09/18/2025
Picture this: your child is upset, jealous, or sad. Like most of us, you probably feel the urge to jump into “fixing mode.” You want to take away their sadness, distract them from their jealousy, or smooth over their frustration. That instinct comes from a place of love - of course, we want to protect our kids from pain.
But here’s the truth: when we rush in to rescue our kids from every hard feeling, we actually send the message, “These feelings are too much. You can’t handle them.” Over time, this makes it harder for kids to develop the inner strength they need.
Resilience doesn’t come from avoiding discomfort. It comes from being able to tolerate it - feeling sad and still moving forward, feeling frustrated and still trying again, feeling jealous and still showing up.
Here’s the most important part - kids can only learn to tolerate feelings that we are willing to tolerate in them. When we sit beside our child in their sadness or frustration, when we say, “I know this is hard, and I’m right here with you,” we teach them the invaluable lesson that big feelings are survivable.
That’s how kids build resilience, not by being rescued from their feelings, but by being supported through them.
