Understanding the Nervous System: How Our Children Learn to Feel Safe, Loved, and Enough
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By Ntombenhle Khathwane
Before a child learns to speak, to write, or even to walk, their nervous system is already learning one of two things:
“The world is safe, and I am safe in it.”
Or: The world is unsafe, and I must always be on guard.”
This learning doesn’t happen through words. It happens through feeling. Through tone of voice. Through eye contact. Through touch. Through whether their cries are responded to. Through how calm or chaotic their home is.
Understanding your child’s nervous system, and your own, is one of the most powerful parenting tools you can have. Because what we often call “personality” in a child is often just a nervous system response that was shaped by the emotional environment they grew up in.
What is the Nervous System, Exactly?
The nervous system is your body’s communication network. It includes your brain, spinal cord, and all the nerves that carry signals throughout your body. It controls everything, from your heartbeat and breathing to your emotions, reactions, and how safe you feel in the world.
It has two major modes:
As adults, we often toggle between these systems. But in children, especially infants and toddlers, the nervous system is still developing and highly dependent on the emotional cues from caregivers to determine what’s safe, what’s not, and whether they themselves are enough.
How the Nervous System Develops in Babies and Children
When a baby is born, their nervous system is immature. It’s like soft clay, it takes shape based on the environment around it.
So much of who our children become is shaped not just by what we teach, but by how their nervous systems were formed in relationship with us.
The Deep Beliefs That Form in Childhood
When a child experiences chronic stress, emotional neglect, or even a highly unpredictable environment, their nervous system can become stuck in survival mode, and their subconscious absorbs painful beliefs that shape their self-worth. These are known as core wounds:
These beliefs don’t just stay in childhood, they follow us into adulthood, relationships, and even parenting.
If we don’t heal these messages within ourselves, we often pass them, silently and unintentionally, to our children.
Personality or Nervous System Adaptation?
We often say, “My child is shy,” or “She’s bossy,” or “He’s clingy.”
But often, what we’re seeing is not personality, but a nervous system adaptation to how safe, or unsafe, a child feels in their body and environment.
Understanding this changes everything. It replaces judgment with compassion. And it invites us, as parents, to ask not: “What’s wrong with my child?” but instead: “What has my child experienced that shaped this response?”
My Journey as a Parent and Nervous System Healer
I have three beautiful children. And like many parents, I didn’t enter healed at all. I was better healed when I had my second and third child. I entered carrying wounds from my own childhood.
One of the deepest wounds I carried was the belief that “I am not good enough. I am not loved.” That wound came from a father who was not present. A father who cheated on my mother, and had children with other women. I watched that betrayal unfold as a child, and I didn’t have the tools to understand that his actions weren’t about me. So I took it personally. I blamed myself. I internalised it as: “I wasn’t enough for him to stay. I wasn’t worth protecting.”
That’s the heartbreaking thing about father wounds, they cut so close to our sense of safety and belonging. The one who was meant to make the world feel safe… instead made it feel dangerous, uncertain, and unstable. And for years, that belief followed me into relationships, into self-doubt, and even into motherhood.
It took me decades of deep, tiring, soul-level work to heal that wound. I had to learn to separate my father’s behaviour from my worth. His cheating had nothing to do with me. But I had to truly reparent myself to believe that.
And that’s why I say: cheating is not just betrayal between partners, it is a destroyer of families, of nervous systems, of belief systems. It shakes a child’s trust in the world and in themselves before they even understand the language to name it.
And yet, I have found healing. I’ve forgiven him, not to excuse, but to release. I’ve let go of his stuff, so that I don’t hand it down to my own children. And in that process, I’ve become a more present, aware, and emotionally safe mother.
I still have healing conversations with my eldest. I’ve apologised when I’ve passed down my pain. But I also see the fruits of the healing, my children know their worth, but I must say, it is constant work. And that, to me, is the cycle-breaking work of a worthy parent.
What Parents Can Do to Support a Regulated Nervous System
Even if you didn’t grow up in a safe or emotionally supportive environment, you can re-wire your own nervous system, and raise your children in a way that helps their nervous system develop resilience, confidence, and calm.
Here are a few daily tools:
Your child doesn’t calm down because you tell them to. They calm down through you. When you remain calm and grounded during their chaos, their nervous system begins to regulate through yours.
Especially for small children, knowing what comes next helps them feel safe. Structure helps their brains relax.
Your voice and facial expressions send constant signals to your child’s nervous system — “You are safe,” or “You are in trouble.” Make sure love is felt not just in actions, but in tone.
When you yell, shut down, or withdraw (because you’re human), always come back and repair: “I’m sorry I shouted. You didn’t deserve that. I’m working on staying calm.” This builds trust.
A dysregulated parent can’t regulate a child. Learn tools like deep breathing, grounding exercises, and self-reflection. Your nervous system is your parenting superpower.
Final Word: Safe Nervous Systems Create Whole Children
You don’t need to be a perfect parent.
You don’t need a psychology degree.
You only need to be present, curious, and committed to creating an environment where your child’s body learns:
“I am loved. I am enough. I am safe here.”
Because a regulated nervous system creates regulated children.
And regulated children become adults who are not trapped by fear, shame, or the feeling of being “not enough.”
Let’s raise children whose nervous systems are wired for joy, not just survival.
And let’s begin with our own healing — one breath, one pause, one connection at a time.
