When Parenting Skids, Steer Into It: How to Help Kids Through a Crisis

There is a well-known rule in driving: when the road is wet and a car begins to skid, one way to handle the stressful situation is to brake while turning the steering wheel. But the direction you turn the wheel makes all the difference.

In a rear-wheel-drive car, the correct response is to steer in the opposite direction of the skid. This is also the instinctive reaction of most drivers. Even without understanding the physics behind it, this feels natural.

However, in a front-wheel-drive car, doing the same thing can actually increase the risk of a serious accident. When such a car skids and loses control, the correct response is the opposite — you must steer in the direction of the skid.

What is the Connection to Parenting?

Traditional approaches to education are like driving a rear-wheel-drive car: when things “slip,” the instinct is to push back — to resist, to oppose, and to correct with firmness. This often includes a strong element of “rejecting the negative.”

However, parenting in times of crisis is more like driving a front-wheel-drive car. To regain control, you must act against your instincts. When children are struggling, pushing against them, and fighting their behavior, often makes things worse. It increases resistance, deepens emotional pain, and strengthens negative patterns.

What is needed in these moments is the opposite approach of drawing close with empathy. This means recognizing the child’s needs, struggles, and fears as real and valid. It means helping them feel seen and understood. Only in such an environment can true influence take place. When a child feels understood, healing and growth can begin.

A Deeper Principle in Education

This is a fundamental principle in parenting and education. If we respond incorrectly by trying to block the powerful “flow” of a child’s emotions and behaviors, or giving up on them altogether, their self-image may continue to deteriorate. There is a real danger that they will “drown,” and take others down with them.

Fighting the current only creates more damage over time.

If however we learn to understand the challenge, we can begin to guide that same powerful energy in a positive direction. Like the banks of a river, our role is not to stop the flow, but to channel it, so that it does not overflow destructively, but instead moves forward in a focused and constructive path.

When we succeed in doing this, we help children discover their strengths and direct their intensity toward meaningful and stable growth. And when that happens, not only do they benefit, but the entire world gains.