There are two phrases that slip out so simply when your baby experiences an emotional occasion. Perhaps they tripped and fell or had a battle with a good friend. Their face crumples, and earlier than they’ve even had an opportunity to talk, you say: “You’re okay.”
It sounds comforting. Reassuring, even. However it’s not. As a acutely aware parenting coach and advocate for youngsters’s emotional well being, I’ve studied over 200 children — and I’ve seen this well-intentioned and overused phrase trigger long-term injury in ways in which most dad and mom by no means notice.
Actually, as a result of it appears so innocent at first, it is essentially the most harmful phrase in parenting. This is why, and what to say as a substitute:
1. It teaches children to doubt their very own feelings.
When a toddler is visibly upset and hears “you’re okay,” it sends a complicated message: What I’m feeling should not be actual. Over time, this disconnects them from their internal emotional world and teaches them to mistrust their very own instincts.
2. It invalidates their expertise after they want you most.
It’s possible you’ll say it with love, however a toddler hears: “Your emotions don’t matter.” Dismissal — nevertheless refined — teaches them that consolation and connection are solely out there after they’re calm and handy. That is the place emotional suppression begins.
3. It short-circuits emotional processing.
Feelings are supposed to transfer by the physique. Once we interrupt that pure course of with untimely reassurance, we rob youngsters of the flexibility to determine, title and regulate their feelings. As an alternative of constructing resilience, we’re constructing avoidance.
4. It teaches that love is conditional.
With out realizing it, phrases like “you’re okay,” “cease crying,” or “don’t be scared” situation youngsters to imagine they have to suppress their feelings to stay accepted. And when love feels conditional, emotional security — the very basis of psychological well being — begins to unravel.
5. It could possibly rewire a toddler’s stress response.
The nervous system develops by repeated experiences. When a toddler is upset and met with dismissal as a substitute of assist, their physique learns that it’s not protected to precise emotion. Over time, this may reshape their nervous system to anticipate disconnection, making it tougher to belief, regulate and really feel protected being totally themselves.
What to say as a substitute of ‘you are okay’
Youngsters don’t want a repair — they should really feel. And extra importantly, they should know it is protected to really feel, particularly with you.
Listed here are highly effective options that validate their internal world and construct emotional power:
- “I imagine you.”
- “Your emotions make sense.”
- “I’m proper right here with you.”
- “You don’t must be okay proper now.”
- “I noticed what occurred. How are you feeling?”
These phrases do greater than soothe. They strengthen. They educate your baby: My feelings matter. I can belief myself. I’m not alone.
These responses take follow. You’ll nonetheless say “you’re okay” generally. And that’s okay, too. The aim is to follow acutely aware parenting: noticing our patterns and selecting, second by second, to reply in ways in which construct emotional security reasonably than undermine it.
These moments could appear small, however they really assist to construct a toddler’s emotional basis. And in a world the place nervousness, despair and disconnection are on the rise, that is how we defend our youngsters’s psychological well being — one second of emotional security at a time.
Reem Raouda is a number one voice in acutely aware parenting and the creator of FOUNDATIONS — the transformative therapeutic journal for folks prepared to interrupt cycles, do the internal work, and grow to be the emotionally protected mother or father their baby wants. She is widely known for her groundbreaking work in youngsters’s emotional security and strengthening the parent-child bond. FFollow her on Instagram.
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