When Kid's Nervous System is Dependent on Adult Interpretation

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]So, today I want to talk a little bit more about child safeguarding.

[00:00:04]Uh and yesterday I spoke about what is happening when children are led by their parents or caregivers not to trust their cues of their body. So, if a caregiver is saying, for example, you know, you're not hungry when the child is hungry or you that didn't hurt or you're overreacting or uh you shouldn't feel scared right now or that's a woman, not a man. Uh and if a child is repetitively told uh that they can't trust their bodies' cues, this ultimately leads them not to be able to be responsive to those internal signals and instinct. External authority is becoming more real than those direct sense perceptions. And the problem here is that the child's nervous system begins to regulate around external authority rather than responsiveness to their own signals. So, this is a safeguarding failure because it creates a lag time. The child stops responding to their own signals and instead starts waiting for adult interpretation.

[00:01:07]Further, the adult's interpretation gets integrated into their own self-perception, their own um ability to communicate those signals, and their own interpretation of those signals. So, they might feel hunger, for example, but they start to interpret that signal through the lens of the adult rather than being able to name it for themselves. They can no longer name and claim. More ability by predatory adults. So, it sets them up to be more pliant to bad authority. Okay, this is the whole problem. This is the whole safeguarding issue that I'm talking about when we lie to kids about reality and when we lie to kids about the signals of their own body. Now, I have seen some of you in my comments, of course not my my real followers, but the my opposition in the comments saying, "Well, kid kids can understand, you know, kids can understand that you know, he they see a man, but they they can understand that they're supposed to see a man and say a woman." No, this again, it's a dissociation. It dissociates them from being able to be responsive to their body signals, okay?

[00:02:25]It sets up a dissonance. And again, it sets up a dependence on adult interpretation rather than responsiveness to their own signals. And this is the whole problem that I'm talking about. All right, I'm going to keep talking about safeguarding, of course. Many of you will have seen I have an upcoming webinar for parents and caregivers and anyone who wants to learn more about child safeguarding. This is all kind of based on an upcoming book that I am working on for 20 27. So, a lot of the material that I am working on is going to be in this webinar. I have been compiling this research for a long time, so I hope that you will join me.

[00:03:07]And of course, any of my paid Substack subscribers, you get a significant discount to the webinar. So, thank you so much for those paid subscribers. I appreciate you.