Nope. Toughing up your children to learn to deal with a rough world doesn't make them more resilient.
It just makes you their first bully. And strips them of a sense of secure belonging with you.
Human beings have survived and thrived as long as we have because we have an attachment instinct. When we form close supportive bonds with our family it helps us identify abuse in others and pick better friends and partners.
Treat your children with such profound respect and connection that they find unkind, dismissive, and cruel treatment jarring and instinctively protect themselves from it.
A message to all fathers: keep going with your efforts to connect with your children because they desperately need to see what a healthy, connected, caring male looks like, and it will create a secure attachment that fosters resilience.
.webp){kind=avatar}
In this video, you'll learn that a securely attached young child expresses their distress, seeks proximity to their caregiver, and calms quickly, and that this pattern of express-seek-soothe can be seen throughout our lifespan, with teens seeking friends, adults seeking romantic partners or close friends, but always involving the freedom to have an emotional need, be close, and receive comfort at every stage of life.
.webp){kind=avatar}
In this video, learn why dismissing a child's emotions can hinder their ability to gain perspective, and how to help them process their feelings to build emotional resilience for bigger challenges later in life.
%402x.svg){kind=icon}