Climbing Fish Parenting

Your child refuses the coat, insists they're not cold, or takes it off miserable ten minutes later, and every morning feels like a standoff. If you're wondering why kids fight the jacket even when they're clearly too cold, too warm, or uncomfortable, this episode explains what's usually going on underneath.

In this episode:

• Why a child who's running around can honestly feel warm while the adults standing nearby are cold

• How a coat that tugs at an elbow or waist can turn into a meltdown, and what to look for in a coat

• Why many kids haven't yet learned to read what their body is telling them, and why handing them the answer every morning doesn't build the skill

• A simple way to start teaching your child to read what their body is telling them, in the calm moments before the next standoff

The goal isn't to win the coat battle. It's to help your child learn what their body is telling them, so the fight doesn't have to start.

Resources mentioned:

climbingfishparenting.com/newsletter

Free video series, Why Feelings Are Hard: www.climbingfishparenting.com/feelings

Homework shouldn't take forty-five minutes for ten problems — but somehow it does, and it turns into a fight nobody wanted. If your kid stalls before starting, gets stuck demanding answers you can't give, or melts down the second you sit down together, this episode is for you.

In this episode:

• Why the same homework meltdown can come from four completely different places

• What it actually looks like when frustration is anxiety in disguise

• Why "just try harder to start" doesn't work for a brain that struggles with task initiation

• A simple in-the-moment question that helps you respond to what's really happening instead of just the yelling

Resources mentioned: www.climbingfishparenting.com/newsletter

All summer they were around — at dinner, in the car, saying yes to things. Then the door started closing a little harder than it needed to. One-word answers. Everything you ask lands like too much. You didn't lose your kid. But you can feel the distance, and you're not sure how to cross it.

In this episode:

• Why a withdrawn teen is usually running on a nervous system that's already on edge — and why you have to be the calm one

• Why a story that's handed to you is always richer than one you have to grab at

• How to read your teen's cues so the offer actually lands (including the accessibility test that makes an invitation pull)

• A ladder of moves for reaching them, the traps that backfire, and what to do when they still won't open up

The way back in is almost never the big conversation. It's the small, low-pressure, no-agenda moment, offered again and again.

Resources mentioned: 📩 climbingfishparenting.com/newsletter

You're sitting on the edge of your kid's bed, reassuring them for the tenth time — you're safe, it's okay, that won't happen — and it lands for about ninety seconds before the next question comes. Forty-five minutes in, they're more wound up than when you started, and you can't shake the question: why is this getting worse?

In this episode:

• Why reassurance, past a certain point, feeds a child's anxiety instead of shrinking it

• Why a little anxiety is supposed to be there — and how attention becomes the water that floods it

• The full set of moves to use instead: prep them first, answer once and hold, expect the burst, stay present, name the feeling, redirect to a coping skill, and give the worry its own time

• The one catch that turns comfort into part of the loop

You're not withholding love. You're changing what the love is aimed at.

Resources mentioned: 📩 climbingfishparenting.com/newsletter

Picture a teenager who was moderately engaged all summer — around, at dinner, saying yes to things. Then school gets close, and the door starts closing a little harder than it needs to. Moodier. Doesn't want to do anything, or only wants to be out with friends. Every question lands like too much. You didn't lose your kid. This is back-to-school anxiety, grown up.

In this episode:

• Why teen overwhelm withdraws instead of exploding — and why a wired-differently teen who held it together all day comes home completely empty

• The real stack they're carrying: responsibility landing on executive-function skills that haven't caught up, a refereeless social world, the sensory tax of the building, reinventing, and lost sleep

• Why the summer-job-versus-school comparison is the misread that gets teens in the most trouble

• How to tell normal teenage distance from real struggle, plus agency-respecting ways in

Your teen isn't giving you a hard time. They're having one — quietly.

Resources mentioned: 📩 climbingfishparenting.com/newsletter

You built the beautiful plan — the one where this is finally the year it all runs like a machine. And by day three you're standing in the kitchen realizing you've fed everyone but yourself, running on cold coffee and getting short with everyone, thinking: this is not sustainable.

In this episode:

• Why the "fix everything" plan falls apart every year — and why it's a design problem, not a discipline problem

• The two questions that tell you which one or two things are actually worth changing

• Four directions to reset: what to let go of, what to say more, a moment to protect for your kid, and one thing to protect for you

• The piece that makes or breaks it — how you treat yourself when you inevitably miss

Small and sustained beats big and abandoned every single time. Less, not more — that's the whole reset.

Resources mentioned: 📩 climbingfishparenting.com/newsletter

Your kid was thriving all summer — handling things that used to be hard, genuinely in their element. And then, a couple weeks before school, they couldn't be in the same room as their siblings without it exploding, and refused fun activities they love. You have no idea what is wrong. Nothing was wrong. School was coming.

In this episode:

• Why anxiety so often comes out sideways — as anger and meltdowns at home — instead of as worry

• Why the place causing the anxiety is often the place your kid looks the most fine

• The three timelines it shows up on, and why a calm first week isn't always the finish line

• A direct-but-contained way to handle the worry, plus what to do wherever you are in the school year

It's a spike, not a forecast. Rough right now doesn't mean rough all year — it means your kid is in the hardest part of something genuinely hard.

Resources mentioned: 📩 climbingfishparenting.com/newsletter

You've wondered — maybe more than once — whether there's something going on with your kid that has a name. And you've decided you'd rather not find out. Not because you don't care, but because a diagnosis feels scary, or final, or like it might change everything.

In this episode:

• Why not knowing doesn't protect your child from who they are — and what it costs to keep guessing instead of understanding

• The four things a diagnosis actually gives your kid, from understanding all the way to the support that finally fits

• The honest answer to "but what if the label follows them?"

• An exercise for weighing the decision, fears and all

The fear of finding out is real, and I take it seriously. But knowing was never the thing that changed your kid — it's the thing that lets you finally understand them.

Resources mentioned: 📩 climbingfishparenting.com/newsletter

It's eleven at night, everyone's finally asleep, and you're on your phone with a list of providers open in front of you — no idea how to tell one from the next, feeling like you were supposed to already know the difference. Nobody handed you the glossary. So let's sort it out.

In this episode:

• Why an evaluation isn't a fixed product you buy — it's a judgment about what your specific kid actually needs

• The range of people who "evaluate" children, and how far each one really gets toward the answer

• Why naming a diagnosis and figuring out what's underneath it are two different jobs

• Why the same support can help one child and backfire on another when nobody sorts out the why

You're not looking for a title on a door. You're looking for someone who can figure out the answers to the question you're actually asking.

Resources mentioned: 📩 climbingfishparenting.com/newsletter

Two families, same neighborhood pool, same Saturday afternoon. One leaves after about forty minutes — daughter smiling, a little sun-pink, tired in the good way. The other stays the full four hours and leaves in a complete meltdown, son sobbing in the parking lot, nobody quite sure what went wrong. If you'd only seen them arrive, you'd have guessed it would go the other way.

In this episode:

• Why "more fun time" doesn't equal "better day" for a lot of wired-differently kids

• What's actually loading up during a pool or beach day — sensory input, unpredictable other kids, water vigilance, temperature shifts

• How this plays out differently depending on whether your child is ADHD, autistic, or anxious

• How to pick an exit point in advance instead of waiting for signs of trouble

The problem was never the pool. It was the dose — and the families who leave happy are reading the tank, not the clock.

Resources mentioned: climbingfishparenting.com/newsletter