The Repair Script

Effective repair has four parts: acknowledge the hard moment, restate the boundary, own your part if needed, and reconnect physically if the child allows it.

The most powerful word in repair is "and." Not "I love you but you can't do that" — the "but" erases everything before it. Instead: "I love you and hitting is not okay." This small linguistic shift allows both truths to exist simultaneously in the child's mind.