Stop Punishing Your Kids If You Want Them To Grow Up Resilient, Says Child Psychologist

parenting style Responsive Parenting Gentle Parenting Traditional parenting Resilience in Kids

By Jo Anne Hubert , Parent Herald Nov 07, 04:57 pm

A child psychologist warns parents that yelling at the kids or punishing them with little acknowledgment of their feelings and eventually adding confusion to their emotions would not create resilience in children.

Instead of choosing the path of yelling and punishment, child psychologist Mona Delahooke suggests responsive parenting, acknowledging how the children are feeling and validating their disappointment.

According to her, the "new paradigm" of parenting is building resilience in human beings, and research on relational neuroscience clearly states that what nurtures resilience is responsive parenting.

Responsive parenting

The author of "Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids," Delahooke, does not like her book being lumped into the gentle parenting literature category.

For her, using the word gentle can be misunderstood by people to mean "saying no," which isn't the case.

She stressed that gentle parenting is not well-defined, especially in terms of research.

Responsive parenting, though, on the other hand, is something she and other experts in her field adhered to.

"Responsive parenting is about meeting the child where they are and soothing them when their nervous system is in distress. When disappointment is compassionately witnessed and you are emotionally soothing, the child's brain and body stress response is reduced. An adult's caring presence changes the way a child's body and brain respond to stress. It reduces the stress hormones," Delahooke explained.

Delahooke challenges the assumption that children "act up" negatively to grab attention, get something they want, or for no reason. And, for parents practicing traditional parenting, acting up can lead to consequences.

She questions that assumption and explains that children behave well when they can because they want to please their parents. This is innate in them.

However, when they cannot behave well, it isn't because they are ungrateful, want to be difficult, or are simply spoiled brats. It is because they still need to develop the emotional tools to deal with being let down or disappointed.

Having the ability for kids to accept disappointment and unpredictability and to "talk yourself down," is a long developmental process, and most children don't have this until they are older, Delahooke explained.

Kids don't have the circuitry of self-regulation built yet, and responsive parenting considers this fact very well.

If "traditional parenting is agnostic of social emotional development," responsive parenting is all about building relationships where kids would feel the safety and trust they long to have.

Parents need to teach their children to regulate their emotions, and it is through self-regulation that resilience is built.

Allow children to be flexible

Parents should allow children to figure out how to handle unpleasant emotions by themselves because this can increase their ability to be flexible.

Kids need the capability to "flex through change and the unexpected" - from finding out the need to leave the park to discovering that they cannot always be in the class of their favorite teacher to not getting the candy they want to eat at night.

Delahooke reminds parents that every moment of the day is an opportunity for their kids to be flexible.

If parents don't let their kids struggle when they are having a tough time, they won't develop resilience.

Delahook has seen testimonies of "better relationships and a higher level of well-being of young adults" who are parented through responsive parenting.

Moreover, there is a "beautiful aspect of preventing future mental health challenges" when this kind of parenting is practiced.