VIDEO DESCRIPTION

When Janice’s 12-year-old daughter was packing for a school trip, she began having a stress-related meltdown in front of her mother. “She was crying on my bed,” Janice says. “She started pulling out all the stops.”

Fighting her maternal instinct to try and “fix” her daughter’s problems and using logic to calm the girl down, Janice did something totally different: Nothing.

“I just kept staying with it,” she says. “It was actually the easiest thing that I did — just connecting with her and letting her just keep getting it out.”

After a few minutes, Janice’s daughter seemed to feel better and bounced off the bed to continue packing. Watch as parenting expert Dr. Shefali Tsabary explains why this approach worked, and how all parents can overcome their instinct to “fix” everything and to shield their children from negative emotions.