Parenting Through Challenges: How Letting Go Can Help Children Grow Stronger

It is often surprising to see how concepts from the Torah and Chassidic thought can help expand our understanding of parenting, especially in challenging situations.

One of the foundational ideas in Chassidut is the principle that “descent is for the sake of ascent.” This idea feels especially relevant in our times, and it also echoes many of the Torah portions we are currently reading in the Book of Shemot, which describe the descent of the people of Israel into Egypt.

We are taught that it was specifically from that low and difficult place that profound and transformative things emerged for Yaakov, Yosef, and the entire nation. It was there, in that place of descent, that they first became a people.

There is a vast distance between understanding an idea intellectually and being able to bring it down into the heart and into daily life. This is especially true when it comes to our children, who are the very apple of our eye.

Every struggle, challenge, or pain they experience touches us deeply.

The Parenting Instinct to Rescue

Very often, when something difficult happens, our immediate instinct is to rush in and rescue the child from whatever pain or challenge they are facing. And yet, this is not always possible, and it is not always what is best for them.

Sometimes we have not yet truly paused to understand whether intervention is needed at all, and if so, what kind of intervention is actually helpful.

In a world that often pushes us to immediately search for the next “tool” or practical step to protect and help our children, I would like to offer a different possibility:

Sometimes not doing, simply staying present, and doing the inner work within ourselves and in our relationship with God, is the right response.

Just as the people of Israel sometimes needed to walk quietly through the desert without knowing when they would reach the promised land, sometimes we too must learn to remain present in uncertainty.

What Is Happening Beneath the Surface

How do we actually apply the fundamental belief that everything is guided, purposeful, and ultimately for the good, even in the challenges our children face? And what can we do in situations where direct help is either not possible or not appropriate?

To help us hold this perspective, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson draws our attention to one of the central principles found both in Chassidut and in emotional therapeutic work:

Every process contains two layers. There are the events as they appear externally, and there is what is happening beneath the surface, which may be moving in an entirely different direction.

In other words, what appears to us, and often to the child as well, as pain or difficulty may in fact be a necessary opportunity for growth, the discovery of new strengths, or a redirection toward a better path of development.

Parenting as a Long Journey

Another idea that can support us is the understanding that parenting itself is a long journey.

We are privileged to accompany our children through the earliest stages of their growth, as they learn the rules of life and gradually shape their own identity.

By definition, this is a deeply personal journey for every child.

Sometimes the learning and growth will necessarily come through setbacks or difficult experiences. These moments may be painful, but they can also be essential parts of the path. The very knowledge of this can already bring us some relief.

It allows us to step back slightly from our emotional involvement as mothers and to adopt what the Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the author of the Tanya, teaches us, to “put on glasses” of curiosity and faith.

From that place, we can begin to ask: How might this struggle my child is experiencing, even if it appears negative right now, actually be beneficial? What hidden fruit might this process be creating?

Trusting the Child and Trusting God

To help create this emotional distance and broader perspective, it can be deeply grounding to remember the “third partner” in every child’s growth: The Creator Himself.

The answers do not always arrive immediately, and patience is often required.

Yet when the process is approached with stillness, patience, and prayer, surprising insights may emerge — not only about what our children may gain through the challenge, but also about what we ourselves may grow into through walking beside them.

A crucial condition that allows a child to truly grow through such situations, rather than be harmed by them, is our faith in them and in their ability to come through the struggle stronger.

Children feel this trust, even when it is never spoken aloud, and they draw strength from it.

At the same time, it is essential that the child feels and knows that we are beside them every step of the way, for support, encouragement, comfort, and guidance.

Learning to Stand From Afar

Throughout this journey, we too are invited to strengthen our own ability to let go and allow reality and its solutions to reveal themselves, sometimes even without direct intervention from us.

In doing so, we ourselves grow stronger in resilience, trust, faith, and the capacity to hold life’s challenges. We also help build within the child an inner structure of resilience and endurance that will support them through future challenges.

Among the many gifts that emerge are the ability to face crises, discover personal strengths, develop patience, and learn how to lean on and trust God even in difficult times.

So much learning becomes possible for our children simply because we are sometimes willing to pause, let go, and be like Miriam, the sister of Moshe, who stood at a distance, “and she stood from afar,” quietly present, offering emotional support from behind the scenes as needed.

May we merit to build these inner strengths both in our personal lives and on the broader level of the journey the people of Israel are going through now.

As David says in the Book of Tehillim: “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.