Mirror Neurons: How Your Regulation Shapes Your Child‘s Brain
Have you ever noticed how your child seems to absorb your emotional state? When you’re stressed, they become agitated. When you’re calm, they settle more easily. This isn’t coincidence—it’s neuroscience at work through something called mirror neurons.
The Therapy Insight Most Parents Never Hear
As mental health professionals, when we discuss a child struggling with anxiety or depression in our case consultations, one of the first questions we ask is: “How do the parents handle their own anxiety or depression?”
This isn’t about blame. It’s about recognizing a powerful neurological reality.
The parent’s ability to self-regulate consistently emerges as one of the strongest predictors of a child’s emotional wellbeing. In fact, when parents come to me concerned about their child needing therapy, I often suggest something that surprises them: the parent might benefit more from therapy or coaching themselves.
Why? Because I can teach a child every coping technique in the world, but if they return home to a dysregulated parent, their own regulation skills can’t take root. The child’s nervous system will continue to calibrate to the parent’s through mirror neurons.
This isn’t about fault—it’s about opportunity. It’s not a parent’s fault if their child is struggling, but it is within their power to create significant change.
What Are Mirror Neurons?
Mirror neurons are specialized brain cells that fire both when we perform an action and when we observe someone else performing that same action. First discovered in the 1990s, these neurons create a direct bridge between observing and doing.
Think of mirror neurons as your child’s emotional WiFi—they’re constantly downloading your emotional regulation patterns, often without either of you realizing it’s happening.
A Powerful Example from My Own Family
I witnessed this mirror neuron phenomenon in a profound way with my own daughter. Over a year ago, she presented artwork at a school exhibition. One piece depicted a dark period dominated by anxiety and depression. Another, created months later, represented her transformation after internalizing concepts about emotions being manageable experiences rather than emergencies.
What struck me most? I had never directly taught her these concepts. I hadn’t sat her down for lessons on emotional regulation. What I had done was process my own emotions out loud near her for years.
I’d talked about my experiences and modeled what it looked like to work through difficult feelings.
Through her mirror neurons, she had absorbed the concepts and approaches—not by direct instruction, but by witnessing my own practice. Her artwork alluded to these ideas, showing they had become part of her own emotional understanding.
How Mirror Neurons Create Co-Regulation
When you regulate your emotions in front of your child, specific neural pathways activate in your brain. Your child’s mirror neurons observe this activation and create similar neural pathways in their own brain.
Dr. Daniel Siegel, clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, calls this “interpersonal neurobiology.” He explains that children’s developing brains actually use their parents’ more mature brains as external neural processors until they can develop these capabilities themselves.
Research consistently shows that when a parent maintains a calm, regulated state during a child’s emotional outburst, the child returns to baseline faster than when left to self-regulate. This is co- regulation in action, powered by mirror neurons.
Why This Matters Even More for Challenging Children
If you’re parenting a child with anxiety, ADHD, autism, or other neurodevelopmental differences, mirror neurons become even more crucial.
Children with these challenges often have heightened sensitivity to emotional states. Their nervous systems can be more reactive, making them especially susceptible to “catching” your emotional state.
Dr. Stephen Porges, developer of Polyvagal Theory, explains that children with regulatory challenges need external “co-regulation” even more than neurotypical children. Their nervous systems are constantly scanning for safety cues, and they find those cues primarily through connection with regulated adults.
This means your ability to stay steady when your child is struggling isn’t just helpful—it’s fundamental to their development.
A Simple Starting Point
Understanding mirror neurons can feel overwhelming, especially if you struggle with your own emotional regulation. Start with one simple practice:
Narrate your regulation process out loud.
When you’re feeling anxious or frustrated, say something like:
“I’m feeling frustrated right now. I can feel it in my chest. I’m going to take a few deep breaths and notice this feeling… it’s starting to get a little less intense now.”
This verbal processing not only helps your child’s mirror neurons learn the pattern—it strengthens your own regulation skills too.
The Power of Your Presence
Your ability to remain regulated in the face of your child’s big emotions isn’t just a nice parenting skill— it’s a neurological game-changer for their developing brain.
When you prioritize your own regulation, you’re not being selfish. You’re providing exactly what their mirror neurons are seeking: a template for how to process emotions in a healthy way.
In the next post in this series, we’ll explore the science behind these parent-child brain connections in more depth and look at how co-regulation works in specific challenging situations.
This is Part 1 of our Mirror Neurons series. [Go to Part 2 here]
Want to learn practical techniques for staying regulated even when your child isn’t? Download my free Steady Parent Toolkit for five powerful strategies that will help you become the steady presence your child needs.