It’s always taken dedication and lots of love to be a good parent. Fortunately, some things never change and there are many age-old, foundational rules that can help parents raise happy, healthy children. To understand the many unchanging verities about child-rearing, though, it’s important to understand a basic fact about kids: their emotions rule them. That’s why parents are often flabbergasted by some of the things their kids do and say — it just makes no sense! Actually, it makes no logical sense, but when you step back and recognize an action as simply an emotional reaction — well, you start to understand what’s going on.

Evan Shopper, writing for Psychology Today, proposes seven things to keep in mind about how a child behaves and their emotional state in order to understand seemingly illogical behavior.

“Their Primary Need: Connection At All Costs.” Much of our adult behavior can be explained by attachment theory (See “The Child In You Alive Today.”) A caregiver who makes a child feel secure and loved contributes to the child developing a healthy attachment style.  But how does a caregiver know how to make a child feel secure and loved? Primarily by being attuned to the child’s emotions. Recognizing the emotional state of a child and then acting appropriately helps the child feel connected, which helps the child to develop a secure attachment style.

“Feeling Small Can Mean Feeling Helpless and afraid.” Parents may sometimes forget the most basic fact about their children — they are physically small. Being surrounded by giants not surprisingly can make a person feel intimidated. “To cope with their fear and helplessness,” Shopper writes, “they often try making other people have these same feelings. It’s as if they hope they can give away — and thus get rid of —the feelings they don’t want. Feeling small also prompts a child to want control. Control helps them feel big — and not afraid.”

“Seeing the World In Black-and-White.” One of the marks of maturity, and slow to develop, is an ability to see nuance and shades of gray in situations. Kids see the world in black-and-white, and make generalizations based on the human tendency to group people and things of a similar nature into categories.

“Preserving the Parent As All Good.” Having strong and competent parents is important to a child because the parents then make order out of the world and keep it in control. Kids wish to preserve this image even when the parents are showing their fallibility. This is why children often end up blaming themselves for their parents’ divorce — even that is better than seeing the world as out of control.

“Egocentrism.” Much research continues to focus on child development, because the subject is endlessly fascinating. Shopper cites research that points to children naturally seeing themselves as an integral and influential part of the world. “Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget proposed in his four-stage developmental theory that young children are naturally egocentric, frequently misunderstanding how others feel by incorrectly assuming they feel the same way as the child,” Shopper writes. “Because kids understand little about their world, their egocentrism causes them to explain events as if they have influenced them.”

“Avoiding Shame.” Parents need to correct their child’s behavior — it’s how they learn right from wrong — but correcting the behavior often involves an emotional reaction: shame. This is why it’s also important to praise good behavior, reinforcing the child’s feeling that they are “good.”

“Feeling Overwhelmed.” No matter how well the parent is doing, offering praise and generally loving their child, there’s more to life than interaction with a parent. So, writes Shopper, “How can a child not feel overwhelmed? The world is big, fast, and complicated! They handle this in a variety of ways: They shut down, explode, cry, isolate, rage, hide, or focus intensely on one thing. These ways of coping frequently hinder their connection with others.”

Knowing your child may be feeling overwhelmed helps in your reaction. The key is to think about the root cause — what is causing the uproar and what emotion is that uproar eliciting. Help your child name the emotion and point out the cause. Validating those feelings is important, and owning up to any less-than-ideal word or action on your part is also important. Helping kids understand their emotions and develop a secure attachment style is not a one-time event — it’s a long-term process.