old who is falling apart because he can’t cope with the fact that you gave him his cereal in the blue bowl instead of his favorite red bowl (as unbelievably irrational as that might be— such is life with a toddler). Reacting with anger and frustration is likely to further distress the child rather than help him calm and cope. Learning to manage your own reactions is one of most important ways you can reduce your own—and your child’s—distress. It also teaches children how to manage their own emotions—a skill that helps them do better in school and in building friendships and other relationships as they grow. 

Managing strong, negative emotions is surely much easier said than done. But it’s worth the effort, because the payoff is huge, for you and your child. Here are some helpful guiding principles and strategies: