Grief researchers studying bereaved parents noticed something unexpected: the adults who recovered their psychological footing fastest were not those who processed feelings most thoroughly, but those who could temporarily *set grief aside* — compartmentalize deliberately — and then return to it. Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut named this the Oscillation Model: healthy coping moves back and forth between confronting difficulty and taking a genuine break from it. Most parenting culture leans heavily on the first half. We're encouraged to feel fully, reflect constantly, stay emotionally open. But Stroebe and Schut's research suggests that the break is not avoidance — it is load-bearing. A parent who can genuinely switch off the worry about one child's struggles while making lunch, laughing at something absurd, or going for a run isn't being neglectful. They're doing exactly what recovery requires. The implication is concrete: the moments you catch yourself *not* thinking about the hard thing aren't a failure of devotion. They're the oscillation doing its work.

If you stripped away the assumption that good parents stay emotionally engaged with their child's struggles at all times, what would you actually permit yourself today?

Drawing from Bereavement Psychology / Stress-Coping Research — Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut (Dual Process Model of Coping, 1999)