Imagine your child struggling to walk, falling down constantly at home, but miraculously having perfect coordination in public.

You wouldn't assume they were just stumbling for attention, right? 

You'd know they genuinely needed help building that physical skill.

Well, the same is true for emotional skills like regulation and distress tolerance.

Meltdown behaviors at home (hitting, kicking, screaming, refusal, shutting down) are a sign of lagging abilities, not a manipulative bid for attention.

Just because they can "hold it together" at school doesn't mean the struggle isn't real. 

It just means home is a space to let it all out…. (another post for a different day– it’s not because they feel “safe” either.)

As parents, our job is to guide them from this emotional crawling stage to confident walking (and eventually running!) with a calm, regulated nervous system.

But here's the thing......

Your child learns how to manage her feelings from you. If your HSC isn’t managing herself, naming her own emotions, or calming herself down, there is a missing link in how you are teaching & leading in your home, ESPECIALLY if daily meltdowns are happening in your home.

HSCs do not learn to generalize the skill of managing emotions from any other professional or environment but from their parent. 

Without daily focus on communicating emotions safely, and learning how to do this independently as a child, your HSC will learn to require others to make her feel better.

This means she will be a boat untethered in a storm as a teen. Wishing for her friends to tell her what to do, but worrying about how she will look if she asks them what to do.

...Wallowing in internal sorrow, and fearful of what others think. 

...Experiencing continued anxiety at best, debilitating depression at worst.

As a young adult she will turn from wishing for direction and emotional support to...