If you’ve ever given your child the ice cream just to stop the crying — or held the boundary so firmly that you shut down the tears altogether — you’ve probably wondered which approach was actually right. The truth is, neither extreme is about right or wrong. It’s about what each one teaches your child about their own feelings.
That’s the heart of a recent conversation I had with Dr. Jacqueline Jacobs Tynan, a Denver-based clinical psychologist who specializes in attachment-based therapy for children and families. Dr. Jacqueline trained in Infant Mental Health and Early Childhood Mental Health through Children’s Hospital Colorado and CU Anschutz, and she works with families navigating everything from everyday tantrums to early trauma. Our conversation reframed how to think about “ignoring” behavior — and I think you will appreciate it.
Behavior Is the Smoke Alarm, Not the Fire
One of the most useful ideas Dr. Jacqueline shared is a metaphor borrowed from Circle of Security: a fire alarm going off in your living room while a fire burns in the kitchen. You could reach up and pull the batteries out of the alarm, and the beeping would stop. But the fire would keep burning.
Your child’s behavior works the same way. The tantrum, the back-talk, the meltdown over leaving the park — that’s the alarm. It’s not the actual problem. The real question isn’t “how do I make this stop right now,” it’s “what’s the fire underneath this alarm, and how do I get to the source of it.” Slowing down enough to ask that question is often the hardest and most important step a parent can take in a hard moment.
Selective Attention Is Not the Same as Ignoring
A lot of parents hear “don’t engage with that behavior” and panic, worried they’re abandoning their child emotionally. Dr. Jacqueline draws a clear line here: selective attention means choosing not to respond to a specific unwanted behavior, while staying completely present and emotionally available as a parent.
What actually feels unsafe to a child isn’t a parent declining to argue about dessert. It’s a parent who emotionally checks out altogether — who goes silent, withdraws warmth, or stops being present as a regulating presence. You can hold a boundary and stay warm at the same time. In fact, that combination is what teaches kids that boundaries and connection aren’t opposites.
Why Giving In Can Backfire — And Why So Can Never Letting Kids Be Upset
Here’s where the conversation got especially interesting. Dr. Jacqueline pointed out that when we give a child the ice cream just because they’re crying, we’re inadvertently sending a message: your big feelings are too much for me to tolerate, so I need to make them stop as fast as possible. That can teach kids that their own emotional experiences are something to be afraid of.
But the opposite extreme — the old-school approach of not allowing kids to be upset at all — sends a strikingly similar message. In both cases, kids learn that certain emotions aren’t okay to have. The healthier middle ground sounds something like this: “You’re not getting dessert tonight, and you’re allowed to be upset about that. We can get through this together.” The boundary stays the same. What changes is whether the child’s feelings about the boundary are welcomed or treated as a problem to eliminate.
This matters well beyond childhood. Kids who learn early that uncomfortable feelings are survivable carry that skill forward — into nervous moments before a school presentation, into the discomfort of making new friends in college, into every hard conversation adulthood will eventually ask of them.
The Vending Machine Effect
Dr. Jacqueline offered another memorable image for how kids’ behavior gets learned over time: a vending machine that doesn’t dispense your snack on the first push of the button. You push again. Still nothing. You kick the machine, and suddenly your chips drop. The next time that machine acts up, you’re probably going straight to the kick — because that’s what worked last time.
Kids’ brains learn the same way. If a calm request doesn’t get a response but a meltdown does, a child will learn — not consciously, but just as powerfully — that escalation is the route to getting needs met. Selective attention, used early and consistently, helps interrupt that pattern. Importantly, it doesn’t mean ignoring the need underneath the behavior. It means not reinforcing the specific behavior that isn’t actually the most effective way for a child to communicate that need.
When Is It a Tantrum, and When Is It Something Deeper?
Parents often want a clean way to tell the difference between a child testing a boundary and a child reacting to fear, stress, or a past traumatic experience. Dr. Jacqueline was candid that this distinction is rarely obvious in real time. Trauma can attach itself to surprising things for young children — a location, a type of food, a sound — in ways that are hard for a parent to predict or recognize in the moment.
Her guidance is to start with reflection rather than certainty: slow down, get curious about what a child might be trying to communicate, and make your best guess. She noted that research suggests parents misread these moments roughly seven times out of ten — and that this is completely normal. What matters far more than getting it right immediately is being willing to circle back afterward, acknowledge the miss, and repair the moment together.
Repair Builds More Trust Than Perfection Ever Could
This idea — that getting it wrong and coming back to repair builds deeper trust than never getting it wrong — might be the most reassuring takeaway from the whole conversation. A parent who can say “I missed what you were trying to tell me, and I’m sorry” teaches a child that relationships can survive mistakes. That’s a far more useful life lesson than the impossible standard of parental perfection.
Over time, this kind of repeated, imperfect repair becomes the foundation for how kids learn to navigate every other relationship in their lives — friendships, romantic partnerships, even how they treat themselves when they fall short.
If this conversation resonated, you can learn more about Dr. Jacqueline Jacobs Tynan’s work supporting families through early childhood and parenting challenges. And if your family could use additional support navigating these patterns, our team at Integrated Behavioral Health is here to help.
Resources & Links:
- Learn more about Dr. Jacqueline Jacobs Tynan’s work
- What is Circle of Security?
- Postpartum Support International
- Integrated Behavioral Health: integratedbhs.com