Parenting is hard. Whatever your circumstances, it’s just hard.
For me, it became harder after my divorce because now I was a single parent with all the feelings that go along with that.
I became the quintessential optimizing parent—with a generous dose of perfectionism thrown in. I took my kids to therapy. I went to therapy. I consumed every parenting book, article, and podcast I could find.
The advice always sounded reasonable:
- “Never speak ill of your ex in front of the kids.”
- “Validate their feelings.”
- “Stay calm when they’re dysregulated.”
All of it makes total sense.
Unfortunately, nothing told me what to do when every cell in my body was activated and screaming at me to react. How was I supposed to feel rage and bite my tongue? My intense feelings won every single time. And then I’d feel terrible, convinced I was the worst mother and screwing them up for good.
Most parenting advice assumes you already have these skills
Most parenting books assume you already have the emotion regulation and distress tolerance skills to implement the strategies they share.
They tell you what to do, but they don’t teach you how to do it when every cell in your body is activated and/or your kid is melting down in the grocery store.
Sometimes they also presume one approach will work across all situations.
But when you’re in the middle of it, no amount of affirmations or breathing exercises feels like enough. Your face is hot. Your heart is pounding. Your brain is screaming that everyone is judging you, that you’re failing, that this tantrum is a preview of their future therapy bills.
This is where my new book, Just Do Nothing (for Parents): How to Parent Better by Doing Less, comes in.
Distress tolerance is often the missing piece
The skill very few talk about—but we all need—is distress tolerance. This is the ability to sit with uncomfortable feelings without immediately trying to make them go away. Sounds so simple, I know, but it takes practice.
In terms of parenting, often when we can’t tolerate our own distress, we make parenting decisions because we’re reacting to our own discomfort.
We give in when we should hold boundaries. We fix problems they need to solve. We talk when we should listen. We jump to action when we should pause.
What “Just Do Nothing” actually means
Just doing nothing doesn’t mean:
- Ignoring your child’s distress
- Becoming cold and unfeeling
- Removing all discomfort from your child’s life
- Turning into some Zen robot who never feels anything
It means learning to pause when discomfort shows up—both yours and theirs—so you can parent based on your values instead of your panic.
Here’s what that looks like in practice: Your four-year-old asks for a toy at Target. You said no before you even walked in. She escalates to full meltdown mode. Your body floods with adrenaline. Your thoughts spiral: Is this antisocial behavior? Will saying no damage our relationship? What if someone calls CPS because she’s screaming so loud?
The old pattern is that you’ll give in to stop the discomfort (both yours and hers).
The new pattern is that you pause. You acknowledge that yes, this sucks, and yes, people are looking, and yes, your kid is upset, and also… none of that is actually dangerous. Your kid screaming in Target doesn’t mean you’re a bad parent. It means you’re a parent who said no and is teaching your child that disappointment won’t kill them.
Pause is so important and yet so difficult. To help us all, I made it a step-by-step process.
Learn to PAUSE
I talk about this at length in the book. PAUSE is a tool to help you respond differently when discomfort shows up:
Pause: Stop before acting. Take some breaths.
Assess: Are you in actual danger or just uncomfortable? (Spoiler: discomfort isn’t dangerous.)
Unclench: Drop your shoulders. Lengthen your exhales. Let your jaw relax.
Soften: Stop fighting the discomfort. It only makes it stronger.
Engage: Redirect attention toward what matters, regardless of how you feel.
The PAUSE Process helps you build the capacity to tolerate what’s hard, so you can act based on your values instead of reacting based on your anxiety. (Want more details on how to use it? I’ll be sharing a deeper dive into the PAUSE Process in my next article.)
The seven parenting superpowers
When you build distress tolerance, you unlock what I call parenting superpowers. These are skills that clinical evidence supports, behaviors I see parents struggling with daily in my therapy practice:
- Accepting “good enough” instead of perfect
- Stopping yourself from over-talking and over-explaining
- Actually listening instead of problem-solving
- Letting your kids have their bad moods without fixing them
- Setting boundaries and actually holding them
- Building your child’s independence (even when it’s terrifying)
- Following through with consequences
None of these are possible if you’re hijacked by discomfort every time your kid is upset, disappointed, or angry with you.
This isn’t about eliminating discomfort
Parenting is uncomfortable. Your kids will be disappointed. They’ll be angry with you. They’ll make mistakes. They’ll experience natural consequences. You’ll question every decision you make.
That discomfort isn’t the problem. Our inability to feel it is.
It might be helpful to remember that when we can’t tolerate discomfort, we actually rob our kids of the chance to build their own skill set to move through discomfort which, in turn, builds resilience.
We’re also modeling that discomfort is something to avoid b/c it’s too scary to face
We trade their long-term learning for our short-term relief. We prevent them from discovering that disappointment is temporary, that they can handle hard things, that feelings pass.
And we rob ourselves, too, of the ability to connect meaningfully, to respond with intention, to actually become the parent we want to be instead of the reactive one we swore we’d never become.
You don’t have to become someone you’re not
You don’t need to transform into some calm, Zen master to parent effectively. You can be freaking out on the inside and still make good parenting decisions. Increased distress tolerance gives you the ability to feel all the feelings and still behave in ways that align with what matters to you.
I still lose my cool sometimes. Who doesn’t?
I still feel that pit in my stomach when I have to hold a boundary. I still experience those moments of Am I doing this right? The difference now is that those experiences don’t hijack my behavior. Uncomfortable, sure. But not dangerous.
Start where you are
Throughout Just Do Nothing (for Parents), I include real examples from my therapy practice and my own parenting journey. Each chapter on parenting superpowers ends with a WINS section because celebrating small changes is crucial.
We’re so quick to dismiss progress: “It’s nothing” or “I should be able to do this anyway” or “But I still felt anxious doing it.”
When you notice those thoughts coming up, that’s your opportunity to course correct. Every time you respond differently, even if your hands are shaking and your heart is racing, that’s a win! Every time you pause instead of react, that’s building distress tolerance. Every time you hold a boundary even though it feels terrible, you’re developing the muscle you need.
This is the work
Parenting isn’t about having all the answers or executing perfect strategies. It’s about building your capacity to stay present when things get hard. To function with discomfort. To model for your kids what it looks like to feel big feelings and still make choices based on values instead of fear.
It’s difficult work. But not impossible. And our kids don’t need us to be perfect. They need us to be good enough. They need a parent who’s willing to feel uncomfortable in service of what matters.
Want to dive deeper into this idea? Check out Just Do Nothing (for Parents: How to Parent Better by Doing Less.
