The word parenting points the mind towards boundaries, rules and consequences. But at the beginning of a child's life it is about something else entirely and much simpler, and if you reverse the order, everything that comes later becomes harder than it needs to be.
In the first months there is in truth nothing to parent. Everything the baby does is biologically driven and involuntary. It does not cry to manipulate, it does not wake to be difficult, it cannot »learn« to stop. Your only task in that period is to create safety, and that is not a pause before the real parenting. It is the foundation under it. Secure attachment at the start is one of the strongest markers we know for whether the child can later regulate its feelings, wait, tolerate a no and govern itself.
When the child grows older and begins to test boundaries, it is tempting to see it as the beginning of disobedience. But testing boundaries is healthy. It is the child's neurologically driven way of mapping the world: what happens if I do this, and does the adult I lean on hold? Your calm, predictable answer, neither giving in nor anger, is exactly what the child learns from. A calm no, followed by an alternative, tells the brain: here is a boundary, and the world is still safe. Consistency is in that way a kinder teacher than punishment.
This is also where it becomes concrete biology, what shouting does. When an adult shouts, adrenaline and cortisol are released in the child, and the next day the stress hormones still sit a little higher, while the behaviour has typically grown worse, not better. A tantrum in a small child is, by the way, not manipulation, but a temporarily overwhelmed brain that has lost control of itself. The only »treatment« that works is an adult who can stay in their own calm while the storm rages, and pick things up afterwards. You do not need to shout to be heard. The child hears your body, not just your words.
It does not mean that boundaries are wrong, on the contrary. Children need them and grow secure from them. It just means that a boundary held with calm teaches the child something different from a boundary held with anger. The first says: I am here, and this will not do. The second says: there is danger about. Only the first builds the self-control we ultimately want.
To understand that order, safety first, boundaries afterwards, held with calm, is one of the most valuable things you can carry with you. And when it becomes concrete, how do I handle this particular situation with this particular child, that is where Helen in the app can answer what is yours.
