Children don’t hold the credit card—but they strongly direct where it gets used. Research on family travel and migration shows that: A city, hotel, or event is never just “kid‑friendly.” It is either nervous‑system‑friendly or it isn’t—and children tell us first. Families look for: Designing for kids is not a niche marketing move. It is…
When a child insists the bed is a pirate ship or the hallway is lava, they are not simply “being silly.” They are using imagination to rehearse risk, courage, power, and fear in a controlled environment. Developmental psychology describes this as symbolic play—one thing stands for another. Neurologically, the brain simulates situations and emotional states…
Play is often treated as dessert after the “real work” of learning and behaving. Neuroscience says the opposite: for children, play is the engine of learning, regulation, and social development. In play, children: A child at play is not “wasting time.” They are running the most important experiments of their brain’s early life. Research shows…
Every close relationship has rupture. In families, the question is not whether conflict happens, but what happens next. Research on attachment and “rupture and repair” shows that secure relationships are not those with no conflict, but those with consistent repair afterward. The nervous system learns: The apology is not the admission that you are a…
Children and adults have the same basic emotions—joy, fear, anger, sadness, surprise, love—but different timelines. In children: In adults: A child’s “overreaction” is often a normal reaction in a nervous system that hasn’t yet learned how to hold the feeling gently. Developmental research shows that the systems for feeling (limbic structures) mature earlier than the…
One of the most powerful brain‑building tools in childhood costs nothing: looking at the same thing together. When a child points to an airplane, bug, or drawing and an adult follows their gaze, names it, and shows interest, multiple systems fire at once: “You saw something. I saw that you saw it. Now we’re in…
Stillness is an adult fantasy, not a developmental norm. Movement in children is not just “extra energy”—it is a core regulation and learning tool. Running, fidgeting, climbing, spinning, pacing: these behaviors help integrate sensory input, sustain attention, and process emotion. A child who is bouncing may be trying to stay with you, not away from…
Many “mystery meltdowns” are sensory events in disguise. Children’s sensory systems are still developing. They take in more sound, light, texture, and movement than adults do, and filter less of it out. A birthday party, a public restroom, or a busy hotel lobby can overload their system long before an adult notices. Common sensory stressors:…
Telling a dysregulated child to “calm down” is like telling a car with no brakes to “stop.” During big emotions, a child’s thinking brain (prefrontal cortex) goes offline. The survival systems (amygdala, fight/flight/freeze responses) take over. Language, logic, and self‑talk—the tools adults use to calm themselves—aren’t fully available. Children borrow our nervous system before they…
Every meltdown, refusal, or shutdown is the last line of a story that started much earlier in the nervous system. A child who “acts out” in a supermarket might be: When we treat behavior as a message instead of a moral verdict, our questions change from “How do I stop this?” to “What is this…
