#1265 - Learning to Trust Your Child's Natural Development

What if the most powerful thing you can do as a parent… is let go?

Today’s episode dives into one of the most radical and relieving ideas in parenting: trusting your child’s natural development. Drawing on powerful research from McGill University, Dr Justin explores why pushing less can actually lead to more—less stress, more confidence, fewer behavioural issues, and healthier relationships. Learn how to spot the traps of controlling parenting and discover the four key ingredients to raising capable, self-motivated kids—without the pressure.

KEY POINTS

• The Research:
  A 2008 study by Landry et al. found that parents who trust their children’s natural development feel more competent, enjoy parenting more, and have children with fewer behaviour problems.
• Trust ≠ Permissive Parenting:
  It’s not about doing nothing—it’s about guiding without controlling, believing that your child has an innate drive to grow and learn.
• The Stress Trap of Controlling Parenting:
  When parents feel responsible for every part of a child’s progress, they become ego-involved. This leads to micro-managing, overstimulation, and undermines the child’s self-motivation.
• Four Core Practices of Trust-Based Parenting:
1. Explain why – Not just "because I said so"
2. Validate feelings – Acknowledge the struggle without removing limits
3. Offer real choices – Not manipulative options, but genuine autonomy
4. Minimise control – Step back from bribes, threats, and pressure
• Cultural Insight:
  Norwegian mums, with more social support, showed higher trust in natural development than Canadian mums—highlighting how systemic pressure affects parenting mindset.
• Trust Leads to Growth:
  Kids with trusting parents show better self-regulation, higher intrinsic motivation, and fewer behavioural problems. They trust their own capabilities—because their parents do.

QUOTE OF THE EPISODE

“The most radical thing you can do as a parent might be to trust your child.”

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Landry et al. (2008) study on trust in development
• The Parenting Revolution by Dr Justin Coulson
• happyfamilies.com.au – Parenting resources and support

ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS

1. Stop Comparing
   Ditch the charts, milestone checklists, and other kids' timelines. Trust your child’s rhythm.
2. Pause Before You Push
   Ask: “Is this about my child—or my anxiety?”
3. Shift from Director to Facilitator
   Create opportunities, then step back and let your child take the lead.
4. Use the Four Trust Tools:
• Give reasons
• Recognise feelings
• Offer choices
• Minimise control

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Do you trust your kids, like really trust them, not
in terms of will they do the things they say
they're going to do, but that they are going to
develop into a healthy, happy, well developed human. That's the
topic of today's podcast. Welcome to The Happy Family's podcast,
Real Parenting Solutions every Day. It's Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.

(00:27):
My name is doctor Justin Couson. Normally I have Kylie
with me, but unfortunately today for this Doctor's Desk episode,
I'm flying solo. Today we're going to be talking about
one of the most powerful shifts that you can make
as a parent. It's learning to trust your child's natural development.
This comes from an older study. It's actually almost twenty

(00:48):
years old, from two thousand and eight. A research by
the name of Renee Landry at McGill University did some
work with some other people including Richard Kasner, Genevieve You
and Mide Jusmi. Lots of French names because of the
area in France that we're talking about, and it's looking
at this thing called trust in organismic development, autonomy, support

(01:10):
and adaptation among mothers and their children. I'm so sorry
for all the big words. Here's what we're dealing with here.
This is a mindset that can transform your parenting experience
and your child's outcomes. I promise no more big words.
So here's what the research shows. Let's just start there. Really, simply,
a handful of research is at McGill UNI studied hundreds

(01:31):
of mums over a number of years so that they
could understand how parental beliefs about child development affect both
parents and kids. And here's what they found. Parents who
trust that children naturally develop at their own pace, rather
than needing constant intervention and acceleration, like my child needs

(01:53):
all of this extra training. The parents who just trusted
that their children would naturally devel about their own pace
had better mental health and felt more competent as parents.
In other words, the parents were thriving because they were
relaxed that their children were going to develop healthily and
safely and appropriately. And here's the kicker for me, their

(02:14):
children showed fewer behavior problems across time. So we're using
observational methods following families for years and even comparing across
cultures to understand what's going on. So let's talk about
this idea of trust in development because this is the
crux of it. This is what we're really talking about here.
Trust in organismic development is not about saying, well, I

(02:37):
trust that the kids will be fine, so I'm going
to have a hands off, permissive approach. Instead, it's about
believing that children have an innate drive to grow and
learn and progress and develop a sense of mastery to
know how to navigate their environment. Well, no one teaches
a baby how to smile or sit up or take
the first steps right. These things unfold naturally. They unfogged

(03:00):
when the child is ready, same with speaking, or even
running or climbing up and down a ladder or a slide.
Trust means accepting as well that development isn't linear. So
some kids will say their first word at nine months,
some kids will say their first word at nineteen months.
Some might even wait until twenty nine months before they

(03:21):
start talking. And for the most part, while this might
some of these might deviate a little bit from what's typical,
it doesn't mean that we need to be panicking and
thinking that our child has a problem. We've got this
wide and diverse way that children develop at age one.
We know that some toddlers understand let's say ten words.

(03:42):
We know that other toddlers understand seventy five words. So
when you trust development, you're not constantly comparing your child
to others or panicking about timelines. You're confident that your
child is going to reach milestones when they're developmentally ready,
not when a chart or even a health nurse says
that they should. Unfortunately, we're constantly comparing. We're constantly worried

(04:08):
about whether our child is or is not going to
be okay. So after the break, I want to talk
about the stress trap of controlling parenting, because that's what
these researchers really pointed to, and then how we can
parent with trust. Do you trust that your child is

(04:30):
going to develop naturally and healthily or do you feel
like you need to intervene? Do you need to step
in with control all the time or are you happy
to sit back and be supportive where you're required. When
we don't trust natural development, we fall into what researchers
would typically call controlling parenting. Controlling parenting looks like this,

(04:50):
We push kids to accomplish tasks they're not ready for.
We constantly worry about whether we're doing enough and whether
they're doing enough, and we as parents feel completely ric
responsible for every aspect of their progress. Think about that
list again and ask yourself, where do I land on this?
Am I pushing my child to accomplish tasks that they
may not be ready for? Am I always worried about

(05:11):
whether I'm doing enough or they're doing enough? And do
I feel responsible for every aspect of their progress? If
you do, that means that you're going to experience a
whole lot of stress in your life and you will
actually hinder your child's development. That's the stress trap of

(05:31):
controlling parenting. So basically what happens here is controlling parents
often become what Landry in this study, what they call
ego involved. So your child's performance becomes about how you're
doing as a parent, which means that you're much more
likely to micro manage, much more likely to overstimulate, much
more likely to intervene constantly, which ironically and paradoxically prevents

(05:57):
your child from developing the very self regulation and zic
motivation skills that they need so that they can be
genuinely successful. One of my favorite studies was conducted in
nineteen eighty four by Wendy Grolnick. She gets these one
year Odds and their mums to do this simple shape
sorting activity. Do you remember those Fisher price that like
the yellow tube with the blue lidle on the top,

(06:19):
and all the shapes are in there, and you tip
the shapes out, put the blue liddle on, and then
you've got to stick the shapes back through the lid.
That's essentially what the task was. And as Gronic and
her colleagues and Frodi and Lisa Bridges, as they watched
these these mums guide their children to complete the task,
they just saw that some parents were really ego involved.

(06:40):
Some parents were super controlling. That is, they were pushing
the kids to accomplish the task that might have been
just a bit beyond them because they were only one.
They were definitely worried about whether they were doing enough
and where the kids were performing enough, and they felt
like they were responsible if they were controlling parents. But
then there were these other parents who were really trusting.
They sat back, They didn't just let the kids do

(07:01):
whatever they wanted. They still provided frameworks and guidance, but
they just let the kids sort of figure things out
with a little bit of input were required. What was
curious about this is at the end of the activity,
the mums are used to go and stand over by
the wall for another couple of minutes while the kids
are given a new toy to play with. The researchers
were interested in whether or not the kids would play

(07:22):
with the new toy, and if so, for how long
and in what way. And overwhelmingly, what they found was
that the parents who were controlling, the parents who had
that level of ego involvement, the parents who with the
best of intentions one of their children to do really,
really well. Their kids would look at the new toy,
then they'd look at mum, and then they'd crawl across
the room to mum. They didn't know what to do
with the toy. It's like they needed mum to help them.

(07:46):
And that's what the research shows, right, the controlling approach backfires.
Kids with controlling parents actually shown more behavioral problems and
they struggle more with self motivation, like less task assistance,
less curiosity. The kids whose mums were supportive but not controlling, well,

(08:06):
they just sat with the new toy and play. They
looked at mum and smiled every now and again, and
then they played with the new toy. They were creative,
they were trying to figure it all out. So let's
wrap this up with probably the most important question of
all that comes out of this Landry two thousand and
eight study, how do your parent with trust? Especially when
we're in this world where there's so much pressure, so
much expectation that your children are going to grow up

(08:27):
to fulfilled their potential by the time they're nine or
twelve or seventeen, which is just so unfair on the kids.
Trusting development looks like the thing that I wrote about
in my book The Parenting Revolution. It looks like need
supportive or autonomy supportive parenting. So instead of pushing and controlling,

(08:47):
you provide four key ingredients. Here they are. This is
the secret to the very best parenting, because it's parenting
with trust. Number One, when you ask the kids to
do something, you give explanations, fear requists rather than demanding
blind obedience. And the reason you do that is because
when they buy the why, then you're going to have
higher levels of compliance because they're going to integrate and

(09:09):
identify with these ideas and therefore them much more likely
to carry them out. Number Two, you're going to recognize
your child's feelings and perspective. Now, this doesn't mean that
you're going to go all gentle parent and you're going
to say, oh, you can feel whatever you like, and
if you want to be angry, then you can be angry.
Like you're still going to have limits, but you are
going to say this is really hard for you or

(09:31):
sometimes life's tough, like you're going to be compassionate and
kind to your child. The third thing that you'll do
is you're off choices where possible, and I want to
be really clear about it. A choice is not would
you like to wear the green jumper or the red
jumper today? That's manipulation, that's coercion, that's actually force. Choices
are well, what do you think you'd like to do?
And then the last point is that you minimize controlling

(09:54):
techniques like bribes and threats and pressure. When things get
tricky and you're starting to step into control, step back
and say, hang on a second, I don't want to
control you, but let's make sure that we understand why
I'm asking you to do this. I know that you're
not that keen on it. What do you think would
be the best way for us to move forward? And

(10:14):
you work with your kids rather than doing things to them.
Let's go to little kids for a sec. If your
toddler isn't walking yet, you don't drill them with walking practice.
You provide safe opportunities that they can explore movement, and
you trust that they'll walk when they're ready. And you
can take that same principle and apply it at any
age and for any situation. If your preschooler isn't reading,

(10:38):
you don't give them extra special tutoring because they're three
or four and they're not reading. You just read together.
You expose them to letters and words. You don't turn
it into forced lessons. You just show them that reading
is great, and you trust that they'll get there. It's
the same with teenagers and different activities. Participating in the house,
you become a facilitator rather than a director. Your responsive

(10:59):
to their interests. You follow their pace, and you support
their natural curiosity instead of doing what so many of
us do and imposing our own agender on things. This
is really the crux of what the study is. Now,
there are two other things that I quickly want to
touch on. One was the cross cultural aspect. I think
this was really curious. The research showed that Norwegian mums

(11:20):
showed significantly higher trust in development than Canadian mums. They
were the two cultures that were compared their rational their reason.
Norway seems to provide a lot more parental support, long
maternity leave, quality healthcare, stronger social safety nets than Canada.
Australia is not doing fantastically well here. I would expect
that we wouldn't be performing great here. Societies that support

(11:43):
families give parents a whole lot less pressure to feel
like they have to accelerate their children's development. Get them
out the door, get them to school, get them learning,
get them being the ducks of kindergarten. I think that
there's a lot of anxiety about our kids progress, and
that's not really about our kids. It's about the social
pressure and the lack of support. And when we recognize this,

(12:03):
we can start to separate things to properly be concerned
about from cultural anxieties that we're told to be concerned about.
But the practical benefits. This is where we're going to land.
This is where we're going to stop. Parents who trust
in their kids' natural development just have better outcomes. They
report greater satisfaction and competence in their parenting role. They're
less stressed because they're not constantly worried about whether the

(12:23):
child's behind. They're making a lot less social comparisons, which
protects them and it also protects their child from unnecessary anxiety,
and the kids benefit as well. The kids develop better
self regulation, they show more intrinsic motivation, they have fewer
behavior problems. They learn to trust their own capabilities. Why
because their parents are trusting them as well. So I

(12:44):
just want to emphasize this one more time. Trusting development
doesn't mean that you ignore genuine concerns. If you've got
a child who's showing significant delays, if you've got genuine worries,
then you should absolutely consult health professionals. But if we're
talking about typical creations in development, which can be really significant,
then trust allows both you and your child to relax

(13:06):
into the growth that is going to unfold naturally. Let's
wrap this up. I think, based on the Landry two
thousand and eight study, which is one of my favorite
studies of all time, that the most radical thing that
you can do as a parent might actually be to
trust your child. Trust that they want to grow, trust
they want to learn, Trust that they want to succeed.

(13:27):
And if they're not showing you those signs, like let's
say you've got a really angry teenage son or a
really ornerary teenage girl and they're not looking like they
want to learn and grow and succeed. My question then
would be why what's going on in the environment that
is taking away their desire? Because as humans, we have
an inbuilt curiosity and it might be that they've lost

(13:48):
motivation for certain things, but they're highly motivated for other things. Okay,
So that means that one environment is supporting their learning
and growth and another environment is not, And we want
to tap to what's going on there and help them
to find the things that are valuable in the environments
that matter the most. I think that's about it. Oh

(14:09):
one more thing. I want you to trust that development
will happen when your children are ready, not when they
think they should be. I mean, a perfect case in
point is I hated high school, but I went back
to school when I was twenty seven, and that's when
I started my psychology career. Trust creates the space for
authentic development, and it transforms parenting from being a stress

(14:32):
filled job into just the most wonderful relationship where you
get to sit and enjoy supporting your child as they
grow into whoever it is that they are supposed to be.
I really hope that you've enjoyed this insight. I think
that this is one of those studies that we just
don't talk enough about, and some principles that we don't
hear enough about. If you'd like more information, we'll link

(14:53):
to the study by Landry and colleagues in the show notes.
The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Roulan Media,
and more information and resources to support your family and
trust in your children's organismic development is available in my
book The Parenting Revolution, or online at happyfamilies dot com
dot au.