God, the Co-Regulator
The parenting strategy that changed my view of my Heavenly Parent
The screams could be heard throughout the entire store, weeping and wailing and devastation echoing through every corner. You would have thought someone had been injured or robbed.
But no, it was just my toddler.
The problem? I told her no. The Bluey toy that was strategically placed at her eye-level was shiny and new and she wanted it - now. Never mind the many Bluey toys already at our house. They weren’t this Bluey toy.
And now the entire population needed to hear her indignation. As she threw herself on the floor, kicking and rolling, I could feel the curious eyes of every person that walked past. Some sympathetic, some judgmental, some amused. All made me want to run and hide.
Instinct kicked in as I scooped her up, carried her like a football, and hurried us out of the store. It’s been a few years since we’ve had a toddler in our house. Either my mind blacked out this part to protect me from the emotional scarring or this toddler is just more ‘toddler’ than my other toddlers were.
Even still, lots has changed since the last time I football-carried a screaming toddler away from a toy aisle. I’m different, for one - I’d like to hope I’m more patient, more mature, but I know for certain I’m more tired this go-around. The parenting trends have shifted, too. Thanks to the information age, we are bombarded with all the different parenting views and tips to help us parent a hundred babies if we wanted to (whew).
On the opposite end of our child spectrum is our oldest. As he enters his teenage years, I found my usual tricks to solve his problems just don’t cut it anymore. Mommy’s kisses just can’t cure the injuries, physically and emotionally, he acquires these days. I’ve been digging into as many parenting resources as I can find to get some guidance (I’ll link some in ‘the miscellany’ section below!). Many of these parenting techniques are brand new to me, a majority of them circling around emotional literacy and formation.
In my learning, there has been one technique in particular that has aided me in parenting both of my bookend kids. This tool of co-regulation has shifted not only my view of parenting, but also my view on how my Heavenly Father parents me.
Co-regulation is the act of regulating another’s dysregulated emotions and actions by using your calm presence to bring comfort to the other person.1 The brain is made up of millions of mirror neurons, brain cells that react and “mirror” actions that it sees performed. So when an emotionally calm person, remaining calm and in control, comes to a person in distress, mirror neurons in the distressed person’s brain begin to fire and react to what it sees the regulated person doing thus calming down the nervous system by reflecting the actions it is seeing.2 There are a variety of ways to co-regulate with a person - deep breaths, gentle touch, emotional literacy (the ability to name emotions as we feel them). The goal of co-regulation is that by it, the other person learns self-regulation, the ability to remain in control of one’s emotions. Basically, as is the goal with all parenting, we’re trying to get them to be independent.
If I’m being honest, there have been times where I, like my toddler, have thrown a fit. Maybe not physically (although sometimes kicking and screaming on the floor at Target sounds like it might be a bit therapeutic), but definitely emotionally and mentally.
Now hear me out - I believe emotions are, inherently, good. Emotions are a gift given to us from God as flags to understand what is happening deep within our being. But emotions also need restraint. We can listen to our emotions without being run over by our emotions. We can be curious about our emotions while knowing that those emotions are not always grounded in truth.
And even though we can know this intrinsically, there are still times where we are overcome by our feelings. Hard things come our way, the unthinkable happens, the worst fears enter our life, and we can so easily (understandably!) succumb to the emotions that roll over top of us. We are human, and cannot always control when our humanity will show itself.
We demand answers. We cry out for justice. We ask God for signs that He still cares.
Yet in the middle of the unimaginable, while we are buffeted with emotional pain, God faithfully continues to parent us. Even when it seems the opposite is happening, like He is silent and distant and uncaring.
But we should consider that in the silence, maybe God is co-regulating with us. Sharing His calming presence with us. Teaching us to depend on Him as our center of peace.
I’ve known God is my Father. I understood it as Him always watching over me, caring for me, providing for me. Yet I never stopped to think of just how He acts those characteristics out in my ordinary, every day life.
I experience pain and want Him to act on it - now. But I can’t understand why He is so silent, so absent. Does He not care about me like I thought He did? Did He lie when He said He doesn’t abandon His own? If not, does that mean I’m not really His?
In the middle of these questions, God showed me verse after verse of where exactly He was the whole time:
“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God:…” Isaiah 41:10
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;…” Psalm 23:4
"And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.” Deuteronomy 31:8
He was there. He never left. Perhaps He was silent because He was co-regulating my dysregulated heart.
Jesus said in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.”
The peace the world gives is merely an absence of trouble, a way to escape, a refusal to face things. The problem is that we are promised trouble in this world3; we cannot avoid it. Which means that whatever peace the world offers can only be temporary. Thankfully, Jesus’ peace is different. It’s not just an absence of conflict, but it’s the presence of wholeness.
When life seems to have fallen apart and pieces of what make you whole are missing, Jesus’ peace offers restoration. A complete reconciliation. A rebuilding of what has been broken. It doesn’t mean that things will go back to the way they were before it all crumbled. But it will be good.
When our world has been turned upside down, we don’t have to rely on our circumstances to obtain peace. When others turn against us and leave us, we don’t have to turn to outside sources to feel joy again. When all has been taken from us and our future looks so bleak, we don’t have to strive in order to feel stability.
The True Source of lasting peace, joy, stability is found in God Himself.
We left Target that day without a shiny new toy. There may have even still been a few tears clinging to her chubby cheeks as we walked out to join the bustling walkways of the mall.
But she left being held and loved even when she was angry at me. And I left with a better understanding of how God loves me even when my anger demanded things from Him that were not mine to have.
Our goal in parenting is to get our kids to a place of independence from us. But God’s goal is not like ours. His goal is that we get to a place of greater dependence on Him - for our strength, our provision, our joy.
We’re all getting there, slowly, day by day. And now I understand a little better that He won’t leave me - not even for one second of it.
“The reason so few of us grow in our life in Christ is because it is so painful. There is no growth to our dependence on Christ that is not also a wound to our dependence on self.”
John Andrew Bryant
the miscellany
All the random things that have been bringing us joy:
something I’m listening to: We are big fans of Raising Boys and Girls and all the amazing resources they make available for families! They are probably my favorite parenting resource with tons of helpful info about raising emotionally and mentally healthy, and spiritually sound kids! This podcast episode was so insightful and I’ve recently just added Are My Kids on Track? to my TBR pile
something we’re reading: For Mindy: It's Not Supposed to Be This Way by Lysa TerKeurst; For Gwen: Amy Carmichael by Hunter Beless
something I’m looking forward to: Sometimes it’s hard to be an ocean away from friends and family, but sometimes technology makes that ocean feel a little smaller! And thanks to technology, I’ll be able to participate in Friend to Friend LIVE in Newnan, Georgia via video! Thankful for my friend, Jessica Smallwood, for making that an option! The dates for the conference are May 3 and 4. Please join me in prayer that God would use the lessons over the weekend for His glory!
“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
Did you paint the rock beside the ocean?
Thank you for sharing this, Mindy. I learned something and as always, I am encouraged and challenged by your writing. ♥️