A child often doesn't need advice, but above all our closeness and time
Modern parenting brings countless situations where adults rack their brains over what to say. A child comes home from school looking sullen, throws their backpack into the corner, and shuts themselves in their room. Or they sit at the table, stirring their soup with a spoon, and when asked "what happened?" they respond with only a quiet shrug. The instinct of most parents is to immediately offer a solution, advice, experience, comfort in the form of words. Yet it is precisely in these moments that a child may not need advice – they need us. Fully. Present. Silent.
This distinction sounds simple, but in practice it is surprisingly difficult. We are used to acting, helping, fixing. The parental role in our culture is strongly associated with passing on wisdom and protecting children from mistakes. Yet research in developmental psychology has consistently shown that children – and indeed people in general – feel most understood not when they receive an answer, but when they feel that someone truly hears them. John Gottman's research from the Gottman Institute, which has spent decades studying relationships and family dynamics, repeatedly confirms that emotional acceptance precedes any meaningful communication.
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Why advice sometimes does more harm than good
Imagine thirteen-year-old Eliška, who comes home from school with tears in her eyes because she had a fight with her best friend. Her dad, an experienced man with a good heart, immediately launches in: "That happens, friendships have their crises, try calling her and apologising, even if you're not sure whether you did something wrong." The advice is technically good. But Eliška stops listening after the first two sentences. Why? Because she hasn't yet heard that her pain is valid. She hasn't yet been given space to even name that pain.
This is the mechanism that psychologists call emotional validation – the confirmation that what a person feels makes sense and is acceptable. Without it, even the wisest advice is like building a house without foundations. In that moment, the child doesn't feel understood, but corrected. And being corrected hurts, even when it's well-intentioned.
Yet the desire to offer advice stems from love and anxiety in equal measure. A parent sees their child suffering and wants to stop it as quickly as possible. That is natural. However, rushing emotions – trying to move a child from an unpleasant feeling to calm as quickly as possible – paradoxically extends the time during which the child feels misunderstood. Emotions that are not accepted do not disappear. They find another way out, or they are stored deep down and surface at other times, in other ways.
It is important to recognise that this applies across age groups. A toddler who bursts into tears because they missed a train in an animated video needs the same type of acceptance as a teenager who has been rejected by a girl they were in love with. The content is different, but the intensity of the experience is always at its maximum for the child. And that is precisely what parents sometimes overlook – the trivialisation of a child's distress, even if unintentional, sends a signal: "Your feelings aren't important enough."
What it means to be truly present
Being present doesn't mean sitting next to a child and waiting for them to finish speaking. It means switching off the part of yourself that is planning a response, and switching on the part that listens. It is an active process that requires conscious effort – especially at times when parents are themselves tired, overwhelmed by work or their own worries.
Psychologist and author Brené Brown put it aptly: "Empathy is not about fixing. Empathy is about feeling with another person." And it is precisely this ability – to be with a child in their emotion, rather than pulling them out of it – that forms the foundation of a secure attachment, which will give them far more in life than any specific piece of advice.
In practice, this can look very simple. Instead of "it'll pass, you'll see," try "that must be hard." Instead of "next time do it differently," try "how did you feel when that happened?" Instead of silence born of not knowing what to say, try silence born of presence – simply being beside the child, touching them, letting them talk or even just being quiet together. Physical closeness without verbal pressure is sometimes the most powerful tool a parent has.
Neuroscience research confirms that touch and the physical presence of a close person actively reduce levels of cortisol – the stress hormone – and help the brain move from a state of threat to a state of safety. According to data from the US National Institute of Mental Health, children who grow up in an environment of emotional safety are more resilient to stress, have better ability to regulate emotions, and function better both at school and in social relationships.
But what does being present actually mean in everyday life full of obligations? It doesn't mean being available twenty-four hours a day. It means being truly here when we are here. Putting down the phone. Not cooking at the same time as a child is talking about something important. Making eye contact. Nodding. Asking: "And what happened next?" – not to resolve the situation, but to show that we care about what comes next.
How to recognise what a child needs at any given moment
Of course, it would be naive to claim that children never need advice. They do – but at the right time and in the right form. The key is learning to recognise when a child comes with a problem they want to solve, and when they come with an emotion they want to share.
One simple but effective approach is to ask directly. Not every child can articulate this, but with older children and teenagers, the question "Do you want me to help you find a solution, or do you need me to just listen?" works surprisingly well. The child feels respected by being given a choice. And the parent receives a clear signal about how to proceed.
With younger children, it is more complex, because they don't yet have language for their own emotions. Here it helps to name the emotions for them – "I can see you're sad. Is it because...?" – and to wait patiently for a response. This technique, which experts call emotion coaching, was described in detail by John Gottman and his colleagues and has proven to be one of the most effective ways to help children develop emotional intelligence.
Parents who practise emotion coaching do not shy away from their children's negative emotions. On the contrary – they embrace them as an opportunity for connection. Sadness, anger, disappointment, fear – these are not problems that need to be immediately eliminated. They are messages about what is happening inside the child, and as such they deserve attention.
Interestingly, this ability to accept children's emotions without immediately trying to fix them is closely connected to how parents themselves handle their own emotions. A parent who has learned that sadness is weakness or that anger is unacceptable will naturally find it harder to sit calmly beside a crying child without the urge to "fix" it. Taking care of one's own emotional health as a parent is therefore not selfishness – it is an investment in the relationship with one's child.
There are also specific situations where presence without advice is particularly important. When a child experiences loss – whether it is the death of a pet, the end of a friendship, or a transition to a new school. When they face a failure that has affected them more deeply than they expected. When they feel different, misunderstood by their peers, or when they are going through pubertal changes that confuse even themselves. In these moments, the need to be heard comes before the need to be guided.
The modern era adds another layer of complexity to this relationship. The digital world, social media, the pressure of performance at school and in extracurricular activities – all of this creates forms of stress in today's children and teenagers that their parents had no experience of in their own childhoods. And it is precisely for this reason that a parent may reach for advice drawn from their own experience that simply doesn't fit the situation the child is facing. "When I was your age..." is a sentence that, in many contexts, tends to increase distance rather than reduce it.
What does work across generations is genuine interest. Real, non-judgmental interest in how a child is doing, what they are experiencing, what troubles or delights them. Interest that is not expressed through interrogation or cross-examination, but through the simple and repeated message: "I'm here. You have me. You can tell me anything."
Parents who have managed to convey this message – not through words, but through their presence and responses – have relationships with their children that survive even the turbulent teenage years, when it seems as though the child doesn't need their parents at all. The truth is the opposite. It is precisely then that they need to know their parent is still there – not with advice, not with judgement, but simply as a person who loves them unconditionally.
And perhaps that is the most important thing a parent can give their child: not the right advice at the right time, but the certainty that whatever they come with, they will not be alone.
