Behave or Be Brave? A Peek Inside of Parent Coaching

Delicia Moraleda • May 9, 2023

"There is nothing wrong with my daughter’s behavior. She doesn't need to be fixed. She needs to be supported."

At the end of our session, I asked my client what she would take from our time together. The quote above was her response. She said it with a smile, relief in her body, and gratitude for seeing her daughter beyond her behavior and her own fears.

This conversation is how our session ended, but for you to appreciate the clear ending, it helps to understand the cluttered beginning. A mother reached out to me from a place of confusion. She intended to gain some clarity and understanding of her child’s social development. We discovered we had to go beyond her heartache and pain to understand her child’s body and brain.

Understanding what keeps us from being brave

Our brains and bodies are designed to detect threats and protect us from harm. Our brain knows how to behave in the presence of danger. It communicates that to our bodies, calling for us to be brave. Something happens in our body before we choose bravery. Our nervous system switches gears into high alert. It prepares for danger.

Sometimes, the danger is not real.

Parents have an exceptional danger detector when it comes to their children. This danger detector senses our child's needs and calls us to show up. Mama Bear and Papa Penguin emerge in the face of any threat to their child, and a parent can be brave despite the danger.

Sometimes, the threat is not real.

Don't get me wrong. The danger and threat can feel real. Our brain and body have been trained to survive. Fear and anger activate emotions that put us in gear to take action. We fall into default behavior patterns or get brave to manage these situations.

What happens when we live in a community, culture, country, or world that is confused and conflicted about the actual vs. perceived dangers and threats to survival? Parenting adds another dimension to our danger detector for our children. The threats can feel very real and personal. As parents, our brains could wave red flags at:

A phone call from school requesting a meeting to implement a behavioral plan for your 4-year-old.
The teacher calls to express concern about your 2-year-old, who is 'antisocial.'
Your tween or teen messes up, makes a bad choice, tells a lie, or yells at you.

Parents worry. They're afraid. They sense danger. The fear or anger they feel and the threat signals that light up are not only for their children but also for themselves.

It's easy to fall into the trap of focusing on behavior – which, as parents, could look like reactive measures to deal with the threat signal. We may react to those red flags raised above when we focus on behavior. We may:

Meet with the school and put a behavioral plan in place, punish the child for their behavior by taking away their devices, or lecture the child on bad/disruptive behavior and why they shouldn't be doing it.
Book your child in for play or occupational therapy or arrange more playdates.
Yell, punish, or lecture your child on their attitude.

Why we get stuck in behaving

Many of us are conditioned to behave, fit into society's boxes, and comply with the standard behavior expectations in a community, culture, or country's systems. Some systems enslave us when they try to control how we behave, whether we want to admit it or not.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, to enslave “is to control someone's actions, thoughts, emotions, or life completely.” Parents are influenced and guided by these systems, influencing how we raise our children. Some systems directly impact or threaten the family values we align to, such as:

School systems
Religious systems
Family systems
Cultural systems
Legal Systems

These systems have their purpose and place in our lives and development.

However, there are three core mistakes we tend to make when looking only at the behavior:

First, we see the behavior as intentional, as in, 'My child is choosing to be naughty/disruptive/loud.'
Second, we take a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to dealing with the behavior, as in 'My child needs to be punished/needs to be diagnosed/needs to learn a lesson.'
Lastly, where education is super important, we need more fundamental knowledge and understanding of human development.

From a very young age, we are taught how to behave through different messages, lessons, and modeling of what good behavior looks and sounds like. We are acknowledged, praised, and rewarded for “good behavior.”

Parents who raise well-behaved children are complimented, admired, and respected by other parents, grandparents, friends, school teachers, community leaders, sports coaches, etc.

But all of this focus on behavior robs our children of something precious. It teaches them that compliance is a more important goal than freedom. I’m not saying that there aren’t standards of behavior that we can guide our children to adopt. I’m encouraging the addition of another ingredient to the mix: Bravery.

Why we need to be brave

Who needs to be brave when they know how to behave?

We all do!

The dictionary defines bravery as "having or showing mental or moral strength to face danger, fear, or difficulty.”

Bravery allows us to discern between real and perceived danger. Understanding the difference between raising our children to behave or be brave, I believe that most parents hope to raise children with the mental and moral strength to face their fears and life’s difficulties confidently.

Inviting parents and children to be brave can be challenging. This challenge is especially true in the times we're living in when the systems that are supposed to be leading, guiding, educating, and liberating us are enslaving us.

Cultivating awareness of what's happening inside you – inside your brain, heart, and body – is an act of bravery. Getting curious and gaining an understanding of and compassion for your fears is an act of bravery.

When we can be brave, we respond instead of reacting. When our brain hones in on red flags, and the conditioned reactions prompt us to fix the problem, we can remember that bravery can serve us well. Using the above examples, a brave parent might choose differently.

Perhaps we:

Meet with the school to understand why our child struggles to concentrate, participate or listen in class. We ask questions, share observations, and look at the environment.
We schedule more 1:1 time with our children. We work on creating a safe and secure relationship within the family that will be the foundation for their relationships outside.
We slow down, get curious and listen. We connect with our tween or teen and let them know that we care, are there for them, and want to help.

What's more important: to behave or be brave?

Both are important and have value. As a parent, I aim to nurture and encourage bravery as the foundation of my children's behavior. As a parent coach, I aim to educate and illuminate bravery as the platform from which parents choose to parent their children.

Bravery is being able to say and believe that; "There is nothing wrong with my child."

I checked in on my client a few days after our session, after she had time to reflect on our conversation, integrate her new awareness, and practice some of the strategies we brainstormed together. She said, “It’s reassuring to know that my child’s behavior makes sense in the grand scheme of things.”

My client came to me thinking she needed to do something to correct her child’s behavior and learned that there was nothing to fix. She only had a child who needed to be understood and supported.

“Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.” — Aristotle.

Meet Your Author, Delicia Moraleda

Delicia Moraleda is a certified Master Trainer at The Jai Institute for Parenting and a former Montessori Preschool Teacher who is determined to contribute to the gentle revolution that helps parents show up for their children in ways that will improve our world.

In her work as a coach, Delicia enthusiastically simplifies important and life-changing information that inspires parents to enjoy their parenting journey, celebrate themselves and their children and confidently embody their family values.

When she’s not diving deeper into child development or neuroscience, she’s dancing and walking around her island home. She enjoys her two sons' unconditional love and her dear husband's unwavering support.

Business Name: Go Beyond Parenthood

Website: www.gobeyondparenthood.com

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What’s Actually Happening Inside Your Child’s Developing Brain

By Maggie Pouplis • June 3, 2026

Almost every parent experiences this more than once. Your child changes, and suddenly, you feel like you no longer fully understand them. The toddler who melts down over the “wrong” cup. The once easygoing school-aged child who suddenly becomes more sensitive, withdrawn, or reactive. The teenager who pulls away just when you feel the strongest urge to protect them. And somewhere in those moments, most parents begin searching for explanations. “Something changed.” “Someone is influencing them.” “They’ve become difficult.” “Social media is ruining this generation.” As parents, we naturally try to make sense of behavior. We look for causes because uncertainty feels uncomfortable, especially when it involves someone we love so deeply. But many times, what changes first is not the child’s character. It is the child’s developing brain. One of the most important things I learned during my training with the Jai Institute for Parenting was that behavior cannot be fully understood outside the context of relationship, nervous system development, and emotional safety. That perspective stayed with me and eventually led me to dive even deeper into developmental neuroscience and brain development. Because once you begin to understand how the brain develops, it stops looking like defiance, manipulation, laziness, or attitude. The behavior begins to look like development. In the early years of life, especially between ages two and four, children experience emotions intensely while still lacking the neurological maturity to regulate them independently. The areas of the brain responsible for impulse control, emotional regulation, planning, and perspective taking are still under construction. In other words, young children often feel enormous emotions inside very small nervous systems. This is why a toddler can completely fall apart because their banana broke in half or because you gave them the “wrong” spoon. To the adult brain, the reaction may seem dramatic. To the child’s nervous system, however, the distress is real. This does not mean children should grow up without boundaries . It means that in moments of emotional flooding, connection and regulation often need to come before teaching. As Dr. Daniel Siegel often explains, an overwhelmed brain cannot effectively access logic, learning, or problem-solving. The nervous system must first return to a state of safety before true learning can happen. This is where co-regulation becomes incredibly important. Children borrow our nervous systems long before they can consistently regulate themselves. They learn emotional regulation through repeated relational experiences with calm, connected adults. Of course, this does not mean parents must remain perfectly calm all the time. Parents are human beings with limits, stress, exhaustion, responsibilities, and their own nervous systems. What matters most is not perfection but repair, awareness, and the overall emotional climate of the relationship. As children move into the school-age years, something else begins to happen. Around ages five to seven, the social brain expands significantly. Children become increasingly aware of how others see them. Acceptance, belonging, comparison, fairness, and peer relationships begin carrying much more emotional weight. This is often the age when parents say things like: “They suddenly became more sensitive.” “They take everything personally now.” “They worry more than before.” And they are usually right. At this stage, children are not simply reacting emotionally. They are beginning to build a deeper social identity. Their brains are becoming more aware of social evaluation and emotional meaning within relationships. Then comes a stage I personally believe is one of the most misunderstood of all: roughly ages eight to ten. Many parents expect things to stabilize by this point. Instead, some children become quieter, more introspective, more emotionally reactive, or seemingly disconnected. Others become easily bored, frustrated, or emotionally overwhelmed. And naturally, adults begin creating narratives around those changes. “They’re lazy.” “They’ve changed.” “They don’t care anymore.” But very often, what we are witnessing is neurological reorganization rather than deterioration. During this period, the brain begins a major process called synaptic pruning. Neural connections that are not frequently used begin to weaken, while frequently used pathways become stronger and more efficient. At the same time, children develop more complex emotional awareness, deeper thinking, and a richer internal world. Many children at this age begin asking bigger questions about themselves, relationships, fairness, identity, and belonging, even if they cannot fully articulate those thoughts yet. Sometimes what adults interpret as withdrawal is actually cognitive and emotional expansion happening internally. And then adolescence arrives, perhaps the stage that activates the most fear in parents. Teenagers begin separating psychologically from their parents as part of healthy development. Their need for autonomy increases while the emotional and reward systems of the brain become highly sensitive. Peer relationships become deeply important, emotions intensify, and risk-taking often increases. To many parents, this can feel frightening or even personal. But adolescence is not a broken relationship. It is a developmental transition. Teenagers still need boundaries, guidance, and emotional safety. Perhaps more than ever. But they also need space to develop identity, autonomy, and a sense of self outside the parent-child dynamic. And maybe this is one of the biggest challenges of parenting today: learning how to remain emotionally available without trying to control every stage of development out of fear. Modern parenting often places enormous pressure on parents to react perfectly at every moment. But children do not need perfect parents. They need regulated enough adults who are willing to stay curious about what behavior may actually be communicating. Because many times, children are not trying to give us a hard time. They are trying to organize a developing brain and nervous system inside a very overstimulating world. And perhaps the question we need to ask more often is not “How do I stop this behavior?” , but “What might this developing brain be trying to communicate through it?”