Developmental psychologist Donald Winnicott coined a phrase that sounds almost like an insult but is actually a liberation: 'good enough mother.' He wasn't lowering the bar — he was diagnosing a hidden danger. A parent who tries to be perfectly attuned, who smooths every frustration and meets every need before it fully forms, inadvertently denies the child the experience of tolerating a gap between wanting and having. That gap is where psychological muscle grows. The friction you instinctively want to eliminate is often the very resistance your child needs to develop the capacity to bear discomfort, delay, and disappointment. Your mental fitness as a parent, then, isn't measured by how seamlessly you manage their experience — it's measured by your ability to tolerate watching them struggle without rushing in. That requires something closer to courage than technique.

What's a frustration or discomfort you routinely absorb on your child's behalf that they are probably old enough to sit with themselves?

Drawing from Object Relations Psychology (British Middle School) — D.W. Winnicott (Playing and Reality, 1971; The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment, 1965)