Parenting: What No One Told You

"Making the decision to have a child - it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body." 

Elizabeth Stone.

No one really prepared me for the hardest part of being a parent…just how much it hurts your heart to see your kids have hard times.  And maybe no one told me because there’s no way to really understand it until you have your own little people in your life, whether you’ve birthed them, fostered or adopted them.

When you care deeply about your kids, you feel deeply for them, and the deep feelings can make parenting hard…like really hard!  It might be something as regular as your toddler being hangry, tired and overstimulated after a day out, and feeling overwhelmed in their emotions and nervous system, AKA meltdown.  It could be distress around changing friendships, their first broken heart, struggling in the classroom academically with this impacting their self-esteem, experiencing bullying, feeling the pressure of the senior years at school, experiencing anxiety or other mental health difficulties, not making the team, or making the team and then injuring their knee or breaking an arm.  Or it could be that they’ve experienced a type of awfulness you could never expect or predict, like an untimely loss, a life-threatening illness, or an assault.

From everyday troubles to awfulness, our hearts, minds and nervous systems are interconnected with our kids.  And so yes, this can be one of the hardest parts of parenting as we feel their pain.  And it can also be one of the best, because if our hearts, minds and nervous systems are interconnected, we have the power to be a soothing, positive, containing, supportive influence.  If we can catch our kids' distress, they can catch our steadiness, even in hard times.

Why are we so interconnected, and how does it work?  From an evolutionary perspective, humans had to band together for survival.  Emotional interdependence evolved to promote the cohesiveness and cooperation families required to protect, feed and shelter family members, resulting in families profoundly impacting family members’ thoughts, feelings and actions/behaviours.  It’s no one’s fault.  It just is, and it makes sense.

These days, we also understand how brains and nervous systems communicate with other nervous systems through mechanisms like mirror neurons, the heart’s magnetic field, and the brain’s social engagement system.

Here’s how you and your child are deeply connected (more than you might think).

Mirror neurons: Your child’s brain can “mirror” you—when you stay calm, they’re more likely to settle; when you’re stressed, they feel that too. It’s why taking a slow breath or softening your tone can quietly help your child regulate without saying a word.

Heart’s magnetic field: Your emotional state isn’t just in your head—it’s felt in your body, and your child picks up on it when they’re close to you. When you slow down, get present, and connect warmly (a cuddle, eye contact, a gentle voice), your child often starts to feel safer and more settled.

Brain’s social engagement system: Your face, voice, and body are like a “safety signal” for your child’s nervous system—soft eyes, a calm tone, and relaxed posture tell them “you’re okay.” Even in tricky moments, how you show up can help bring your child back from overwhelm into connection.

So not only do we have deep emotional connections, we have these physiological ones too.  How is it helpful to know this?  What use is this?

Perhaps the single most powerful, game-changing thing you can do is to become steady.  Your steadiness is your parenting superpower.  It gives you the power to become a source of contagious calm and soothing and it allows you to activate your best thinking…and let’s face it, you need to be able to think in hard moments to work out what you believe is the best way forward, to connect to your parenting values, be present and relationally connected and decide what’s possible, what you are willing to do and what you are not willing to do.

Learning to be steady is the biggest game-changer, bigger than learning any new parenting strategy or style.  And that’s simply because if you aren’t steady, you won’t do a great job of implementing a strategy, you’ll likely be too stressed trying to remember what to do or who recommended what tip, you might end up feeling overwhelmed and potentially get stuck or reactive rather than being a present, connected leader in your family.  Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate a great parenting strategy, but steadying yourself has to come first.

And the other thing is, no single strategy works all the time or works for everyone.  So, as a parent, it’s a constant process of thinking about what will be helpful in this moment with this kid. Rather than sticking rigidly to advice about a strategy or feeling reactive or lost, a focus on your own steadiness is the way through.

You might have noticed by now that I am using the word “steady” instead of the word calm.  That is intentional because I am not asking you to be a perfect, calm, Zen parenting robot (not possible even if it were helpful).  I want you to know that you can feel the feels; emotions are human, and they give us information.  You just don’t want to stay stuck in feelings only, without thinking and connecting to your parenting values and best hopes for yourself as a parent.  There will be some situations that leave you feeling so upset, angry, frustrated or distressed. 

I’m not telling you that you shouldn’t have these feelings or that you should just get rid of them.  I’m telling you that it’s incredibly helpful to harness your nervous system, to have some tools/strategies to look after yourself in big, medium and small “in the moment” ways so that you can settle yourself enough to use both your thoughts and your feelings to show up for your kids as your best parent self.

And if you feel like you mess it up at times, no problem.  Practice self-compassion (after all, parenting is the best AND hardest job in the world), reset and have another go.  That’s the work of the parenting journey.  You can practice and grow your steadiness.

And so I encourage you to think:

• What tools/strategies/processes do you have in place to look after yourself?

  • e.g., time as a couple, time with friends, moving your body, a helpful mantra, Maggie Dent’s “parental pause”, breathing hacks (for ideas on this, you can read my blog https://www.drleoniewhite.com/post/harness-your-breath-as-a-hack-for-stress-and-anxiety), calling Parent Line, going outside for 5 minutes

• What are your best hopes for yourself as a parent? 

  • And when have you already noticed yourself acting in line with these hopes?

• What are your parenting values? 

  • Did you choose these intentionally or unconsciously inherit them? 

  • If you inherited them unconsciously, what values would you choose for yourself? 

  • If you are in a relationship, have you discussed your parenting values?

• What are the situations you are most likely to find it hard to be steady in? 

  • E.g., at the grocery store with onlookers?  At an extended family gathering?  When you feel overstimulated or experience sensory overload?  When your emotional battery is drained? 

  • And what plan can you put in place for yourself to manage this?

• How do you notice when you are struggling to stay steady? 

  • Do you over-function for your child?  Trying to do everything you can to make them feel better, to fix the problem or take away stressors or barriers?

  • Do you distance yourself from the situation or your child?  Taking a step back because you feel you can’t do anything or get anything right?

  • Do you get stuck, overwhelmed, or overly reactive, maybe crying, getting angry or yelling?

  • Do you direct all your energy onto another person, e.g., “the bully”, the teacher, the friend, the person who hurt your child, rather than directing your energy into what’s possible for you to do that’s helpful for yourself and your child?

  • Do you become more “serious” and forget to have light moments, fun and enjoy your child?

  • What plan can you put in place for when you notice this to redirect your energy more helpfully?  How will you connect to your best hopes for yourself as a parent?

• When have you been steady? 

  • What helps you to be steady?

  • How did you stay steady?

  • What did you learn about yourself when you stayed steady? 

  • What did you learn about your child when you stayed steady?

As parents, we can feel very deeply for our kids, and we ourselves can feel very deep emotions in our relationship with them – some positive, joyful and wonderful, and some tricky, challenging, unpleasant and awful.  The depth of this might catch us off guard at times, and that’s why I wanted to write this blog.  To acknowledge you, to reassure you, to encourage you to practice self-compassion and to encourage you to practice being steady…because this hardest thing about being a parent can also be the best… for us, for our kids, and for our relationship.  The biggest gift we can give our kids is to be a steady, loving, connected presence. 

"Behind every young child who believes in himself is a parent who believed first."

Mathew L. Jacobson

Leonie :)

Dr Leonie White - Clinical Family Therapist and Psychologist

Helping people grow, connect and thrive in life’s unique journey.

Please note - this article is educational in nature and does not constitute therapy advice. 

Please seek help from a professional if you require support. 

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