This Is The Important Way Understanding Emotions Improves Your Family

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Parenting is often described as one of life’s greatest joys, but if we’re being honest, it’s also one of the greatest stressors. Sleepless nights, tantrums, teenage eye-rolls, and the endless balancing act of grown-up responsibilities of work and family can push even the most patient parent to the brink.

It’s not just kids who have big feelings. Parents do, too. And when we don’t understand or tend to our emotions, we unintentionally pass our struggles along to our children. Neuroscience shows that emotions aren’t optional—they’re hardwired survival programs in the brain and body that guide behavior, connection, and resilience. Learning how to work with our emotions is one of the most important skills we can cultivate, both for our own mental health and for raising emotionally healthy kids.

This is the heart of Hilary Jacobs Hendel and Juli Fraga’s new book, Parents Have Feelings, Too: A Guide to Navigating Your Emotions So You and Your Family Can Thrive. Drawing on research and clinical wisdom, the authors introduce two powerful tools: the Change Triangle, a map for emotional awareness, and the Four Capacities of the Open-Hearted State—calm, connection, curiosity, and compassion.

In the book, the authors explore why understanding emotions matters so much, how to shift old patterns, and what you can do today to parent (and live) with more openness and resilience.

We Are Wired for Emotional Connection

From birth, babies are wired to seek connection. Long before they understand words, they read tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language. Neuroscience research shows that a caregiver’s emotional attunement—smiling back at joy, soothing fear, naming frustration—literally shapes a child’s developing nervous system.

Secure attachment forms when children feel consistently seen, soothed, and safe. In contrast, when emotions are ignored or punished, kids may grow into adults who fear closeness, over-give to keep others happy, or disconnect from their own emotions and needs.

Here’s the hopeful part: awareness is the first step to breaking intergenerational patterns. By reflecting on how your own parents responded to emotions and noticing how that shows up in your reactions, you can begin to respond differently to your children.

👉 Read more about how childhood shapes brain and mental health: How childhood trauma can affect mental and physical health into adulthood.

What Are Emotions?

Science has long supported the classical view that emotions are involuntary, automatic, and hardwired. An alternate, more recent view suggests that your emotions are not built-in but made. It posits that they are also not universal and vary from culture to culture. They are not triggered biologically, but created. In this theory, your brain constructs your experience of emotion based on how you have come to understand that emotion as being expressed and appropriate. We learn them from our environments as children.

In either case, many of us are taught unhealthy myths about emotions: that strong people don’t cry, that we should be able to “get over it,” or that kids need to toughen up. The truth is exactly the opposite.

Emotions aren’t all in your head. They are in your body too. They trigger physiological shifts in heart rate, breathing, and muscle tension. That’s why you can’t just “think away” anger or fear.
Emotions are survival signals. Anger helps you set boundaries. Fear protects you from danger. Sadness helps you mourn, and joy draws you closer to others.
Avoiding emotions backfires. Science and experience tell us that suppressing feelings doesn’t make them disappear. It drives them underground, often resurfacing as anxiety, depression, or physical illness.

When parents acknowledge, accept, and work with their emotions, they model emotional intelligence for their children. Kids learn not only that all feelings are valid, but also that there are healthy ways to process them without acting out with unhealthy behaviors. This fosters resilience, empathy, and confidence.

The Change Triangle: A Map Back to Your Authentic Self

Hendel and Fraga describe a tool, they call the Change Triangle for navigating emotions. The Change Triangle is a simple, science-backed map for understanding and working with emotions. It has three corners:

Defenses – The ways we avoid feelings (blame, denial, overwork, distraction).
Inhibitory Emotions – Anxiety, guilt, and shame, which block core emotions.
Core Emotions – Sadness, anger, fear, joy, excitement, and disgust—our built-in survival programs.

The goal isn’t to get rid of emotions but to move through them instead of getting stuck in them and move toward what the authors call the open-hearted state: calm, connection, curiosity, and compassion.

For example, instead of lashing out when your child refuses to listen, you might pause, notice the anger rising in your body, name it (“I’m angry because I need cooperation”), and respond by setting a firm but kind boundary. This shifts the interaction from reactivity to connection.

Neuroscience supports this process. When we slow down and name emotions, you engage the prefrontal cortex, which helps regulate the limbic system. This integration reduces impulsivity and increases emotional calm, control, and resilience.

In a social media post, Hendel wrote:

In order to truly see our children, we have to see and accept their emotions most of all. And in order to do this, we have to understand and accept our own emotions. That’s where the change triangle comes in. This tool that applies universally to all humans explains how emotions work in the mind and body. We don’t get this information in our formal schooling, but we really need it.

👉 Related reading: Are You Responding or Reacting?

The Four Capacities of the Open-Hearted State

Working the Change Triangle leads to the Four Capacities of the open-hearted state—qualities that strengthen both parenting and overall well-being:

Calm – Taking a breath before reacting, grounding yourself in your body.
Connection – Staying attuned to your feelings and your child’s.
Curiosity – Approaching difficult moments with openness instead of judgment.
Compassion – Offering kindness and understanding, to yourself, your children, and others.

When parents embody these qualities, they model and help children develop emotional intelligence, self-compassion, and resilience. Families thrive when emotions are not something to be feared or suppressed but welcomed, talked about, and worked through openly.

👉 Related reading: The Benefits Of Self-Compassion And How To Get More

Practical Steps You Can Try Today

The authors outline simple steps you can start practicing today to help your family build emotional health:

Name your feelings out loud. Saying, “I’m feeling frustrated right now” normalizes emotions and models healthy expression.
Notice body cues. Tight shoulders, a racing heart, or clenched fists are signals to pause and breathe.
Validate your child’s emotions—even when setting limits. You can say, “I can see you’re angry that playtime is over. I know it is hard to stop, but right now it’s bedtime.”
Check in with the 4 Cs. Before reacting, ask yourself: Am I calm? Connected? Curious? Compassionate?

Why Understanding Emotions Matters for Mental Health

Research consistently shows that children who grow up in emotionally attuned environments are more resilient, empathetic, and better able to regulate stress throughout life (see Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child). Parents who develop these skills also benefit, with lower anxiety, stronger relationships, and improved overall well-being.

The good news is that it’s never too late to change. Whether you’re a new parent or guiding adult children, working with your emotions strengthens your brain, your child’s brain, your relationships, and your family’s overall health and connection.

Final Thoughts

Parenting isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being present.

A growing body of neuroscience research makes one thing clear: emotional awareness is not just a parenting skill—it’s a human survival skill.

When we stop seeing emotions as obstacles and start viewing them as valuable information, we build emotional awareness that opens the door to deeper connection, healing, and healthier parenting and for ourselves and our children. Hilary Jacobs Hendel and Juli Fraga’s book, Parents Have Feelings, Too, is a powerful resource for any parent who wants to navigate emotions—theirs and their children’s— with clarity and compassion.

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