Ellen Rauenzahn

In the Western world, it’s common to talk about the mind and the body as though they are separate beings. Some even think of the mind as “driving” the body, as though the body is an inanimate object, energized by a spark of consciousness that lives somewhere up above the neck. More and more, however, research is showing us what some spiritual traditions have long understood: this separation is an illusion.

Have you ever heard of the “good enough” parent? It’s a concept that comes out of Donald Winnicott’s work on child development in the 1950s. The idea is, small failures to meet our children’s every need are actually important moments of growth in our children’s development, giving them opportunities to learn emotional regulation, self-soothing, and delayed gratification. Perpetual attunement to a child’s needs is not just unreasonable, it’s actually unhelpful.

As children move through the world and encounter different experiences—challenges, victories, other humans large and small—their amazing, flexible brains will be wiring new connections, pruning old pathways that aren’t used much, making associations, and learning what they can and can’t take for granted about reality. When older babies and young toddlers go through that endearing phase of dumping everything out and throwing all their food on the floor, they are learning something surprisingly