@the.brainhealth.doctor: A young child’s brain is still building the networks involved in impulse control, emotional regulation, flexible thinking, and inhibition. Their prefrontal systems are immature, and those skills develop gradually through childhood and adolescence. So when your child is overwhelmed, you’re often asking a developing brain to do something it quite literally isn’t very good at yet. And this is where our nervous system comes in. Children learn regulation through repeated experiences with regulated adults. Before they can consistently self-regulate, they rely heavily on co-regulation: our voice, facial expressions, body language, predictability, boundaries, and responses become part of the sensory information their brain is using to understand what’s happening and what to do next. Meanwhile, our adult brain has a much greater capacity to pause, inhibit an automatic reaction, shift perspective, and choose a response. Does that mean we will do it perfectly every time? Absolutely not. 😂 Sometimes half of parenting feels like watching your child’s developing nervous system activate every pathway in your fully developed one. But that is kind of the point. The work is not controlling every emotion your child has. It is learning to tolerate their frustration without immediately needing to stop it. Holding a boundary while they are upset about it. Not turning their overwhelm into your overwhelm. Repairing when you do lose it. And modeling, over and over again, what regulation actually looks like. They do not need us to regulate their nervous system for them forever. They need enough repeated experiences of regulation with us that, little by little, their brain learns how to do more of it on its own. And honestly, I think that’s one of the most humbling parts of parenting: While we are helping build their brain, parenting has a way of showing us exactly where we still have some learning to do, too. 🧠🤍 #regulation #regulatednervoussystem #regulated #childdevelopment #nervoussystemregulation

Dr. Abbey

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Region: US

Sunday 30 August 2026 15:20:54 GMT