Capacity to Care

In many families and professional systems, we skip over one of the most important questions at the start of learning:

Do we have the capacity to provide care right now? 

We live in a culture of pushing through. When something feels hard, the instinct is to try harder, gather more information, or do more, rather than pausing to assess capacity.

I often think about humans in relation to our everyday gadgets. If we don’t charge our phones, watches, headphones, or tablets, they eventually shut down and will not work. Yet for some reason, we expect people — caregivers, professionals, and learners — to keep functioning without sufficient recharging.

There is no shortage of information telling us that rest matters, nourishment matters, and regulation matters. And still, most of us live in systems that make those things difficult to access. We keep going anyway and when we reach an empty state, we often blame ourselves.

We either glorify depletion as a badge of honor, or we turn it inward as a character flaw, labeling it a lack of commitment or a failure to care enough. 

Capacity Is Contextual

This conversation is sensitive because capacity looks different across individuals. Access to time, support, health, stability, and community all shape how much energy is available on any given day, and none of these can be assumed from the outside. 

Capacity is often missed, not because we don’t care, but because we are moving too fast to notice it. 

And yet, the outcome is often the same: when capacity is exceeded, learning becomes harder to sustain for everyone.

Shape Our Village does not treat capacity as something families must “fix” before participating. We are not asking for perfect rest, nutrition, or regulation. We are naming that capacity matters and honoring it as part of the work. 

Within the Shape Our Village framework, capacity to care is something we notice, talk about, and shape the system around. We do what we can, with what is available, in the moment we are in.

Reducing Cognitive and Emotional Load

Much of what we do focuses on shaping environments to increase capacity rather than depleting it further.

Pamela Cantor’s work during the COVID era around the 3 R’s: Relationships, Routines, and Resilience, deeply informs how we think about this. Routines, in particular, can reduce cognitive load for both caregivers and learners. When the burden of in-the-moment decision-making is reduced, more energy can be directed toward connection and learning.

Similarly, thoughtfully planned responses rather than reactive ones can reduce emotional load. Predictability supports nervous systems and clarity supports capacity.

We invite family teams to reflect together on moment-to-moment needs:

• Do we need movement or stillness right now?

• How do we know?

• What are some possible ways to meet that need?

These are not performance questions, they are learning questions.

Capacity Belongs to the Learner, too.

When learning feels like something to endure rather than engage with, it’s time to pause, listen, and change the system, not the child.

Capacity also shows up in how many hard things are being asked at once. When we require a learner to regulate, persist, decode language, and tolerate frustration all at the same time, we aren’t strengthening learning, but stacking barriers. Capacity-aware systems separate skills so learning can remain accessible while growth continues.

Learning requires more than exposure or repetition. It requires the learner to have enough capacity to care, tolerate, and meaningfully engage. When capacity is exceeded, behavior is not a failure of effort or willingness; it is information. 

In Shape Our Village, the learner’s capacity remains our north star. We adjust pace, expectations, and environments to ensure learning remains both possible and humane.

Rest as Foundation

Rest is not an indulgence. It’s not a reward that needs to be earned. It is not optional nor a condition for care.

For many families and professionals, rest can feel radical — even resistant — in systems that reward constant output. And yet, without rest, capacity erodes. When capacity erodes, connection frays. When connection frays, learning suffers.

There are a million possibilities in every moment. Having a family team allows us to explore those possibilities together while gently holding one another accountable for protecting our shared capacity to care.

What supports are already in place that help sustain your capacity for caring?

• When your capacity feels supported, what do you notice in your body, energy, or responses?

• What helps you recognize when that capacity is starting to stretch or thin?

• What is one small adjustment, either environmental, relational, or structural, that could help protect or extend your capacity right now?

* This piece was originally published on Substack.

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