How to Make Pain Bearable

“We cannot protect our children from all pain, but we can teach them that pain doesn’t have to be faced alone.” — Philippa Perry

The Impossibility of a Pain-Free Childhood

Every parent wishes they could shield their child from suffering. We want to protect them from loss, disappointment, fear, and heartbreak. But pain is an inevitable part of human life—and trying to eliminate it entirely does children a disservice.

Perry introduces a profound shift: the goal isn’t preventing pain, but making it bearable. The difference between suffering that damages and suffering that builds resilience isn’t the pain itself—it’s whether the child faces it alone or with support.

This chapter explores how to be present with your child’s pain, how to validate suffering without trying to fix it immediately, and how to help children develop the emotional capacity to sit with difficult feelings.

Unbearable vs. Bearable Pain

Unbearable pain is pain experienced in isolation. When children suffer alone—when their feelings are dismissed, minimized, or met with adult anxiety—pain becomes traumatic. The message is: “You’re on your own with this. No one can help you. Your feelings are too much.”

Bearable pain is pain shared. When children experience difficulty while emotionally held by a caring adult, they learn: “This hurts, but I’m not alone. Someone can be with me in this. I can survive difficult feelings.”

The pain itself might be identical—a friend’s rejection, a pet’s death, a frightening nightmare. What makes it bearable or unbearable is the presence or absence of attuned emotional support.

Your child needs to know:

• Their pain matters and makes sense
• They don’t have to face it alone
• Difficult feelings can be survived
• You won’t be overwhelmed or scared away by their suffering
• The pain will eventually ease, even if it’s intense right now

Being Present with Pain

When your child is in pain, your instinct might be to fix it immediately. Change the situation, solve the problem, distract them from suffering. These instincts come from love—but they can inadvertently communicate that pain is too dangerous to feel.

Perry teaches a different approach: emotional presence before problem-solving. Be with your child in their pain first. Only after they feel truly understood should you move to solutions.

The Practice of Emotional Presence

1. Stop and give your full attention: Put down your phone. Make eye contact. Sit at their level. Your body language says: “You matter. This matters. I’m here.”

2. Listen without interrupting or fixing: Let them express whatever they’re feeling without jumping in with solutions or reassurance. Silence is okay. Your presence is the comfort.

3. Reflect what you hear: “You’re really hurting right now.” “That sounds so painful.” “You feel like everyone forgot about you.” This shows you’re listening and understanding.

4. Validate the feeling: “Of course you feel that way.” “That makes complete sense.” “Anyone would be upset in that situation.” Normalize their response.

5. Sit with the discomfort: Don’t rush to make them feel better. Allow the feeling to exist without trying to change it immediately. Sometimes the most healing thing is simply being witnessed in your pain.

6. Offer comfort, not solutions (at first): “I’m so sorry you’re going through this.” “I’m right here with you.” Physical touch if they want it—a hug, holding their hand, a pat on the back.

7. Only then, if appropriate, move toward solutions: “What would help right now?” “Is there something we can do about this together?” But don’t rush this step.

What Not to Do

Well-meaning responses can make pain harder to bear. These reactions, while intended to help, often invalidate feelings and teach children to suppress pain rather than process it.

Common Unhelpful Responses

Minimizing:

• “It’s not that bad.”
• “You’ll get over it.”
• “Worse things could happen.”

Why it hurts: Your child feels dismissed and misunderstood. The message is: “Your feelings are wrong or excessive.”

Rushing to fix:

• “Let’s just get you a new toy!”
• “You can make new friends.”
• “Don’t think about it.”

Why it hurts: It teaches that feelings are problems to eliminate, not experiences to process. Children learn to avoid pain rather than move through it.

Making it about you:

• “This is breaking my heart to see you upset.”
• “Please don’t cry, you’re making me sad.”

Why it hurts: Your child now has to manage your emotions along with their own. Their pain becomes a burden on you.

Shaming:

• “Big kids don’t cry about this.”
• “Don’t be such a baby.”
• “You’re overreacting.”

Why it hurts: Children learn their emotional responses are wrong. They suppress feelings and lose trust in their own experiences.

Toxic positivity:

• “Look on the bright side!”
• “At least you still have…”
• “Everything happens for a reason.”

Why it hurts: Forced positivity invalidates genuine grief. Children learn to perform happiness rather than process difficult emotions.

Developmental Differences in Pain

How children experience and express pain changes dramatically across development. What they need from you adapts accordingly.

Infants and toddlers: Their pain is immediate and physical—hunger, discomfort, separation. They need quick physical comfort, soothing voice, and regulation through your calm presence. They can’t process pain verbally yet, so your body language is everything.

Preschoolers (3-5): Their pain is often mixed with confusion—they don’t fully understand why they feel bad. They need simple explanations, validation, and concrete comfort. “Your tummy hurts because you feel sad about Grandma being sick. Feelings can make our bodies feel bad. Let’s snuggle and read a story.”

School-age children (6-11): They experience social pain acutely—rejection, failure, embarrassment. They need validation that their social world matters enormously. Don’t dismiss “playground drama” as trivial. It’s their whole world. Listen, validate, and help them problem-solve when they’re ready.

Teenagers: Their pain is often existential—identity questions, romantic heartbreak, uncertainty about the future. They need you to respect the enormity of their feelings while maintaining steady presence. Don’t minimize with “you’ll understand when you’re older.” Be curious: “Tell me more about what you’re feeling.”

Example: Supporting a Child Through Loss

Situation: Your 7-year-old’s best friend is moving to another state.

Unhelpful response: “Don’t be sad! You’ll make new friends. Plus, you can video chat anytime. It’s not like they’re gone forever!”

Helpful response:

• Presence: Sit down together, give full attention.
• Listen: “You seem really sad about Emma moving.”
• Validate: “Of course you’re sad. Emma is your best friend. You do everything together. This is a really hard change.”
• Sit with it: “I know this hurts. I’m so sorry.” (Hug or physical comfort if wanted)
• Only later: “What would make this easier? Would you like to plan one more special playdate before she leaves? Write letters to each other?”

Notice: no rush to fix, no minimizing, no toxic positivity. Just presence, validation, and eventually some collaborative problem-solving.

Teaching Pain Tolerance

When children experience pain while emotionally supported, they develop pain tolerance—the capacity to sit with difficult feelings without being overwhelmed.

This isn’t about toughening them up or forcing them to suppress emotions. It’s about building confidence that they can survive hard feelings.

Pain tolerance develops when:

• Children feel their emotions fully rather than avoiding them
• Adults stay calm and present while children are in distress
• Pain is validated as real and understandable
• Children discover that intense feelings eventually ease
• They learn they can function even when something hurts

Over time, children who develop pain tolerance:

• Don’t catastrophize minor disappointments
• Can sit with uncertainty and discomfort
• Recover more quickly from setbacks
• Don’t avoid situations just because they might be hard
• Trust themselves to handle difficult emotions

Building Pain Tolerance Through Small Experiences

You don’t wait for major trauma to teach pain tolerance. Small everyday disappointments are practice:

• The friend who didn’t invite them to a birthday party
• Not getting picked for the team they wanted
• Losing a special toy
• A scraped knee or minor illness
• Disappointment when plans change

Each time you validate these feelings without rushing to fix them, you’re teaching: “You can feel this. It’s hard, but you’ll survive it. I’m here with you.”

When Pain Requires Action

Being present with pain doesn’t mean never taking action. Sometimes suffering indicates a problem that needs solving.

Know the difference:

Pain that needs presence:

• Normal grief and loss
• Developmental struggles (making friends, identity questions)
• Age-appropriate fears
• Disappointment from life’s ordinary unfairness
• Feelings about family changes

Pain that needs intervention:

• Bullying or abuse
• Mental health crises (depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts)
• Ongoing, severe suffering that doesn’t ease
• Pain caused by something harmful you can change
• Situations where your child is genuinely unsafe

The key is: presence first, always. Validate and support first. Then assess whether action is needed beyond emotional support.

Modeling Your Own Pain

Children learn how to handle pain by watching you. If you suppress all pain, pretend you’re always fine, or fall apart when things are hard, they learn those strategies.

Healthy modeling:

• Acknowledge when you’re sad, disappointed, or struggling: “I’m feeling sad today because my friend is sick.”
• Show yourself managing feelings: “I’m frustrated, so I’m going to take some deep breaths and think about what to do.”
• Demonstrate that adults get support too: “I’m going to call Grandma because I need someone to talk to.”
• Repair when you handle pain poorly: “I snapped at you because I was stressed. That wasn’t fair.”

Don’t:

• Burden children with adult problems beyond their capacity
• Use them as your emotional support
• Model avoidance or denial of all difficult feelings
• Demonstrate that pain is shameful or must be hidden

Reflection

Think about a recent time your child was in pain. Did you rush to fix it, minimize it, or distract them from it? What would it have looked like to simply be present with their suffering first, before moving to solutions?

The Long-Term Gift

Children who learn to bear pain don’t become stoic or emotionally shut down. They become resilient, emotionally intelligent adults who can:

• Navigate life’s inevitable difficulties without being derailed
• Seek support when they’re struggling
• Sit with discomfort long enough to make wise decisions
• Process grief, loss, and disappointment in healthy ways
• Support others through pain without trying to fix them

When you teach your child that pain is bearable, you’re giving them one of life’s most essential skills: the ability to feel fully human, in all its messy complexity, and know they’ll be okay.

Key Takeaways

• Pain shared is bearable; pain alone is traumatic—your emotional presence transforms suffering from unbearable to survivable
• Be present with pain before trying to fix it—validate feelings first, problem-solve later
• Avoid minimizing, rushing to fix, or forcing positivity—these responses inadvertently dismiss children’s real suffering
• Pain tolerance develops through small, supported experiences of disappointment and difficulty, not by avoiding all discomfort
• Different ages need different support—adjust your response to your child’s developmental capacity for understanding and expressing pain
• Model healthy pain management yourself—show that adults feel hard feelings, seek support, and move through difficulty without suppressing or catastrophizing