I want to talk about a name of God that most people only use when things are going well. El Shaddai. In Hebrew it means God Almighty. God of the mountain. The all-sufficient one. The one who is more than enough. We shout it in worship. We put it on shirts. We quote it when we get the promotion, when the prayer gets answered, when the breakthrough finally comes. But El Shaddai was first spoken in a valley. Abraham was old. Sarah was barren. The promise had been spoken years ago and nothing had happened. No child. No nation. No evidence that anything God said was going to come to pass. Just two aging people holding a promise that looked increasingly impossible. And that is exactly where God shows up and says I am El Shaddai. I am enough for this. Not enough for the easy part. Enough for the impossible part. I want to talk to the parent who is in a valley right now. Not a valley of their own making necessarily. Just a season where the gap between what God promised and what you can see feels impossibly wide. Where you are doing everything right and things are still hard. Where you are faithful and the breakthrough has not come yet. Where your child is struggling and you have prayed and prayed and the mountain has not moved. El Shaddai does not only show up on the mountain. He is the God of the valley too. The God of the in-between. The God of the not yet. The God who meets you in the middle of the waiting and says I am still more than enough for this moment even though it does not look like it yet. Your child is watching how you handle the valley. Not the mountain... the valley. They are watching whether your faith holds when the answer does not come quickly. Whether you still praise when it costs you something. Whether God is real to you only when things are good or whether He is real to you in the ordinary, hard, unglamorous middle. That lesson... faithfulness in the valley cannot be taught in a classroom or a Sunday school lesson. It can only be caught. From watching you.

'Just calm down.' We have all said it. And it has never worked. Not once. Because calm down is a destination with no directions. You are telling your child WHERE to go without showing them HOW to get there. Regulation is not the absence of big feelings. Regulation is the ability to manage big feelings without letting them manage you. And it is a skill. Which means it has to be taught. Practiced. And reinforced over and over until it becomes automatic. Here is a full toolkit by age. Use what applies to your child. Try more than one. What works for one child will not work for another. REGULATION TOOLS BY AGE AGES 2–5 — The Body Needs to Move First: At this age the body and the emotion are the same thing. You cannot think your way out of a feeling when you are 3. You have to move through it. TOOLS: Big deep breaths — make it a game. 'Smell the flowers, blow out the candles.' Jump 10 times to shake out the feeling. Give them something to squeeze a pillow, a stuffed animal. Wrap them in a tight hug the pressure is regulating for the nervous system. Put on a worship song and let them move. Take them outside. Fresh air and open space does more than we give it credit for. WHAT TO AVOID: Sending them to their room alone before they are regulated. Isolation without connection increases the distress. Be present while they calm. AGES 6–9 — Teach the Tools Before You Need Them: This age can start learning actual strategies but only if you teach them BEFORE the meltdown not during it. TOOLS: Box breathing breathe in for 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4. The 5-4-3-2-1 grounding method —name 5 things you see, 4 you can touch, 3 you hear, 2 you smell, 1 you taste. Draw or write what you are feeling get it out of the body and onto paper. A calm down corner, not as punishment but as a designated space with tools they choose. A feelings journal they decorate themselves. PRACTICE IT WHEN THEY ARE CALM. Make it a regular thing not an emergency measure. 'Let's practice our breathing tonight before bed.' Then when the moment comes the tool is already familiar.