Why tantrums, boredom, and limits are actually part of healthy development

Parents are getting hammered with mixed messages:

“Stimulate their brain at all times!”
“Don’t overstimulate them!”
“Gentle parent!”
“Set firm boundaries!”
“Let them be kids!”
“Prepare them for a brutal world!”

No wonder you feel like whatever you do, it’s wrong.

Here’s the thing: healthy development actually requires some of the stuff that makes parents most uncomfortable—boredom, mess, mistakes, big loud tantrums, and repeatedly bumping into limits. And kids also need something that can feel just as hard: a steady adult who has their back when it all falls apart.

Let’s break that down.

Play, “Getting It Wrong,” and the Growing Brain

Jean Piaget, one of the big names in child development, basically argued that kids don’t just absorb information like tiny sponges—they build their understanding of the world by actively messing with it. They move through stages (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational) and at each stage, play and experimentation are how they learn. PositivePsychology.com+1

That means:

When your kid builds a tower and gleefully knocks it down, then cries because it broke—that’s not failure, that’s physics and emotional regulation training.
When they put the puzzle piece in the wrong place ten times before getting it right—that’s not “stubborn,” that’s cognitive development.

Kids need space to:

Explore without a goal (no “What did you learn from that?” debrief required).
Try things that don’t work.
Feel the frustration of “I can’t do it” and discover “oh, wait, now I can.”

If adults are constantly correcting, entertaining, or rescuing, kids lose the chance to build those internal muscles.

Boredom Is Not a Crisis. It’s a Skill.

Modern parenting culture treats boredom like a medical emergency. But boredom is often the doorway to creativity and self-knowledge.

When a child has nothing to do, a few important things can happen:

They notice their own thoughts and feelings.
They learn they can survive discomfort without external fixes.
They start to initiate—drawing, building, reading, daydreaming, making up games, whatever.

This is very Winnicott-coded. Donald Winnicott wrote about “transitional space”—a kind of in-between zone where the child is not being directly stimulated by an adult but is still held in a safe environment. In that space, play and creativity emerge, and the “true self” develops. psyprofi.si+1

So when you tell your kid, “I’m not entertaining you right now, but I’m right here,” you are not neglecting them; you’re literally giving their mind space to grow.

Tantrums: The Nervous System in Practice

Let’s talk about the big ones—the screaming-on-the-floor, flailing, “I hate you!” moments.

Tantrums are not a PR problem for your parenting brand. They are a nervous system learning to tolerate intense states:

Overwhelm
Disappointment
Frustration
Loss of control

Kids are supposed to fall apart sometimes. The work of childhood is learning:

“I can have giant feelings, lose it completely, and still come back to calm—especially if someone safe is with me.”

That doesn’t mean letting your kid hurt themselves or others. Safety limits are non-negotiable. But “no” on the behavior doesn’t have to mean “no” on the feeling.

You might say with a younger child:

“I won’t let you hit. I’m going to move your body away. You can be as mad as you need to be; I’m staying.”

You’re not rewarding the tantrum. You’re teaching:

Feelings: allowed.
Harm: not allowed.
Connection: still here.

Limits: The Other Side of Safety

A lot of parents hear “gentle parenting” and think it means avoiding limits. But developmentally, limits are a gift.

John Bowlby’s attachment theory describes caregivers as both a secure base for exploration and a safe haven for comfort. When kids know there’s someone steady to come back to, they feel brave enough to go out, try, fail, and try again. Simply Psychology+1

Models like Circle of Security literally draw this out as a loop: the child goes out to explore the world, then comes back in for comfort and refueling, all with the caregiver “bigger, stronger, wiser, and kind” in the background. circleofsecurityinternational.com+1

Limits are how kids learn:

Where their own edges are.
What’s safe vs. unsafe.
Where they’re strong and where they need help.

When you say:

“You can be mad, and you still can’t throw the toy at your brother.”
“Yes, you’re disappointed. No, we’re not buying another thing today.”

…you’re not crushing their spirit. You’re building their internal map of reality. Limits, held with warmth, often increase a child’s sense of safety.

The “Good Enough” Caregiver (Not the Perfect One)

Winnicott famously described the “good enough mother” (read: caregiver) as someone who:

Starts off highly responsive and attuned.
Gradually allows small, tolerable frustrations.
Stays emotionally available, even when the child is upset. Lotura Psychology+1

Those tiny “misattunements”—you don’t get the snack fast enough, you say no to a fifth episode, you misread a cue—are not failures. They are reps. They help kids:

Build frustration tolerance.
Adapt to reality.
Develop independence while still feeling loved.

You don’t have to always say the perfect thing, never raise your voice, or never use an iPad. You just need to be real, repair when things go sideways, and stay connected enough that your kid trusts you’re in their corner.

Why This Feels So Hard: Your History Is Sitting in the Room Too

Let’s name the part most parenting books skip: this stuff is triggering.

If you grew up with:

Chaos and no one protecting you
Parents who shamed or ignored your feelings
Caregivers who were controlling, critical, or emotionally absent

…then watching your child sob, rage, or struggle can hit every alarm bell in your body.

Common survival strategies that show up in parenting:

Over-protecting: “If I never let them feel pain or fail, they’ll never have to go through what I did.”
Over-providing: “If I just give more—more activities, more help, more structure—they’ll be okay.”
Over-pushing independence: “I had to do everything myself; I’m going to make sure they can too so they never have to rely on anyone who could hurt them.”

None of these come from malice. They’re all trauma-informed strategies your system developed to keep people safe.

The problem is when we go too far in any one direction:

No limits → kids feel anxious and uncontained.
Constant rescue → kids doubt their own abilities.
“Figure it out yourself” → kids learn others can’t be trusted.

The goal isn’t perfect balance (that doesn’t exist). It’s noticing your patterns and course-correcting just enough so your child gets both: room to explore and a soft place to land.

And Then There’s Oppression: When the World Is Not Safe for Your Child

Everything above gets more complicated when your child is growing up in a body or identity the world targets.

If you’re raising a Black, Brown, immigrant, disabled, queer, trans, or otherwise marginalized kid, you may know—not fear, know—that they will be:

Profiled
Blamed
Excluded
Over-disciplined at school
Less believed when harmed

Research is very clear: systemic racism and discrimination create chronic stress for families, which impacts child development, learning, and health over time. Harvard Child Development Center+1

Parents in marginalized communities are often doing double or triple duty:

Protecting their kids from real external danger.
Teaching them how to navigate bias and violence (racial-ethnic socialization). American Psychological Association+1
Trying to give them space to be kids—to play, explore, and mess up—inside systems that punish them more harshly for doing exactly that.

So if you feel like you can’t “just let them fail” because the consequences in school, in public, or with police are not the same for your child—that’s not anxiety out of nowhere. That’s you reading the environment accurately.

Studies show that parents’ own experiences of discrimination and their worry about their child facing racism are linked to kids’ mental health outcomes. At the same time, when caregivers feel more supported and confident in how they talk with kids about race and safety, it can buffer some of those effects. OUP Academic+1

In other words: your vigilance makes sense and you still deserve support so you’re not parenting from constant fear.

So What Does This Look Like in Real Life?

A few examples of “good enough,” developmentally-supportive parenting in a very imperfect world:

Letting them play without a point:
- “You don’t have to make something ‘good.’ You can just mess around with the blocks/paint/Legos. I’ll be over here if you need me.”
Making room for boredom:
- “I’m not going to add a new show right now. You might feel bored, and I know you can handle that. I’m close by.”
Holding tantrums with limits:
- “You’re furious we’re leaving the park. I get it. You can yell. I won’t let you hit me. We’re still going home.”
Naming your own stuff (in a kid-appropriate way):
- “Sometimes when you’re upset, I get really tense inside because of how I grew up. That’s not your fault. I’m working on taking deep breaths and staying with you.”
For marginalized families:
- “You deserve to be a kid and make mistakes. Because of how people treat us, I have to teach you extra safety rules. That’s about the world, not about your worth.”

If You Take One Thing From This

Kids don’t need a flawless parent.

They need:

Space to play, explore, and be bored.
Permission to have big, messy feelings.
Clear, consistent limits that keep everyone safe.
At least one adult who is reliably in their corner—especially when things go wrong.

And you need enough support so you’re not carrying all of this alone, especially if you’re parenting while navigating your own trauma, racism, ableism, and other systems that make the job heavier than it should be.

If this resonates with you, or you’re sitting there asking “well, shit, what do I do with this infomration now?” get attached! Meet with our team to see how your own patterns influence how you parent your kids, and ways to work with the big messy reality of kids. Connect Today

Kids Need Wild Play and Big Feelings