You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, OR— BRAND NEW: we’ve included a fully edited transcript of our interview at the bottom of this post.

In this episode of The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, I speak with Educational Psychologist Liz Angoff.

We discuss when and why a child might need an assessment, what information you get from an assessment, how to help children understand their brains and diagnosis, and celebrating neurodiversity.

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We talk about:

* 7:00 What are some signs that your child should get an assessment?

* 9:00 Getting to the “why” and the “so what”

* 10:00 What do you assess for?

* 14:00 Why it is important to get an assessment?

* 23:00 Should you tell your child about their diagnosis?

* 31:00 Scripts and metaphors for talking to your kids about diagnosis

* 39:00 Red and Green flags with clinicians

* 44:00 Celebrating neurodiversity

Resources mentioned in this episode:

* Yoto Player-Screen Free Audio Book Player

* The Peaceful Parenting Membership

* Dr. Liz’s website and books

xx Sarah and Corey

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Sarah: Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Peaceful Parenting Podcast. Today my guest is Dr. Liz Angoff, who is an educational psychologist. She does testing, looking at helping kids understand how their brain works and helping their adults understand how their children’s brains work. She has loads of wonderful resources, which we will link to in the show notes.

I love how Dr. Liz takes this approach. It’s about how our brains can work in different ways, and understanding that really can help our child understand themselves, and help us understand our child in a better way.

As you’ll hear in this conversation with Dr. Liz, she really talks about how, if your child is experiencing some challenges or struggles—or you’re experiencing struggles or challenges with them—it can be helpful to get an assessment and possibly a diagnosis to understand exactly what’s going on and how your child’s brain works. Whether it could be anxiety or depression or neurodivergence or learning challenges or any sorts of things that can be uncovered through psychological testing, you can really understand the differences in your child’s brain that could be making life feel more challenging for them and/or for you. And she has a beautifully neurodiversity-affirming lens, where she talks about—you’ll hear her talk about this in the episode—looking at a child’s brain in terms of both the strengths and the challenges.

As always, we would love if you would share this episode with anyone you think might find it useful, and leave us a five-star rating on your favorite podcast player app and leave us a review. It really helps us reach more families and therefore help more families.

Alright, let’s meet Dr. Liz.

Hello, Dr. Liz. Welcome to the podcast.

Liz: Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here, Sarah.

Sarah: Me too. So tell us about who you are and what you do before we dive in.

Liz: Right. Well, I go by Dr. Liz, and I am a licensed educational psychologist. I’m in the Bay Area, California, and my focus—my passion—is working with kids to understand how their brains work. I am a testing psychologist, so I do assessment to understand, when things are challenging for kids, why things are challenging and what we’re going to do to really support them.

But one of the things that really caught my interest a number of years ago is that so often we bring kids through the assessment process and we don’t talk to them about what they did or what we learned about them. So I got really passionate about talking to kids directly about how they can understand their brains—what comes easily for them, how they can really use their strengths to help them thrive, and then what’s challenging and what they can do to advocate for themselves and support themselves. So all of my work has been really focused on that question: how do we help kids understand themselves?

Sarah: Which is perfect, because that’s exactly why I wanted to have you on. I’ve had so many parents ask me, “Well, how do I… I’ve got the assessment. How do I tell them? Do I tell them? How do I tell them?” We’re going to get into all of that.

But first I want to start with: what are some signs… I imagine some of the people listening are already going to have had assessments or are in the process of getting an assessment. But there also are some people who maybe—at least in our world—what we look at is: if you feel like you’re struggling way more than everybody else, that could be one sign. And if you’ve already made shifts and you’re trying to practice, in our case, peaceful parenting, and you’re still finding that things are really hard—that could be a sign that you might want to get an assessment.

But what are some signs that you look for that you might want to get your child assessed?

Liz: Yeah, I mean, you named a couple of them that I think are actually really important. All kids have times when they struggle. Growing up is hard. There are a lot of challenges, and they’re really important challenges that kids face. They need to know that it’s okay when things are hard. They need to know they can do hard things and come out the other side.

And there’s so much out there—what I think of as parenting 101—that helps us figure out: how do we help our children navigate these tough times? And then there’s kind of the next level where you might get a little extra support. So you read a book on parenting, or you find a different approach that matches the way your child shows up in the world a little bit better. You might meet with the school and get a little bit of extra help—sometimes called student study teams or SSTs—where you might meet with the teacher and the team.

For most kids, that little extra boost is enough to get them through those hard times. But for some kids, there are still questions. That next level, that extra support—it’s still not working. Things are still hard, and we don’t know why.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Liz: And when you have that question—“Why isn’t this working? It works for so many kids, but it’s not working for my child”—that’s when an assessment can be really helpful to get at the why. The so what.

So the why is: why are things harder for my child, and why are the traditional things that help most children not working? And then the so what is: so what do we do about it? How do we do things differently? And for kids who are wired differently, they need different things. And that’s what we focus on in the assessment process.

Sarah: And so, what kinds of… You know, we’ve gotten extra support, we’ve educated ourselves, and things are still hard for our child—or maybe also hard for us at home with our child. What are the kinds of things that you assess for? I guess that’s the best way to ask. The big ones I think about are ADHD and autism, but what else might be possibilities that are going on?

Liz: I really think of assessment—at the core of it—as understanding how this child’s brain works. The diagnoses that we look at… a diagnosis is just a kind of way to orient us toward the path of support that’s going to be most helpful. But even ADHD, autism, dyslexia—these common things we might look for—show up differently in different kids. There are diagnostic criteria, but they mix and match a little bit. No two ADHD-ers show up the same way. No two autistic kids show up the same way. Even dyslexic kids show up differently.

So at the core of it, we’re trying to figure out: what makes this child’s brain unique? What are the unique strengths and challenges that they have? And we’re going to be able to explain that. A shortcut for explaining that might be dyslexia or autism or ADHD.

We also might be looking at things like anxiety and depression that can really affect kids in a big way—sometimes related to other brain styles, because navigating the world as a different kind of brain is really hard and can lead to a lot of anxiety and depression. Sometimes anxiety can look like ADHD, for example, because it really hijacks your attention and makes it hard to sit still at school when your brain is on high alert all the time.

So we’re really trying to tease apart: what’s the root cause of the challenges a child is facing? So that we know what to do about it.

Some other things we might look at: one of the big questions that comes to me is when there are some really challenging behaviors that kids have, and we want to know what’s underneath that. Sometimes there might be questions about sensory dysregulation or emotional dysregulation—just real difficulty understanding the emotions that are coming up and what to do about them. Some kids get hit like by a tsunami by their emotions. And so learning how to regulate or manage those big feelings might be something we’re looking at. And again, that might be part of a bigger diagnosis, but more importantly it’s something we want to understand so we can support a child, regardless of what we call it.

Sarah: That makes so much sense. And it makes me think about my daughter, who’s 18 now. And just for anyone listening, she’s okay with me talking about her assessment and diagnoses. And I think sometimes when you talk about challenging behavior, we think we know why there’s challenging behavior—but sometimes we can be totally wrong.

I remember when she was in elementary school, her teachers—one after another—would always talk about how she was repeatedly at their desks asking, “What do I do next?” Asking for instruction. And she’s a kid whose connection is super important to her, and I always thought it was because she was looking for more connection from the teacher. That she was always at their side, and that was a “good” reason to go up and talk to the teacher because she loved her teachers.

And then come to find out, when we had her assessed, that she has working memory challenges. She actually literally couldn’t remember what the next thing to do was, because she could only keep one or two things in her head at a time. And that was really helpful information. It completely shifted how her teachers—and how I—saw her classroom behavior.

Liz: Isn’t that amazing? Just getting at the why. Getting underneath and figuring out the why completely shifts our perspective on things. And I think for a lot of kids, that first-line parenting—for many kids, yeah, they’re looking for connection. They’re looking for that. It makes total sense that that would be our first assumption. And for some kids, that’s just not true.

So when we do the assessment, we find out this important information that is so important to understanding what’s going on. And for your daughter to understand: “Oh, there’s this thing called working memory, and that is different in my brain than in other brains.” So I’m not dumb or lazy or all these labels we give ourselves. It’s: “Oh, I have a working memory challenge, so let’s brainstorm some ways I can work with the way my working memory works.” And that might be asking the teacher—that might work for everybody—but there might be something else.

There are any number of strategies we can use to really help her once we know what that is. And when we talk to kids about it, we can brainstorm with them to figure out what the best strategy is going to be—one that works for our child, that works for the teacher, that works for everybody involved.

Sarah: Yeah, for sure. It’s so illuminating. There were so many things about her diagnosis when she got assessed that helped so much to explain behavior that a lot of people found perplexing, and also helped her understand herself and make adjustments she needed to make to be successful.

For example, even now she’s in first-year college, and she knows—this has continued through her whole school career—that because of her focus challenges, she can’t really do any homework after six o’clock at night. Her focus is just not good. She can try, but it’s really hard for her. So she plans her day around: “I know that I’ve only got until six o’clock to really get my good work done.” She’ll even come home, do homework, and then go back into the city to go to the gym or something, whereas other people might do it the other way around.

So I think just knowing—kids knowing—how their brain works is really setting themselves up for success.

Liz: I love that.

Sarah: Yeah. So, which brings me to the next question I was going to ask you, and I think you’ve already answered it or we’ve talked about it together: anything you want to add about why it’s important to get an assessment? I mean, you talked about helping kids understand how their brain works, really getting to the root of the problem, and helping the people around them understand how their brain works. Is there anything else you want to add about why we would want to get an assessment that we haven’t already talked about?

Liz: Yeah. Well, one of the things we talk about a lot is that an assessment can result in a label of sorts. A diagnosis is a kind of label. And something I get asked a lot is: “What do we do when parents feel nervous about having their child have a label?”

There is—as much as I am a proponent and supporter and celebrator of neurodiversity—the truth is that our society still has some pretty challenging stereotypes about what it means to be ADHD or autistic, or to have a different way your brain is wired.

Sarah: Or stigma.

Liz: Yeah—stigma. That’s the word. And so I think it’s a real fear that families have.

There are a couple of things that are important to know about these “labels.” One is that the world is changing. We are understanding these diagnoses in a totally different way—not as something that’s broken or needs to be fixed, but as something that is different. A normal variation of how brains appear in the world. And that is a real change that is happening.

And that label can be—as you were just saying—so helpful, as a way to guide what we do to support our children so they can be successful. Like your example with your daughter: she can learn how to work with her brain so she can be really successful. I think it’s brilliant that she knows that after six o’clock, her brain won’t study anymore. That simple change is the difference between feeling like a failure and feeling like a success.

And I think the more dangerous thing—the scarier piece—is the labels we give children who aren’t properly diagnosed. Those labels are the ones kids give themselves, like “I must be dumb,” or the labels others give kids, like “This is a lazy child,” or “This is a defiant child.” Those labels are so much more negative and harmful to our kids because they tell them there’s something wrong with them.

Are these diagnoses labels? Yes. But I would argue they are such helpful guideposts for us in understanding: this is a difference, not a deficiency.

Sarah: I love that. And I’ve heard people say that you can avoid getting a diagnosis for your child because you don’t want to have them labeled, but they will still get labeled—just with the wrong labels instead of the right labels.

Liz: Exactly. Yeah.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. I know people who… I have a friend who didn’t find out until they were in their late teens, I guess, that they had inattentive ADHD, and they spent years unlearning, “I’m just lazy,” and, “I’m a lazy person, that’s why I have trouble doing things on time,” and really unlearning that bad… that bad idea of themselves that had been put on them when they weren’t aware of their inattentive ADHD.

Liz: Exactly.

Sarah: Yeah. I also have another friend who got diagnosed as autistic late in life, and they wish that they had known that so much earlier because they spent—you know, they’re one of those people that, back when they were a child, the diagnostic criteria missed them. Right? Like they were just quirky, odd, like the little-professor type of autistic kid. But they spent their whole life thinking, “There’s something wrong with me. I just don’t know what it is, but I know I feel different from everybody else,” and searching for, “What is this thing that’s wrong with me?” And finding it in all sorts of things that weren’t actually… you know, obviously there’s not anything wrong with them, they’re just autistic. But thinking how different their life would’ve been if they had known that, and hadn’t spent all those years trying to figure out why they felt so different from everybody else.

Liz: Exactly. And that’s what the research is showing us too—that so many individuals who are diagnosed as adults had these really harmful and unhelpful narratives as kids. And the first emotion that those diagnosed adults feel is this relief: “Oh, that’s why things feel different for me.” But the second emotion I find so much more interesting, because across the board, the second thing that people report is anger. And it’s anger at having lost decades to those false narratives that were so, so unhelpful.

And I think that there are kind of two facets to my passion about talking to kids. One was understanding that kids—they often know that something is different about them way before we even pick up on it, no matter how old they are. They have this sense that, “Oh, I’m walking through the world in a different way.” So the earlier we can have these conversations with them, the better, because we have this opportunity to rewrite that narrative for them.

But the second huge piece for me was working with adults and doing that later-in-life diagnosis, and hearing time after time, story after story about adults who are completely rewriting their self-narrative through the process of our assessment—and what a relief that is. And how frustrating it is that they’ve lost so much time not knowing, and now having to go through the process of identity formation again, because they have this new, critical piece of information that helps them understand things so differently about their childhood, their young adulthood—depending on how old they are.

Sarah: Yeah, it’s so important. And when you just said, “Kids often know that there’s something different about them,” I remembered my daughter. She didn’t—I think partly because I’m, I’m not saying this to toot my own horn, but I’m an extraordinarily patient person, and so some of the things about her ADHD—so she has an ADHD diagnosis—and some of the things about that, I think it took me a long time to sort of think, “Okay, this is unusual, that these behaviors are still happening,” because I was so patient with it, you know? And I think other parents may have been a little less patient at an earlier age and gotten her… and I feel bad about that, because I wish she had gotten her assessment earlier. I think it would’ve been helpful for her.

But I remember one thing that spurred me to finally seek an assessment was she asked me what ADHD was. She was probably nine, ten, maybe. And I told her, and she said, “I have that.” She was like, “I have that.” And I’m like, “Really?” Like, you know… anyway, it was just interesting.

Liz: I think kids know. I’ve had that experience so many times, I can’t even tell you. I’m halfway through a feedback session with a child and I haven’t told them yet, and they come out with, “Do I have ADHD?” Or in the middle of the assessment, they’re wondering about it and asking. And I say, “Well, what do you understand about ADHD, and why are you asking that question?” And I can kind of get more information from them and let them know, “We don’t know yet, but that’s what we’re here for. We’re exploring your brain and we’re trying to understand it.”

But I think that information, I mean, that just speaks to how much our world is changing. This information is out there in the world. We’re talking about it, which I think is so, so important to normalizing the fact that brains come in all different shapes and sizes and ways of being. And so it becomes a point of discussion—like a really open point of discussion—about, “I wonder how my brain is wired.”

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So interesting. I’m pretty sure I know the answer that you’re gonna give: if you do get a diagnosis of something—ADHD or autism—should you tell your child?

Liz: So I do believe that we should be talking to kids about how their brains work. And I want to be really mindful of the parent journey as I talk about this. I think that the most important piece is that, as a parent, you understand how your child’s brain works, and that you go through your own process of integrating that with how you see your child. And that’s a really important journey and a huge piece of the journey, because when we start talking to kids about how their brains work, we need to be really confident as adults.

So I think that while I see this as so important—talking to kids about their diagnosis—I want to make sure that parents are taking time and space to understand it themselves first.

Sarah: I love that. That’s such a sensitive answer, because if, say, you get the diagnosis of your child and to you it feels like, you know, it’s this horrible thing—that would not be a good frame of mind to tell your child about their diagnosis in. Right? So really working through your own fears and your own… getting proper information about what the diagnosis means before you go to your child with that information.

Liz: Exactly. And understanding what it means and what it doesn’t mean. Because there’s a lot of messages out there, especially around autism and ADHD, that are negative: that your child is broken in some way, we need to fix them, we need to make them more “normal,” whatever that means. I mean, all these messages are not helpful, not accurate. So really diving into the neurodiversity-affirming framework around these different neurotypes or brain types is a really important piece to give yourself time to process as a parent.

That said, I do think that being able to have a really supportive conversation with your child about, “What did we learn about the assessment?”—you know, we already talked about that kids know something’s different about them before we know. And so when they go through the assessment process, there’s no hiding from them that we’re doing something different for you. And they’re the ones that go through all these different activities as part of the assessment; they’re working very hard.

And I, as an assessor, I’m very transparent with kids: “We’re here to understand how your brain works,” because I was trained to tell kids, “We’re going to play a lot of brain games, and it’s going to be super fun, you’ll get prizes.” Which it is fun until we do the thing that’s hard for you. And then suddenly, it’s not fun anymore. And kids are like, “Huh, I feel like you’re not telling me the whole truth. This is not fun.” They pick up on it, right?

So I tend to be really transparent with kids: “We’re here to understand how your brain works. Some of the things that we do, your brain is going to find fun and maybe even easy to do. Some of the things are really going to challenge your brain. You might learn something new while you’re here. If something’s challenging, I want you to tell me about it, and we’re going to figure it out together—like, ooh, that’s going to be really interesting.”

So we’re already talking to kids about what’s strong. And I use a construction metaphor that I can go into, but we talk about their brain highways and we talk about their construction projects—what they’re working on. So kids are already learning so much about their brain as part of the assessment. And even without sharing the diagnosis, we can talk to them about what we learned, so that there’s some de-mystifying there. “I went through this whole thing and now everyone’s talking behind my back. They’re having a bunch of meetings. There must be something wrong with me.” Instead, we can say, “I learned so many cool things about your brain. I learned that you are strong in this, and I learned that we’re going to work on this. And so that’s really helpful for me as a parent.”

And then if we do have a diagnosis, what it adds when we share that with kids is: they know that they are not alone. It gives context. It lets them know that while the way their brain works is unique, there are lots of people out there who have very similar brains, who have been really successful with that kind of brain. There’s a path laid out—that we know what to do to work with your unique brain. And so it really helps them feel like, “I’m not alone in this. It’s not weird or broken in any way. This is just a different way to be in the world, and there’s a roadmap for me.”

Sarah: I love that. Yeah. I often, when I’m talking to parents, and you know, often after a couple of parent coaching sessions there’ll be some things that make me say, “Have you ever… has anyone ever asked you if you were considering an ADHD assessment for your child?” I try to… you know, because I’m not a clinician, I can’t diagnose anyone with anything. But there are certainly things that come up that make me think, “I think these people should get an assessment.”

And often they— you know, I try to be really as positive as I can—but often they do have these really negative associations with, for example, ADHD. And then I say, like, “You know, how many entrepreneurs… there are way more entrepreneurs that have ADHD than the general population, and way more Olympic athletes and professional athletes.” And, you know, there are things that are just research- and statistic-backed that you can say that are positive about this differently wired brain.

Liz: Right. I love the research on entrepreneurship and ADHD. I think that it’s so amazing how well-equipped the ADHD brain is to be in a space where we’re disrupting the status quo and trying new things, thinking outside of the box, really using that creativity. And it’s just a world that needs this kind of brain to really move us forward. More neurotypical brains that work well with the way that society is built might not be as motivated to disrupt things in that positive way that moves us forward.

Sarah: I love that. What are some other things that—you know, I feel like we’ve kind of covered most of the questions that I had planned on asking you—but are there any things that I haven’t asked you or that we haven’t touched on? You know, you’ve modeled some really beautiful ways of how to talk to your child about how their brain works. Maybe you want to go into your construction metaphor a little bit more, or maybe there are some other things that we haven’t covered that you want to talk about.

Liz: Sure. Well, I think that one of the things that may be really helpful is thinking about: what is the script for telling kids about their diagnosis? The way that I’ve found most helpful is using this construction metaphor, because it is pretty universal and it has so many places you can go with it, and it just gives you a way to start the conversation.

For parents, it may sound something like: “You went through this whole process and I’m so grateful that you did, because we were able to learn some really cool things about your brain. Is it okay if I share that with you?” So asking that permission to start the conversation, because it is vulnerable for kids. You want to make sure that it’s the right time and place. And most of the time, opening it like that will pique kids’ curiosity, and they’re like, “Yeah, of course, I want to know what you learned.”

And then you might say, “You know, I learned that we can think of your brain like something that’s under construction, like the construction sites we see on the side of the road—that we’re always building our brain. And the way your brain works is that the different parts of your brain communicate through these neurons that make connections, like little tiny roads in your brain. And we learned that some of those roads are like highways for your brain. We learned that you have so many strengths.”

“So, for example, we learned that you maybe have a great vocabulary and really express yourself well. We learned about your creativity, and when you’re really passionate about something, you can focus in so amazingly well on that. We learned that you’re a really loyal friend, or maybe that you have a really strong memory for stories”—you know, whatever it is. “We learned that you have these highways.”

“We also know that some parts of your brain are under construction. Like, you might remember when you were little, you didn’t know how to ride a bike yet, but then your brain had to put all those things together and now you ride your bike all the time. Do you remember kind of building that road? Well, there are some new roads that we’re working on. And so we might be working on… one of the things we learned that’s under construction for your brain is something called working memory. And I think that’s why you’re asking your teacher all the time for the next step—because you’re doing something, you’re advocating for yourself, because your brain does best when it gets one piece of information at a time. And that was so important for me to learn as a parent.”

“And when we put these things together, lots of people have highways and construction zones just like yours. In fact, we have a name for it. We call that ADHD—when you have such a creative, passionate brain that loves to focus on the things that you are really into, but sometimes have difficulty keeping stuff in mind, this working memory piece—that’s what we call ADHD. And it turns out there are lots and lots of people who have ADHD brains just like yours, and we can look at those people.”

So that’s kind of how I go through it with kids. We’re really talking about their highways and construction projects and helping them understand that—and then repackaging it with that name for it. That there’s a name for how your brain works. And that’s where we start. And then from there, we can use that metaphor to keep building the next thing, working on the next construction project as we move forward.

Sarah: Would there be anything specifically different or similar, I guess, about talking about an autism diagnosis for kids with that construction metaphor?

Liz: Yeah, so I use the same metaphor, but the highways and construction zones, for every kid, are going to be a little different. So for an autistic kid—if I think of one kid in particular—we might say that we learned that you have this really passionate brain that loves engineering and building, and the things you did with Dr. Liz where you had to solve puzzles and use logic, that was a highway in your brain. And we know that one of the ways that your brain works really well is when you have space to move and to be able to use your body in different ways.

Then some of the things that might be under construction are… usually I’ll start with something that a child has told me is more challenging for him or her. “So you know how you said that sometimes other kids might say things that feel confusing, or you’re not sure what they mean? That’s something that might be harder for your brain—or something that is a construction project that we’ll work on with you, so that it’s easier to understand other kids.”

“And when we put these things together—when kids have brains that are really passionate and pay attention to details, that love engineering, but have trouble figuring out what other kids are saying or meaning—then we call that autism. And it’s a different way of a brain being in the world. And so, as you learn to work with your autistic brain, you’ll figure out how to really dive deep into your passions and you’ll be able to thrive, find the connections that you want, and we’re here to help.”

Sarah: I love that. And I love how, when you talk about construction zones, it’s full of promise too, right? I read something from someone… that you can work on things—what I mean by full of promise is that there are things that can be worked on that might feel hard or confusing now, but it doesn’t leave a child with a sense of, “I’ll never be able to figure it out, and it’s always going to be this way.”

Liz: Yeah. One of the ways the construction metaphor has really evolved is that for some things, we’re building that road, and for some things, we’re finding a different way to get there. One of the things that I write in my books is that you might build a road there, or you might find a totally different way to get there. In the new book for parents, there’s a picture of a flying car, you know, kind of flying over the construction zone. And I think that it’s really true for our kids that for some skills, there might be some things that we need to learn and really build that pathway in our brain, but for some things, there might just be a different way.

I think for autistic kids, for example, they might connect with others in really different ways. And so it’s like building a totally new way to get there—building a different road, taking the scenic route. There are so many ways we can adapt the metaphor to say, “We’re still going to get you to your goal, where you want to go, but your road might look really different than somebody else’s, and that’s okay. It’s going to be the best road for you.”

Sarah: I love that, because it also—I mean, not only is it promising that you’re going to get to where you want to go, but it also, I think, helps relieve parents of an idea that I see sometimes, where they want their kids to be more like neurotypical kids, right? They think that’s the only way to get to the goal, is for them to have, you know, just using the example of social connections: the social connections of an autistic kid might be really, really strong but look totally different from the social connections of a neurotypical kid.

Liz: Exactly. Yeah.

Sarah: That reminds me of something that I was going to ask you earlier and I forgot, which was: you mentioned that sometimes when you get a diagnosis, you have a clinician who wants to try to tell you how you should change your child, or help them be more “normal” or more “typical,” and that clearly would be from somebody who’s not very neurodiversity-affirming. But what are some things to look out for that might be sort of, I guess, red flags or green flags in terms of the person that you’re looking for to do an assessment—or if you’ve already got the assessment, how they’re interpreting the diagnosis—that might be more or less helpful?

Liz: Yeah. So I love this question, because I think one of the most important questions you can ask a clinician when you are looking for an assessment is: “How do you involve my child in the assessment?” Or, “What will you tell them about what you learned?” Looking for somebody who is really well-versed in, “How do I talk to the child about it?” is going to tell you that they’re really thinking about, “How do we frame this in a way that’s going to be helpful and affirming to a young child?”

Because anybody who’s really thinking about, “How do I communicate this in a way that’s going to make sense to a small person?” has really been thinking about, “How do we think about the whole person, and how do we capitalize on those strengths?” So that is kind of a tell, to say that this person is thinking in this more holistic way—and not just about, “Does this child fit the diagnostic criteria?”

If you’ve had an assessment with somebody that is more coming from that medical lens that we’ve all been trained in—this is so new, and so, you know, a lot of clinicians were trained from this medical lens, which is looking at, “What are the child’s deficits, and do they meet criteria from this diagnostic manual that we have, the DSM, that is a list of things that are harder or quote-unquote wrong?”—from there, I think really getting connected with some more affirming resources is important.

I have a ton on my website that can be really, really helpful. There’s a spreadsheet of ways of talking about autism, ADHD, dyslexia, behavior, anxiety, OCD in really affirming ways. And so just immersing yourself in those resources so you can get that positive language for talking to your child. Or working with the next practitioner—a therapist, a tutor—who has experience working from a neurodiversity-affirming lens, so that you can help to translate those testing results into something that’s going to really be focused on: how do we help your child thrive with the brain that they have?

Sarah: Thank you. That makes so much sense.

This has been so helpful, and I think that so many parents are going to find this really useful—in how to talk to their kids and how to think about it, how to think about it themselves. What it… oh, it has just totally thrown me that I couldn’t remember that thing. All right. So thank you so much for joining us and telling us about all this stuff. You mentioned a couple of books, so we’ll get your books in the show notes for folks, but where else is the best place for people to go and find out more about you and what you do?

Liz: Yeah, so I have a ton of free resources for parents on explainingbrains.com. There are articles—just very, very short, parent-friendly articles—with both the strengths, the “highways,” and common construction projects for ADHD brains, for autistic brains, for dyslexic brains, for kids who have difficulty regulating behavior, anxiety, intellectual disability—just ways of explaining so many different types of brains, as well as what we do about things like screen time or talking about medication. So hopefully that resource is helpful for parents.

And then I have a brand-new book out for parents called Our Brains, and it is an interactive, collaborative workbook that helps you explain a diagnosis to your child. So it’s something that you can get after an assessment, and it will walk you through explaining to your child how their brain works, what you learned from the assessment. Or, if you have a diagnosis that’s been on the table for a long time and you just haven’t had that conversation with them yet, it is designed to really help kids not just know, “Okay, this is my diagnosis,” but really understand how their brain works and how they can advocate for what their brain needs to thrive.

Sarah: Fantastic. That is going to be so helpful for so many parents. Okay, now here’s the mystery question that I told you about before we started recording, and this is a question I ask all my guests. So, if you had a time machine and you could go back in time and give a message to your younger parent self, what advice would you give yourself?

Liz: Oh. I would just constantly remind myself that there are so many ways to be in this world, and it’s all okay. I think—even I was amazed—that even as somebody who has decades of experience in this field and has made a life out of celebrating neurodiversity, there was a way that doctors communicated with me from this deficit lens that would just put my mommy brain on high alert all the time when something was just a little bit different. And I really needed just constant reminders that my child is going to show up how they’re going to show up, and that that is not only okay, but it is beautiful and amazing and so important to how they are and the unique contribution they’re going to have to this world.

And it’s something that I’ve grown into—my child’s seven and a half now—and it’s something that we get to celebrate all the time: incredible uniqueness, and celebrate. But I think I remember very distinctly as a new mom, just with all the doctors using their jargony, deficit-based language, it was just really hard to keep that solid head on my shoulders. But I think it’s a really important message to keep with us: that there’s just so many ways to be, and it’s all amazing.

Sarah: I love that. Thank you so much for joining us, and really appreciate it.

Liz: Thank you for having me. This has been a blast.

You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, OR— BRAND NEW: we’ve included a fully edited transcript of our interview at the bottom of this post.

In this episode of The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, Corey and I discuss why “Special Time”- the gold standard for cultivating connection with our kids- might not work the best for complex kids.

We cover who complex kids are, what parenting them looks like, how to co-create interests and activities together, and being playful to connect deeply while getting through the daily routine.

**If you’d like an ad-free version of the podcast, consider becoming a supporter on Substack! > > If you already ARE a supporter, the ad-free version is waiting for you in the Substack app or you can enter the private feed URL in the podcast player of your choice.

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We talk about:

* 6:43 What is Special Time?

* 7:51 What is a complex Kid?

* 10:08 What does it look like to parent a complex Kid?

* 19:30 What does daily life look like with complex Kids?

* 22:03 What to do for connection when special time doesn’t work?

* 23:05 Cultivating shared hobbies

* 27:00 Finding books you both love

* 30:00 Instead of only putting kids in organized sports, exercise together!

* 33:30 Sideways listening with our kids

* 37:00 Playful parenting as we move through the daily routine

Resources mentioned in this episode:

* Yoto Player-Screen Free Audio Book Player

* The Peaceful Parenting Membership

* What you Can Do When Parenting Hard: Coaching with Joanna

* When Peaceful Parenting Doesn’t Look Like It’s “Supposed To” Look

* How To Take the Coach Approach to Parenting Complex Kids with Elaine Taylor- Klaus

* What Influencers are Getting Wrong About Peaceful Parenting

* Staying Close to Your Tweens and Teens

* How To Stop Fighting About Video Games with Scott Novis

* Playful Heart Parenting with Mia Wisinski

xx Sarah and Corey

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Sarah: Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Peaceful Parenting Podcast. Today’s episode is about why you shouldn’t do special time, which is, I admit, a little bit of a provocative hook here. But it’s something that Corey brought to my attention that we have been talking about a lot. And then after last week’s podcast, we both agreed—after the podcast with Joanna and her complex kid—we both agreed we have to talk about this, because this is something that probably a lot of parents are feeling a lot of conflict, guilt, and shame around: not doing special time or not wanting to do special time or not being able to do special time.

Sarah: Hey Corey. Welcome back to the podcast. Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Corey: Hi, I am Corey Everett, and I am a trained peaceful parenting coach, and I work for Sarah. I live in Ontario, but I work with clients all over the world doing one-on-one coaching. And I myself am complex and have a complex child. And I have two kids. I never can remember this, but I have a 7-year-old and a 10-year-old.

Sarah: I am glad you’re not the only one who can’t remember their kids’ ages. I have to stop and think. Okay. Well, I’m so excited to talk about this. And this is actually something that you and I have talked about over the years, because you have found it really difficult to do special time with your complex kid. Maybe just tell us a little bit about what happened when you tried to do special time and why you eventually sort of gave it up. And, you know, this is something that Joanna in the podcast last week—the coaching podcast—she was talking about how she didn’t want to do special time with her kid because she was so exhausted. So I think this is sort of like a two-part: why sometimes special time doesn’t work for the kids and why it doesn’t work for the parents. So let’s start by talking about what happened when you would try to do special time with Big C, who’s your 10-year-old.

Corey: Okay, so when I would try and do special time with Big C, I actually found—first of all—I didn’t really feel very present in it. I felt like I was trying to do it, but I felt like I didn’t have a lot of energy for it. I think he could feel that. So I just didn’t feel very engaged in it and I just felt exhausted, and it just felt like another thing on my to-do list. And so therefore he didn’t necessarily enjoy it as much either.

We did do a podcast—it’d be really great, I can put it in the show notes—where we talked about some things for peaceful parenting that aren’t working, and I did a really good description in that one of why special time didn’t work for him.

Sarah: Okay.

Corey: And so we can have them listen to that if they want more details on that part. Instead, I think I want to really focus on why it didn’t work for me and why I’m finding with my clients it’s not working for them either.

Sarah: You know what, sorry to interrupt you. I realize we should really just say what special time is, in case—like it’s such a gold standard of peaceful parenting—but there could be some parents listening to this, parents or caregivers who are newer to special time and might not know what it is.

Special time—and there are, I think, some other brands of parenting that might have other names for it—but basically the gold standard is 15 minutes a day of one-on-one time with you and your child, where you put aside the to-do list, put away your phone, and some people suggest that you set a timer and say, “I’m all yours for the next 15 minutes. What do you want to play?” It’s really immersing yourself in the child’s world. That’s one of the main ideas of special time: that we’re immersed in our child’s world of pretend play or some kind of play. It can be roughhousing or it can be playing Lego or dolls—something that is really child-centered and child-led.

So that is special time. And let’s take it from there. You had mentioned already that energetically it was really hard for you.

Corey: I think the best way that I can explain this is if I paint the picture for you of what it looks like to be a parent of a complex kid. And—

Sarah: Wait let’s give a definition of complex—we’ve got to make sure we’re covering the basics here. What’s a complex kid?

Corey: Okay, so a complex kid. This term, I first heard it from Elaine Taylor-Klaus—and we can also put in the show notes when you had her on the podcast. She is amazing. And basically, we’re really often talking about neurodivergent kids here. But it can be more than that. It’s just kids who need more.

Sarah: It’s that 20% of kids that we talk about—the 80% of kids who, you know, you say “Go put your shoes on and wait for me by the door,” and they go and do it and they don’t have the extra big feelings. So in my idea of it, it can be neurodivergent and also spirited, sensitive, strong-willed. The kids who are not your average, typical kids. And I always say that when I tell people what I do—parenting coach—some people look at me like, “Why would anyone need a parenting coach?” and other people are like, “Oh, I could have used you when my kids were growing up.”

So really there are kids who are—I’m sure they’re wonderful—but they’re not as more or complex as some other kids.

Corey: Kids that you almost don’t have to be as intentional about your parenting with.

Sarah: Yeah. You don’t have to read parenting books or listen to parenting podcasts. I would hazard a guess that most people who listen to this podcast have complex kids.

Corey: Yes. They’re our people. We always say the people who are our people are the ones who don’t have to talk about challenges around putting on shoes.

Sarah: I love that.

Corey: That seems to be the number one thing we’re always talking about.

Sarah: We always use that as an example, whether it’s sensory or strong-willed or attentional. It is kind of like one of those canary-in-the-coal-mine things. Will your child go and put their shoes on when you ask them to? If the answer is no, you probably have a complex kid.

Corey: Yes, I love that it is the canary in the coal mine. So that’s what our complex kids are. And for the parents of these kids, I think of these parents as being absolute rock stars. They are just trying so hard to peacefully parent their kids. And, like we said, they’re reading all the books, they’re listening to this podcast, they’ve probably signed up for all sorts of online seminars and courses and just do all of the things.

Often these parents were not peacefully parented themselves. Most people weren’t. So they’re learning a whole new parenting style. And a lot of people today are getting all their information off Instagram and TikTok reels that aren’t very nuanced, so they’re also not getting really full information. They’re trying so hard off of all these little sound snippets.

Sarah: Or the peaceful parenting or gentle parenting advice that they’re being given, and what’s supposed to happen just doesn’t look like that for their kid. And that reminds me—the other podcast that we did about when peaceful parenting doesn’t “work,” we could link to that one too.

Corey: Yes. Parents of complex kids are also trying to problem solve so many challenges because the world is often not designed for their kids, and it’s often not designed for them.

Sarah: Say more about that—about “not designed for their kids.” What’s an example of how that might show up?

Corey: So an example is conventional schooling. They’re expected to go into this noisy environment and just be able to eat the food they’ve been sent and listen all day and stay in their seats and learn the same way that everyone else is learning. I didn’t really realize how complex my kid was until I tried to send him to daycare.

Sarah: I was just thinking about the spirit days at Big C’s school, and how you’ve shared with me that those spirit days—like pajama day or “everyone wear the school colors day”—for some typical kids can be exciting and fun and a diversion. And for complex kids that can cause a whole level of stress and anticipation and the change of routine. Other parents of non-complex kids might be like, “Whatever, it’s not a big deal.” For our complex kids, it throws them for a loop.

Corey: Yes. My first moment of starting to realize there was something I needed to pay more attention to was they were having a movie day at Big C’s daycare, and they said he kept covering his ears and hiding. And that was my first idea that every other kid was so excited that it was movie day. They’d been looking forward to it. And for my child it was just so loud, and then suddenly the lights were turned off, and the whole situation was throwing him off.

So that’s what I mean. We’re designing the world for kids who are excited about movie day or special event days. But for complex kids, this is a complete change in their routine and all sorts of different sensory things that are happening that can make it really hard for them.

Sarah: Or that they can’t handle as much as other kids. I have a client who was just talking about how she’s realized for her son, who’s nine, that they literally can’t do anything after school. They can’t stop at the store and run in and grab a few things. They really just have to come straight home and not do anything extra or different. And he does so much better when he can just come home and unwind and needs that.

Corey: Yes, exactly. So the world wasn’t designed for them. And then consequently, the world was often not designed for those parents either. So many of the people we work with—including ourselves—only start to realize how complex we are once we start identifying it in our children. So it’s just not really an accommodated world.

Sarah: So talk about how that has led to burnout for you. And by the way, when you started talking about rock stars—in the membership the other day, in office hours, one of our members, I’ll call him D, who works incredibly hard and has two very complex kids, was just sharing how dark and hard life had been feeling for him lately. And I said, honestly, I just want to give you a medal. And I grabbed this off my desk and held it up—this silver milagro from Mexico that’s a bleeding heart. It was the closest thing I had to a medal.

But I really feel like so many parents who have hard or more complex kids, all they feel is that they’re doing a bad job. They don’t realize that they’re up against something other people are not up against. They don’t realize that because that’s all they know—unless you have one kid that’s not complex and one that is—you just don’t know that you’re working so hard and things are still hard. It feels like you must be doing something wrong or failing. What they don’t realize is that you can do everything “right” in peaceful parenting, and things are still really hard if you’ve got a complex kid.

Corey: Yes. And the last thing I want to say to help paint this picture is that these parents—part of what they’re dealing with, and I actually think this is huge—all parents today have a huge amount of family admin: managing appointments and things from the school and all those kinds of things. But that’s this other crushing weight we’re carrying as parents with complex kids: the admin.

Sarah: Right.

Corey: The amount of communication we have to do with daycare providers and teachers almost every day at points—

Sarah: And also the searching. I’ve watched you go through this, and I watched my sister go through this, and countless clients. The searching to try to figure out what exactly is going on with my kid so that I can best support them. And even with the privilege you have and my sister has in terms of being able to access specialists and testing and all of that—even with that privilege—it’s still almost a full-time job. And then getting the OT or the supports too.

Corey: Yes. I started for this podcast listing some of the people I’ve had to coordinate with over the years, and I was like: different types of medical doctors, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists, psychologists, social workers, dieticians… so many. And just so much coordinating and searching. And the other thing that’s hard is you also then have homework from each of these people. So not only do you have to make appointments and get your children to appointments, you then have to fill out all this paperwork to get reimbursed or get payment sorted. Then there’s all the paperwork they want you to sign for ongoing parts of that. Then they have homework for the kids that they’re supposed to be doing all the time to help them with whatever’s going on. It’s endless.

Sarah: Yeah. And then there’s the day-to-day. Tell us—paint a little picture of the day-to-day living. Not only do we have the world that isn’t built for them or for you, and then all of the extra stuff that goes along with having a complex kid, but then the day-to-day life. Speak to that a little bit.

Corey: Yeah. I think that’s the thing you just see is so painful to talk about for all the people in our membership and our clients, and I’ve experienced it firsthand. You had children to add love to your family. And then you love them so much and you’re struggling because there’s chronic dysregulation, and they’re having such a hard time getting through your daily routines, and they need more supervision than the average child does. Just getting through the day can be really challenging when you have a complex kid. And then if you yourself are complex, your nervous system is getting completely overwhelmed by trying to be the calm for everyone’s storms.

Sarah: It’s a lot, Corey. I understand why you get emotional about it. It’s a lot. And you’re still in the thick of it with two young kids. I think everyone who’s listening to this can relate.

Okay. So how and when did you decide that you were going to quit special time, and what does that look like? And—I just want to center us here—the reason why we do special time is for connection, right? Complex kids need connection just as much or more than typical kids. And so just because we’re saying you might want to quit special time, it does not mean we’re saying you want to quit connection. So what does that look like? What have you found? Because I know you’re super connected with your kids. I’ve seen you together. I know the things they say to you and about you, and that you have an awesome connection. So what do you do for connection when special time does not work?

Corey: A big thing that I’ve been telling clients and that I’ve done in my life is—first of all, I had to acknowledge to myself, it felt like shame. Because here I am—it’s one of the first things we tell everyone we work with: “Are you getting one-on-one time doing special time with your child?” And then I’m sitting there being like, but I don’t really do this. I get a ton of one-on-one time with my children. And I think that’s at the heart of it. But what I realized is because we’re carrying all those weights we talked about, your whole life feels like it’s all about this kid. And then to be like, “You know what? Let’s make it more about you and give you another 15 minutes,” just feels—I almost felt like I don’t have this in me.

So I realized: let’s pick things that we can do together that are interesting for both them and me. Instead of getting locked in their play and being led by them, I’m finding things that we’re co-creating together.

Sarah: And can I just note too that you’ve told me—and I know you said you talked about this in another podcast—but I just want to say it again: a lot of times complex kids’ play doesn’t look like typical kids’ play. So you might be like, “What do you want to play?” and they’re like, “I don’t know.” They don’t have the same kind of “Okay, let’s play store and you be this and I’ll be this.” Or they play with their toys in a different manner. So it can also be just awkward to insist that you play with them when that’s not their style anyway. I just wanted to throw that out there.

Corey: Yeah. And, or if I did, they’re always telling me I’m doing everything wrong.

Sarah: Right. Because I do think that play—I do think that for most kids, even though we’re saying don’t do special time—I do think that for most kids it is important to put yourself in their world. And I don’t want people to think, like, “Okay, this means I never have to try to do special time.” We’re just saying if it’s not working for you for these various reasons—whether it’s because of your own constraints like it was for Joanna, or because it doesn’t work for your kid—it doesn’t mean that you’re doing it wrong and that there’s no way to connect and that you should just give up.

But I do think that—just a side note—I’d say the majority of kids, play in their world is the key to a lot of connection. But for some complex kids, that just isn’t their mode. For some of them.

Corey: Yeah. Because I think we were coming out of special time feeling angry.

Sarah: Right?

Corey: Because we were coming out of it like, “I’m trying to get lost in my child’s world,” and he’s just like, “You’re not doing anything right, Mommy.” It was frustrating for him because he had these ideas and he couldn’t really get me to do it right. And I think for some kids that can be really empowering, where they like that feeling of being in control and telling them. But for him it was frustrating because he’s like, “I had this vision, and you are just not executing.” I’m like, “I don’t know, I’m trying to execute your vision.” So I think that’s why for us, I could just tell it wasn’t just me—neither of us were finding it was working.

Sarah: But—

Corey: We were desperately wanting to be together.

Sarah: Okay. So you said “finding,” right? I interrupted you when you were talking about finding things that were co-interests—things that work for both of you, co-creating.

Corey: Yes. When they were younger, one of the big things I did was buy myself really special pencil crayons and nice watercolor paints because both of them loved doing art. So I could sit and do art with them and use my fancy coloring books and feel very “we are together doing something” that was making me feel really good, but they also felt really happy, and they loved showing me what they were making.

Sarah: And did you let them use your stuff? Because I think that would be really hard for me, because you can’t really be like, “These are my special things, and you use these Crayola ones.” How did you navigate that?

Corey: Okay, so that was really hard. This never would work for my husband, so I’m going to acknowledge for some people this wouldn’t work. I let them grab my crayons, and they dropped them a lot. I acknowledged that they were not going to last. But I still wanted good ones available to me. So I had to be flexible. They definitely grabbed them, and the watercolors were wrecked really quickly. But they respected not touching my special brushes for some reason. So I kept my own special brushes for the painting.

Sarah: You know, that reminds me—one of our members has a just-newly-3-year-old who’s super complex, and she was talking about how she was doing a jigsaw puzzle, like a proper adult thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. And she was really worried that—since it was on the table in a room where the parents could be—her kid was just going to come in and wreck it. Instead, her child is really good at jigsaw puzzles and is doing them with her. So I think sometimes—she’s totally shocked and thrilled that this has become something—and this is clearly a case of coming into the adult world of a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. You just reminded me—she put a post in our Facebook group about how… I don’t know, did you see that post?

Corey: Yeah, I did.

Sarah: About how wonderful it’s been to have her just-turned-3-year-old do these adult jigsaw puzzles with her. So that’s a perfect example of what you’re talking about, I think.

Corey: I think it’s—so I love what you’re saying here, because we’re always told “go into their world,” but there’s something really powerful about letting them into yours. I didn’t actually realize that’s what I was doing—I’ve been bringing them into my world with me, and then they feel really special being allowed in there with me. And so it creates this really beautiful thing, but I’m flexible about letting them in there, knowing it’s going to look different.

Sarah: Right. What are some other things that you’ve done besides art that might be inspiring?

Corey: I realized a long time ago I had to let go of the idea that I needed to read really interesting books to my kids so that every night we could look forward to reading beautiful stories that drew me in. We actually realized bedtime has started getting hard again, and we realized it’s because we’re in between books. So that is something—and a shout-out to my mom; she’s really good at researching books—she’s come up with some really cool books that have really diverse characters and really interesting stories. That’s been another really important thing: don’t just read. I’ve picked really good books that draw me in.

And so last night we actually just started a favorite series of mine. I kid you not, I’m reading to my 10-year-old a feminist fantasy book that I read when I was a tween. It’s called Dealing with Dragons, and he actually is loving it.

Sarah: Nice. So you’re saying—maybe you misspoke—you said you had to give up on reading books that you… beautiful books that you liked. But did you mean that you were finding beautiful books that you liked?

Corey: Yeah, sorry, that’s—earlier on I felt like I was just reading, you know, books that I thought they would like.

Sarah: Oh, okay.

Corey: But instead I was like, “The heck with that,” and I found books that I loved, and I started reading those to my kids. And then they loved them. And then that really got us so excited about bedtime.

Sarah: Great, great.

Corey: We got through it, and we would read that together, and it became—I actually think reading books that I love to my kids has become one of the most important special times that we have each day.

Sarah: So another co-creating—something that’s interesting to both of you. And it’s not necessarily going into their world and reading the Captain Underpants or something that they might like that you find mind-numbingly boring. And maybe Captain Underpants isn’t boring—I’ve never read it—but I’m just using that as an example.

Corey: That’s a perfect example. So it’s like, here, I’m providing those books for them to read to themselves for their reading time. Absolutely—read all the Captain Underpants, the Dog Man you would like. But my goodness, when I’m reading to you, I’m picking something. And look, we’ve abandoned lots of books that we started reading that they couldn’t get into. We keep—we just keep trying.

Sarah: Okay. What else—what else is next?

Corey: Exercise.

Sarah: Okay.

Corey: I’ve realized exercise for me is the number one way for me to deal with stress. Of all things, I need to exercise to help manage stress. And it’s very hard to fit in exercise when you have complex kids. So from the time they were little, we’ve been very flexible about how we’ve done it. But my husband and I have—once again, instead of picking things they’re naturally into (this is starting to sound really funny)—we just brought them into our exercise with us, and they love it. From the time they were little, we had a balance bike for my littlest guy. He was on that balance bike, and we were riding bikes together.

So my littlest one ended up being able to ride a regular bike before he was three.

Sarah: Same with Maxine. Those balance bikes are amazing. She just—yeah. It’s crazy.

Corey: Yeah. And sometimes—

Sarah: Sometimes you’re like, “What have I done?” The 3-year-old is riding off.

Corey: It’s true. It was unbelievable, though. So we just rode our bikes together. From the time ours were very little, we had them as little guys on—you can get an attachment to your bike—and my husband put them on his road bike with him and would take them for rides on his road bike.

Sarah: There’s also the trailer bike too, which we had, which is good.

Corey: So we did that. We had our youngest on skis when he was two. COVID kind of interrupted some of that, but now we ski every weekend with our kids, and we decided to do that instead of putting them into organized sports so that we would all be doing it together.

Sarah: Oh, I love that. Instead of dropping them off and they’re playing soccer, you’re all doing stuff together.

Corey: Yes.

Sarah: I mean, and you could—and, you know, for other families—you could just go and kick the ball. Or I always say, chase your kids around the playground if you feel like you don’t have time to exercise but you need to. It can be that simple, right? Kicking the ball around, chasing them around the playground—get some exercise and have some connection time too.

Corey: Yeah. One of the ways we got our one son kind of good at running is taking the kite to the park, and we just ran around with the kite. But we started even going to—and I advised another family to do this—going to a track together, because it’s a contained area where everyone could run at different speeds. And the really little ones were playing on the inside of the track with soccer balls and things like that, and then everyone else could be running around the track.

Sarah: Love it.

Corey: So getting really creative about literally bringing them into our world of things that we love, and then connecting deeply. And it’s one of those things where it’s an investment you make over time. It starts small, and you have to be really flexible. And there are these little hands grabbing all your fancy pencil crayons, and you’re having to deal with it. And then one day you’re sitting beside them, and they’re using them themselves—drawing works of art.

Sarah: Yeah, yeah.

Corey: And it’s happening now where my older son and I have been going for runs together around the neighborhood, and we have the best talks ever because I’m sideways listening. We should talk about sideways listening, actually.

Sarah: Okay.

Corey: So I learned about this from you. You have a great article—I recommend it to everyone—it’s called “Staying Close to Your Tweens and Teens,” and that’s where you talk about how it’s actually easier for people, I think, to have important conversations when you’re side to side, because it’s not that intensity of looking at each other’s faces. This is extra true for neurodivergent people who sometimes have a hard time with eye contact and talking in that way. So we go for these runs together all around our neighborhood, and I hear everything from my son during that time because we’re side by side. So it’s become special time, where it started when I taught him to come into my world with the track running and all the different things, and now that we’re running, he’s bringing me into his world.

Sarah: Love it. Do you find that a lot of complex kids have special interests—do you find that there’s a way that you can connect with them over their special interest? Does that feel connecting to you if it’s not something—like, I’m literally just curious about that.

Corey: I think that can be tricky, but I do think it’s very important. I’ve learned that I was having a hard time with how much my kids loved video games because I’ve never liked video games. And, you know, as someone with ADHD, it’s so hard to focus on things that I don’t find interesting. And I realized that I’ve spent all this time cultivating bringing them into my world, and we’ve gotten to such a beautiful, connected space that I do need to go into theirs. And now that they’re older, I’m finding it is easier to go into their world, because we’re not trying to make some sort of play thing happen that wasn’t natural.

Sarah: Right.

Corey: So I have been making a point now of—I’ve sat down and been like, “Show me how to play. I’m a beginner. Teach me how to do this.” And I’ve been playing video games with them. I’m so bad.

Sarah: You know, in our podcast with Scott Novus about how to stop fighting with your kids about video games, he says how good it is for kids to see you be bad at something.

Corey: They’re seeing it.

Sarah: I love that.

Corey: I’m so bad. I cannot even a little bit. So they find it very funny. I’ve been playing with them and letting them talk to me about it, and I’ve found that’s been really important too. Because I keep on saying, “Do you see why they love this so much?” And I’m kind of like, yes—and I see what skills you’re learning now that I’ve tried it. It takes so much skill and practice to be good at these complex video games on the Switch and on the PlayStation. So I am learning a lot, and I feel like we are shifting now, where I found a way to connect with them by bringing them along with what I was into, and now that they’re older, we are switching where I’m able to go back into their world.

Sarah: Right. Love it. So we also—you know, I think delighting is something that probably you still do, and we always talk about that as the low-hanging fruit. If you can’t do special time or it doesn’t work for you, delighting in your child throughout the day—letting the love that you feel in your heart show on your face, right? And then finally, you talked about using routine—the things that you do throughout the day—as connection. Can you talk about that a little bit before we go?

Corey: Yes. So this is where long-time listeners of our podcast know that although special time is a big fail for us, I’m really good at being silly with my kids. Really good at being silly. And I’m very inspired listening to Mia from Playful Heart—Playful Heart Parenting. I think I told you, listening to her talk, it was like the first time I heard someone talking about exactly how I do playful parenting. And it’s just injecting play and silliness and drama throughout your everyday things you’re doing together. And so we do that all the time to get through the schedule. Especially now, my 10-year-old is starting to act a little too cool for some of this, but it’s still really happening with my 7-year-old, where we’re always singing weird songs about what we’re doing, and I’ll take on weird accents and be my characters. I’m not going to demonstrate them here—it’s far too embarrassing—but I still have my long-running characters I can’t get over.

Sarah: You’ve got, like, the dental hygienist—what’s her name?

Corey: Karen. Karen the dental hygienist.

Sarah: What’s the bus driver’s name?

Corey: I have Brett the bus driver. We have “Deep Breath,” who’s like a yogi who comes in when everyone needs to take deep breaths. There’s—oh, her name’s So? I’m not sure why. So is the dresser who’s really serious and doesn’t know how to smile. So if my kids ever need help—this has also been a big way that I delight in them, I think—if they ever need help getting dressed (which complex kids need help getting dressed for a long—)

Sarah: And even body doubling when they don’t need help getting dressed, right?

Corey: Yes. So I would always pretend to be a dresser who was sent in to get them dressed in their clothes, and they didn’t know how to smile. So they’re always trying to teach me how to smile when I’m keeping a serious face. And actually, recently I was doing this and I was having such a hard time not laughing that my lips started visibly quivering trying not to smile and laugh.

Sarah: I love that.

Corey: I think it was the hardest I’ve ever seen my 7-year-old laugh. He was on the floor laughing because I was like—

Sarah: And for anyone who this sounds hard for—just, you know, it takes practice, and anyone, I think, can learn to be playful. And I love Mia’s account—we’ll link to that in the show notes. I love Mia’s account for ideas just to get you started, because I know you—you’re a drama kid. I’m not. But I still found ways to get playful even though it’s not my natural instinct. And so you can—this way of getting playful and connecting through the day and through your daily routine—you can do that. It’ll take maybe a little practice; you might feel funny at first. But I think it’s possible for everyone to do that.

So thank you so much. We have to wrap up, but I also want to point out that anyone who wants to connect with you, reach out to us. Corey’s available for coaching. She’s a wonderful coach. And I have people who specifically ask for Corey because they can relate to Corey’s experience as a parent of complex kids. And so, on our website, reimaginepeacefulparenting.com, there is a booking link for a free short consult or for a coaching session. We’ll also put that in the show notes. So if you want some more support, please reach out to us. Either of us are here and want to help you.

And, Corey, thank you for your honesty and vulnerability—vulnerability about being a parent of a complex kid and sharing how you can do that connection, even if it feels like special time is just too hard and something that doesn’t work for you or for your kid. And thanks to Joanna for also inspiring us to get this out there to you all.

Corey, before I let you go, I’m going to ask the question I ask all my guests, which is: what would you tell your—you had a time machine and you could go back in time—what would you tell your younger parent self?

Corey: Okay.

Sarah: About parenting? What do you wish you knew?

Corey: I think what I wish I knew—I think this is easier than I thought it would be, because I just told my best friend who just had a baby this—and it’s: trust your intuition. I think I spent so much time looking for answers outside of myself, and I could feel they weren’t right for my kid or for me, that I was so confused because other people were telling me, “This is what you should be doing.” And the more I’ve learned to trust my gut instinct and just connect deeply—and this special time example is perfect—I knew it wasn’t working for us, and I intuitively knew other ways to do it. And I wish I could have just trusted that earlier.

Sarah: And stopped doing it sooner and just gone with the other connection ideas. Yeah. Thank you so much, Corey. This has been so great. And, again, we’ll put the link to anyone who wants to book a free short consult or coaching session, and also to our membership, which you’ve heard us mention a few times, which is just a wonderful space on the internet for people who want some community and support with their complex kid.

Thanks, Corey.

Corey: Thank you.

>> Please support us!!! Please consider becoming a supporter to help support our free content, including The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, our free parenting support Facebook group, and our weekly parenting emails, “Weekend Reflections” and “Weekend Support” - plus our Flourish With Your Complex Child Summit (coming back in the spring for the 3rd year!) All of this free support for you takes a lot of time and energy from me and my team. If it has been helpful or meaningful for you, your support would help us to continue to provide support for free, for you and for others.

In addition to knowing you are supporting our mission to support parents and children, you get the podcast ad free and access to a monthly ‘ask me anything’ session.

You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, OR— BRAND NEW: we’ve included a fully edited transcript of our interview at the bottom of this post.

In this episode of The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, I do a coaching call with Joanna who has a 2-year-old and a 7-year-old.

We cover how to make mindset shifts so you can better show up for your kids, as well as get into specifics around night weaning, bedtime battles, handling meltdowns, playful parenting and increasing our connection to our kids.

**If you’d like an ad-free version of the podcast, consider becoming a supporter on Substack! > > If you already ARE a supporter, the ad-free version is waiting for you in the Substack app or you can enter the private feed URL in the podcast player of your choice.

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We talk about:

* 6:40 how to manage meltdowns

* 9:00 Night weaning and bedtime challenges

* 20:00 Emptying a full emotional backpack

* 26:00 Kids who always want more attention

* 28:00 Understanding blame and anger

* 38:00 Games to play when a child is looking for more power

* 44:00 How our mindset makes such a big difference when parenting

* 47:30 Two keys to peaceful parenting!

* 55:00 Playful approaches to bedtime

Resources mentioned in this episode:

* Yoto Player-Screen Free Audio Book Player

* The Peaceful Parenting Membership

* How to Help Our Little Ones Sleep with Kim Hawley

* Episode 100: When Your Child Has a Preferred Parent (or Not) with Sarah and Corey

* Episode 103: Playful Parenting with Lawrence Cohen

* Playful Heart Parenting with Mia Wisinski: Episode 186

xx Sarah and Corey

Your peaceful parenting team- click here for a free short consult or a coaching session

Visit our website for free resources, podcast, coaching, membership and more!

>> Please support us!!! Please consider becoming a supporter to help support our free content, including The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, our free parenting support Facebook group, and our weekly parenting emails, “Weekend Reflections” and “Weekend Support” - plus our Flourish With Your Complex Child Summit (coming back in the spring for the 3rd year!) All of this free support for you takes a lot of time and energy from me and my team. If it has been helpful or meaningful for you, your support would help us to continue to provide support for free, for you and for others.

In addition to knowing you are supporting our mission to support parents and children, you get the podcast ad free and access to a monthly ‘ask me anything’ session.

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Transcript:

Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Peaceful Parenting Podcast. Today’s episode is a coaching episode. My guest is Joanna, mom of a 7-year-old and a 2-year-old. Joanna’s 7-year-old is an intense child, and she wanted to know how to handle her big feelings and find more connection with her.

She also had some specific challenges around bedtime, namely that her partner works shift work and is not home at bedtime. She still breastfeeds her 2-year-old to sleep, so is unavailable to her seven-year-old for a bit, and then has trouble getting her seven-year-old to bed without a fight. Joanna also shared how low she was on resources, and we had a great discussion about how that impacts her parenting and what she might do about it.

Also, meltdowns—we talked about those too and how to respond. I know Joanne is not alone. One note: after we did the follow-up call, I realized I forgot to ask her about a few things. So she kindly recorded a couple of P.S.’s that I’ll include. If you’re curious, like I am, you’ll be glad she gave us the latest updates.

If you would like to come on the podcast and be coached by me, I am looking for a few parents who are interested. You can email me at [email protected].

As always, please give us a five-star rating and a review on your favorite podcast app, and if you know another parent or caregiver that this would be helpful for, please screenshot it and send it to them. The best way to reach more families with peaceful parenting is through word of mouth, so we really appreciate any shares that you might be able to give us.

Okay. Let’s meet Joanna. Okay.

Sarah: Hi Joanna. Welcome to the podcast.

Joanna: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Sarah: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Joanna: Sure. I live up in Ottawa, Canada, with my husband and my two kids. I’m a music therapist, so right now I’m working with babies. I teach Yoga with Baby and, um, a class called Sing and Sign at a local wellness center.

Sarah: Nice. How old are—

Joanna: Yes, I have a 7-year-old girl who we’ll call Jay.

Sarah: Okay.

Joanna: And then a 2-year-old boy called JR.

Sarah: JJ. Okay, perfect. Okay, so how can I support you today?

Joanna: Yeah, so my daughter has always been, like, a bit of a tricky one. Um. She was born premature, so at 29 weeks. And no kind of lasting effects. But as she’s gotten older, we’ve noticed, like, she’s really struggled a lot with emotional regulation. Um, and she kind of gets stuck on certain behaviors. So I feel like we’ve done a lot to change our parenting, in part thanks to you and your podcast and all the material. Um, I did finally read, um, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids this past summer.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Joanna: And I feel like it also had a huge effect, just having, like, that bigger scope of understanding of, like, the peaceful parenting philosophy.

Sarah: Uh-huh.

Joanna: So I would say, like, even from where we were a few months ago, we’ve experienced tons of positive shifts with her.

Sarah: Sweet.

Joanna: Yeah, so we’re already kind of well on our way, but there are certain behaviors that she has that still I find really perplexing. So I wondered if maybe we could go over a couple of them.

Sarah: Sure. Yeah, no problem. For anyone—if, for anyone who doesn’t know, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids is the book written by my mentor, who I trained with, Dr. Laura Markham. Um, and just for my own curiosity, what do you think? Because, you know, I always worry that people are—that they don’t have the fully formed idea of peaceful parenting. And that—and I’m not saying you, because you’ve listened to the podcast so you probably have a deeper understanding—but some people are just getting their little snippets on Instagram reels, you know, and so it is hard to understand, like, the, the sort of the core reasons why we do the approach if you don’t have that deeper understanding. And also, I’m working on a book right now, so hopefully soon you’ll be able to say you read my book. But what did you—what do you feel like got fleshed out for you when you read that book?

Joanna: I think she really breaks a lot of things down step by step, such as, like, what to do when your child is going through a meltdown.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Joanna: And that has always been an area—like, when my daughter gets to that point where she’s, like, become really explosive and aggressive and she’s just, like, in it and she’s kind of unreachable at that moment—like, what to do step by step at that time. I think, like, that’s been the most helpful because I’ve been able to really settle into my own parenting and just, like, really trust myself and anchor in at that point, which is exactly really what she needs and what was missing.

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah.

Joanna: So—

Sarah: So I think, um—like I always say, focus on regulating yourself first. Like, when someone’s having a meltdown, empathize.

Joanna: Yeah.

Sarah: Um, you know, it—yeah, it’s—it can be hard because you often feel like you need to do something. And even though you’re saying step by step, it’s less about doing anything than just centering yourself, staying calm yourself, trying to get in touch with the compassion and empathy even if you’re not—some pe—some parents say, “Oh, well, when I try to say anything, then my kid just screams more.” So sometimes it’s just empathize—like, getting connected in your own heart to the empathy and compassion, even if you’re not saying anything—and that, that does something.

Joanna: Absolutely it does. Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah.

Joanna: Yeah, so that’s all been really helpful. Now, in—in terms of emotional regulation, I do definitely think that that’s the biggest piece.

Sarah: Okay.

Joanna: Uh, it’s been the biggest piece for me and sort of, like, one of the big things that I wanted to talk to you about today is we are still really not getting sleep because my 2-year-old is not a good sleeper and has never been a good sleeper. And we’ve gone through periods where I’m like, okay, now he’s only waking up, like, twice a night, and that feels manageable. Um, but he’s kind of been back to waking up, like, three to six times a night again, which is so hard. And then my husband’s very supportive; however, he works afternoons, so he’s gone from about 3:00 PM to 1:00 AM, so he needs to be able to sleep until about eight, which means I’m up with my son between six and seven. My daughter gets up for school around 7:30, so that’s, like, a tricky time of day because she’s really quite grumpy in the morning. He’s not—the toddler’s really, like, kind of a totally different temperament. But, like, I’m tired after struggling with, like, night wakings all night. And then I’m with the kids from the time that she gets home from school, um, and then doing both bedtimes myself.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Joanna: Um, so there’s a lot of time where, like, I am solo parenting, and I’m definitely, like, the preferred parent. Um, and both my kids really want me and need me at bedtime. So he is still nursing—like, I’m nursing to sleep and then nursing during the night. And I know that that’s probably contributing a lot to all the night wakings. So, I guess my question is, like, I am at the point where I am ready to night-wean. I probably should have done it already, but—

Sarah: Don’t say “should have.” Like, it’s—if you’re not ready to make that change, like, in your heart, it’s really torturous to try to—try to, like, not—so say you decide you want to night-wean, but you weren’t really ready to do it. It would be so painful for you to deny your son nursing in the night if you were—if you didn’t feel in your heart, like, “No, this is the right thing to do. I’m totally ready. I think he’s ready.” So, so I think waiting until you’re really, like, actually, yes, “I’m done with this,” is a smart thing. Yeah. So don’t beat yourself up for not having done it already. But you’re right, it probably does contribute to him waking up in the night.

Joanna: Yeah. And, um, I do feel like I—I’m ready. I just—I’m not quite sure how to make that shift. So what generally happens is, like, we have some, like, virtual babysitting going on with my mom, where, like, when I nurse my son to sleep, which generally takes, like, between maybe 30 and 45 minutes, she’ll, like, sit with her and do a workbook. So we’ll have, like, a video chat, and then after—

Sarah: Yeah, it’s great.

Joanna: So then after, um, I’m with her to get her ready for bed, and that oftentimes looks like a lot of, like, dragging heels on, like, “Oh, I want another snack,” and “I wanna, like, brush my teeth,” and “Whatever—don’t wanna brush my teeth.” So, um, then that ends up taking usually about an hour, but we both sort of have, like, this expiration at about 9:00 PM, where, like, she just gets so dysregulated because she’s so tired.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Joanna: So if I don’t have her in bed at that point and, like, already kind of with the lights out, there’s often just, like, a meltdown and some—like, she’ll start calling me names and start, like, you know, throwing stuff down at me and whatnot. And then I’m just really tired by that point too. Yeah. So we can kind of joke around about it now—like, nine o’clock is the time where we’re, like, where we both expire. So I’m trying to figure out, like, how can I night-wean? Because I know that that is supposed to start with, like, him being able to fall asleep by himself at the beginning of the night, so—

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Joanna: Slowly phasing that out and laying with him. I know it’s gonna probably take a lot longer in the beginning, so I’m just a little worried that, like, maybe if it takes, like, an hour, an hour and a half, then all of a sudden she’s kind of, like, left hanging and it’s getting later and her bedtime’s being pushed back.

Sarah: Are there any—are there any nights that your partner is home at bedtime?

Joanna: There’s two—

Sarah: nights that—

Joanna: he—

Sarah: is,

Joanna: yeah.

Sarah: Yeah. I mean, I guess I would start with those nights.

Joanna: Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah. Start with those nights. And—and when was your son’s birthday? Like, like how—two—is he—

Joanna: He just turned two, like, two weeks ago.

Sarah: Okay. So, I mean, I think I would start with trying to just practice, you know, nursing him and maybe nursing him somewhere else and then bringing him back, you know, and then putting him in—are you co-sleeping?

Joanna: Sleep—yeah. Well, I put him—like, I generally nurse him to sleep. He has a floor bed in his room, and then I go to bed in my own room, and then at his first wake, then I go back in, and I just stay there for the room—the rest of the night from that point.

Sarah: Right, right. So I, I guess I would try just, like, nursing him and trying to, like, pat his back and sing to him and, you know, tell him that—that he can have—I, I mean, what we did was, “You can have milk in the morning,” you know, “You could have it when it’s light.” I remember my oldest son—when he—it took him a couple of days—and if you wanna hear the whole story of my failed night-weaning with my second son, it was in a podcast that we did about infant and toddler sleep, uh, with Kim.

Joanna: Yeah, Kim?

Sarah: Yes. So you could listen to that if you haven’t heard that already. But my second—my first son was super easy to night-wean, and a couple of—it was, like, a couple of nights of a little bit of crying, and he would just say, “Make it light, Mama. Make it light,” because he wanted—I said, “You can nurse when it’s light.” But, you know, I, I, I don’t wanna get into that whole big thing on this podcast because—mm-hmm—just because I’ve already talked about it. But if you wanna listen to that, and if you have any questions when we do our follow-up, you can, uh, you can ask me. But, you know, I would just try, you know, talking to him about, then, you know, “You can have Milky in the morning,” or whatever you call it, and, you know, those two—see how it goes for those two nights where your partner’s around. And if it doesn’t—I would say, if it still seems really hard, maybe just waiting to do it until—I don’t know if you have any other support you could enlist. You mentioned your mother—maybe she could come and visit, you know, because I do think it would be hard to try and do this and do the solo bedtimes for a while. So I don’t know if there’s a time when your mom could come visit or if there’s some other support that you could have. But yeah—

Joanna: I think the tricky part with that is that, like, she—even with my husband—like, she doesn’t want him to put her to bed.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Joanna: And depending on the kind of night that she’s having, sometimes she’ll end up, like, screaming, and their bedrooms are right beside each other. So we’ve had it before where, like, she’ll start having a meltdown and, like, wake him up, and then he’s not able to fall asleep either. And then we—

Sarah: There’s also—your husband could be with your son.

Joanna: It’s the same—same situation though. Like, he doesn’t—him—

Sarah: It sounds—it sounds like possibly—I mean, there—kids do have preferred parents even when, um, they do have good connection with the—with the other parent. And you could maybe still work—have some—that be something that you’re working on, having your partner, you know, maybe even practicing having—before you start doing the night-weaning—practicing having your partner doing some of the bedtime stuff. When you are—when, you know, when—before you’re starting to make a change so that your son doesn’t associate, you know, “I’m not getting what I want,” and my dad, you know, putting me to sleep.

Joanna: Yeah.

Sarah: So I would maybe try to get your partner a little bit more involved in bedtime before making a change. And—and even if there’s some crying—we also have a podcast about preferred parents that you could listen to. So I—you know, I think maybe you do have a little bit of pre-work to do before you start doing the night-weaning, and, in terms of when—how can you get support at bedtime?

Joanna: Yeah.

Sarah: Okay.

Joanna: I mean, the other option is if you just kick it down the road more and—or, you know, there isn’t—there’s actually a third option now that I think about it—it’s that you still nurse him to sleep but then don’t nurse him when you wake him up—when he wakes up in the night. Get him to go back to sleep without that.

Sarah: I hadn’t thought about that, because I think that everything that I’ve heard has been, like, they have to fall asleep on their own because then they’re always gonna be—

Joanna: looking—

Sarah: for—

Joanna: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: But I mean, you could still try it.

Joanna: Hmm. Okay.

Sarah: Or you could try shortening the—you know, give him a little bit of milk and then see if he’ll go to sleep, um, after he has a little bit, but without nursing to sleep.

Joanna: Okay. Yeah. Okay, I’ll give that some thought and try some different things there.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Joanna: Okay. Thank you. But yeah, I feel like just starting to get sleep again is pretty important. So, even in terms of, like, being able to center myself to handle all of the things that goes on with my daughter during the day, that feels like a really important piece right now.

Sarah: For sure. And if she’s—if she’s some nights not going—it sounds like quite frequently maybe she’s not asleep before nine.

Joanna: Yeah.

Sarah: And what time does she wake up?

Joanna: 7:30.

Sarah: 7:30. So do you think she’s getting enough sleep?

Joanna: Probably not. She’s really lethargic in the morning.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Joanna: But I can’t really seem to figure out how to be able to get her to sleep. Like, I did talk to her about it, and she was like, “Well, maybe when I turn eight, like, I can start putting myself to bed.” And I was like, “Okay, well what—what would that look like?” And she kind of went through, like, “Okay, I’ll, you know, I’ll brush my teeth on the phone with Grandma, and then I’ll just, like, read in bed.” And—but this is, like, in a moment where she’s feeling very regulated.

Sarah: Right, right, right. And when’s her birthday?

Joanna: Uh, in about two months.

Sarah: Okay. Yeah. Um, have you had a conversation with her about how neither of you likes the fighting at night? And, you know—and does she have any, like—not in the moment, but does she have any ideas of, you know, how you can solve the problem of her not, you know, not wanting to go to bed and then getting too tired and then getting really cranky?

Joanna: Yeah, we have—we have talked about it, and we can talk about it with, like, a little bit more levity now, but I don’t think that she’s actually—we’ve gone to, like, the problem-solving—

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Joanna: of that.

Sarah: I mean, that might be a helpful conversation to have with her and just say, “You know, I’ve been thinking about what often happens at night, you know, and I totally get it, that you don’t wanna go to bed. Like, you know, when I was a kid, I never wanted to go to bed, and I would’ve stayed up all night if I could. And I’m sure you’re the same because it’s just—you know, when you’re young, going to bed is, like, you know, not any fun at all.” And you can make—you could even make a joke, like, “When you’re old like me, like, you can’t wait to go to bed.” But of course when you’re young, you don’t wanna go to sleep, and I totally get that. So, like, lots of empathy and acknowledging, like, her perspective. And—and then you could say, “And at the same time, you know, you do—you know, why do you think it’s important to sleep?” So I guess you could have that conversation with her too about, like, you know, what happens when we’re sleeping that—your, you know, you could talk about how your cells, like, fix themselves. Also we grow when we’re sleeping—like, we get the—like, the growth hormone gets secreted, and that’s the—if we don’t get enough sleep, we’re not gonna grow and we’re not gonna feel happy the next day. So you can, like, talk to her about the importance of sleep. And then you could say, like, “So, you know, I know you don’t wanna go to sleep, and I know how important it is, and now you do too. And, you know—and I hate fighting with you at bedtime. You know, do you have any ideas for how we can solve this problem? Because I really want us both to go to bed feeling happy and connected.”

Joanna: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a great suggestion. Thank you. I think the biggest barrier to her getting to bed on time is she is finally feeling, like, a bit more calm and relaxed at night. Like, she comes home after school with a lot—she’s holding a lot from school. They have, like, a point system for good behavior at school.

Sarah: Oh.

Joanna: And you should see how she racks up the points. She has great behavior at school. The teacher’s, like—would never believe what goes on at home.

Sarah: Of course, yeah.

Joanna: So then she comes home, and it’s, like, a lot of unloading. So I feel like by that time of night she’s, like, ready to pursue her hobbies. Like, she’s like, “Oh, I just wanna do this one more little”—you know, she’s drawing something, and it’s always like, “I just need to finish this,” because once she gets started on something, she can’t seem to break her focus on—We’re very much suspecting ADHD. That’s gonna be probably in the next year we pursue a diagnosis, but—

Sarah: Typically—do have a lot of trouble falling asleep—that’s with ADHD. What about—you know, so two outta three of my kids had a lot of trouble falling asleep, and they’re both my ADHD kids, and what really helped them was something to listen to at night. You know—

Joanna: Yeah, she does listen to podcasts falling asleep—

Sarah: Does listen to stuff.

Joanna: Yeah, she’s always listened—listened to, like, a story falling asleep. I think part of it too is we don’t get a lot of one-on-one time throughout the day.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Joanna: Because my son’s around in the morning.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Joanna: And it’s usually just the three of us until my husband wakes up, which is shortly before she goes to school. And then it’s again the three of us from after school till bedtime most days, except for the two days a week that he’s off.

Sarah: Well, I mean, that’s something to explore too, like, in—are there, you know—I don’t know if you live in a neighborhood that has some, like, tweens that could come over and play with your son for an hour—you know, just someone really fun that he would like to play with—and then you and your daughter could have some time together. Because what I was gonna say when you said that she comes home with what we call the “full backpack” in Peaceful Parenting—which is, she’s been carrying around, for anyone who’s listening who doesn’t know what that is, it’s a concept that my mentor, Dr. Laura, came up with—where you’re holding on to all of the stresses, big feelings, tensions from the day, and then when you come home, it’s too much to, you know, to keep holding onto it. And so that’s what you were just referring to, is just that she’s got a lot to unpack after the day at school. And so I’m wondering—so when you mentioned that, I was gonna say, like, what could you do to try to proactively get some of that emptied out? Couple of ideas: do you do any roughhousing with her?

Joanna: We actually just started doing that, and I couldn’t believe how much she was into it. Yeah, I was super surprised. But I also think that it’s taken just a lot of, like, repair with our relationship to get to the point that I’ve even been able to try some of this stuff. Like, because at first, like, when I first started hearing about some of these, like, peaceful—I, I don’t know if you’d call them techniques—but, like, being playful and, um, roughhousing and things like that—she was so not open to anything at all because she was just so serious and so edgy and like, “Get away from me,” like, so irritable. So now I think that we’ve just—I’ve poured a lot of time in on weekends just to, like, spend time together that’s enjoyable, and I’m noticing a huge shift. So now we are able to do some of these things, and it—it is turning out more positively.

Sarah: Good. I mean, as you’re speaking, I’m thinking that it sounds like there was maybe, um, quite a—a breach when your son was born, like, the last two years. Or, or do you feel like your relationship has always been a little strained even before that?

Joanna: I feel like maybe it’s always been a little fraught. I don’t know if his birth had, like, a huge impact on that. Um, it has always been pretty strained.

Sarah: Okay, okay.

Joanna: Just because she’s the more challenging kid?

Sarah: I think so. And, you know, when she was two there was the pandemic. I think, like, I was carrying a lot of trauma after the whole NICU experience with her. And then we had the pandemic, and then we moved, and then I got pregnant, and then I had my son. So it’s like there’s sort of been these, like, things along the way where—yeah, I don’t know.

Sarah: Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, that’s good that you brought that up because I think that, you know, maybe that’s gonna be the pre-work—that even before bedtime starts to feel better is really working on—you know, if you can get some support in, because it is really hard to have one-on-one time with a 2-year-old who probably doesn’t wanna leave you alone. But even if—you know, continue with your sort of bulking up on the weekends with that time with her and do some, like, roughhousing and special time with her. Do you guys do special time?

Joanna: Yeah. And that’s something I wanted to talk about because special time has been sort of a big fail when I call it special time and when we set a timer for special time, because it really tends to dysregulate her, I think, because she’s like, “Oh my God, I only have you for 15 minutes.” Mm-hmm. She gets really stressed out, and then she’s like—oftentimes she likes to do these, like, elaborate pretend plays—things which need, like, a lot, a lot of setup time. Yeah. So she’ll be like, “Pause the timer so I can set this up,” and then it just becomes, like, more tension between us. Like, it’s not enjoyable.

Sarah: It’s one of those things where, like, you really have to adjust it to how it works for your particular family. Um, so, you know, maybe you just have, like, a couple hours with her on the weekend and you’re—and it would be good for your—your partner and your son too. Maybe he could take him to the park or go and—you know, for them to work on their connection, which might make him a little bit more willing to go to bed with his dad, you know, on the nights that your partner is home. So, you know, I would really work on that connection with her and do those pretend play things with her. And even—you know, and this is maybe obvious, which is why I didn’t say it before—but, you know, partly she’s dragging her heels because that’s the only time she has you to herself—at bedtime, right?

Joanna: Yeah.

Sarah: And so she doesn’t want that to end because that’s the only time that it—her brother’s asleep—she has you all to herself. So if you can increase the time where she has you all to herself, she might be more willing to, um, to go to bed. Yeah. The other thing I was gonna say is, do you have anything that you do together at bedtime that would be, like—it sounds like she’s dragging her heels to actually get in bed. Is there anything that you can do to entice her to get in bed, like a chapter book that you’re reading her, that you read a chapter every night or something like that?

Joanna: Yeah, and that has worked in the past, but it can—it can also kind of cause tension because I find, like, then I am a lot more apt to kind of hold it as, like, a bargaining chip instead of, like, “Oh, let’s get to that.” Right. But lately we’ve been playing cards, and she’s really motivated to, like, play a game of cards when we’re in bed. So that seems to be working right now, but it’s always kind of like—it changes all the time.

Sarah: Right, right. Well, just keeping—thinking of something that you can use to make getting in bed seem more attractive? Um, maybe—I mean, my kids used to love hearing stories about me when I was little or about them when they were little. So it could even just be, like, a talk time. I know Corey, who works with me, does—she started doing a 10-minute talk time with one of her sons, who’s a little bit older than—than your daughter, but where they just have, you know, this time where they just get in bed and he tells her stuff and they—they talk. So that could be something too—just really pure, straight-up connection.

Joanna: Yeah. Okay, I like that. Maybe I can just ask you a couple more things about some of the things I—She’s kind of a person that really wants constant connection too. Like, it does feel like I could spend, like, all day with her, and then she—once it’s over, she would still be like, “Well, why are we not still—” like, it—we’ve always kind of—my husband and I will joke that she’s got, like, a leaky cup because it’s, like, “Just fill up their cup,” but it doesn’t seem to matter. He used to play with her for, like, two to three hours when she was younger, and then at the end she would just, like, not be satisfied. Like, it didn’t seem like anything was going to, like, fill her cup.

Sarah: And that—you know what, there are kids like that. I remember I had this client once whose son actually said to her, “Mama, all the—all the hours in the world are not enough time with you.” And there are some kids that are really just like that. And, you know, I’m not sure how you respond when she says, like, you know, “But we hardly even got to play,” after you play for three hours. I mean, that playful—like, “Oh my gosh, like, what if we could just play all day?” You know, either, like, playful response of, like, “We could play for 27 hours,” you know, “and—and—and we would still have so much fun together.” Or just pure empathy, you know, like, “Oh no, it just feels like it’s never enough time, is it?”

Joanna: And it almost seems like sometimes when I am empathetic, it almost, like, fuels her anger. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that before from anybody else, but—eh, I don’t know. Like, we had a situation with—like, she was looking for a specific bear last weekend—a teddy bear that she’s missing—because she wanted to bring it to a teddy bear picnic. And so we were sort of, like, you know, we had to get out the door to go to this party. She couldn’t find this bear, and I was, like, you know, offering a lot of empathy, and just, like—the more that I was like, “I know, like, you’re so frustrated; you’re so disappointed that you can’t find your bear,” it was like the more that she was like, “Yeah, and you took it, you hid it, you put it somewhere.” Like, it just—the more empathy I gave, it seemed like the more that she was using it as almost, like, fuel to be upset. Does that make sense? Right.

Sarah: Yeah. No, that’s pretty common. And the thing is, you have to remember that blame is trying to offload difficult feelings. It’s like, “I don’t wanna feel this way, so I’m gonna blame you.” And then—you know, it’s anger—have you ever seen the image of the anger iceberg?

Joanna: Yes.

Sarah: Yeah. So the anger iceberg is, like, the anger is the only thing you see coming out of the water. But underneath the iceberg are all of the more tender feelings, right? And anger is actually a secondary emotion. So you don’t start out by feeling angry. You feel—like, like for her, she maybe was feeling frustrated and disappointed that she couldn’t find her bear. And those are the first feelings. But those more tender feelings are harder to feel, and so anger is often protective. And the tender feelings also set off that—you know, that overwhelm of our emotions registers as a threat to the nervous system, which sets off that fight, flight, or freeze. So there’s all those things going on, right? Like, the blame of, like, trying to offload the feelings; the anger of feeling like it’s easier to go on the offensive than to feel those tender feelings; and then the nervous system getting set off by that overwhelm that registers as a threat, right? It sets off the fight, flight, or freeze. And they’re—they’re kind of all different ways of saying the same thing. And yes, empathy often will help a child—that they get more in touch with those feelings. And I’m not saying that you don’t wanna empathize, um, but just recognize that, you know, the feelings are happening, and when you empathize, they—you know, you’re welcoming the feelings, which sometimes can have that fight, flight, or freeze effect.

Joanna: And would you recommend that I continue to really lean into empathy more and just stay with all of that emotion until it passes?

Sarah: So—totally depends. The other thing I was gonna say is it’s possible—like the situation you just gave me—it’s possible—like, how—were you actually feeling empathetic, or were you trying to just get out the door?

Joanna: I think I was, but at a certain point I was like, “I think, you know, we have two options from here. Like, we can continue to be upset about the bear and it—it will make us late for the party, or at a certain point we can move on and make a new plan,” and, like, “get our—make our way over there.” So, um, is that effective? Yeah, I—I mean, she eventually was able to change gears. But, I mean, it doesn’t feel like real life to just be able to, like, sit in your negative emotions all the time. And I think, like, maybe I struggle with doing that for, like, a long enough period of time to actually let her—let them out.

Sarah: Well, I don’t know—yeah. So, I mean, there’s a difference between welcoming feelings and wallowing in emo—in emotion, I think.

Joanna: Yeah. And she definitely is a wallower, and she almost has really, like, attached so much sadness and frustration and anger to this bear. Like, now she’ll just, like, think about the bear and be like, “Oh, I still can’t find that bear.” Like, she was just, like, you know, exploding about it again this past weekend. So it almost feels like she’s just latching onto it to, like, feel bad there.

Sarah: I mean, some kids—she’s probably not choosing to latch onto it to feel bad, but she probably just has. So, so what I was gonna say is sometimes when kids seem to be wallowing, it’s just that there’s so much there that they haven’t been able to get out on a regular basis. So I think it is just like a full backpack, and there’s just a lot there. And it’s not—it’s probably not just about the bear. It’s probably just like she’s—it’s, you know, processing other older things too. And you don’t have to know what’s in the backpack or try and figure it out. But you might find that if you had more opportunities for her to process feelings, then she might not get so stuck when they do start to come out.

That’s one thing that I would think of. Like—and more laughter should help with that. Like, more laughter and roughhousing to help her sort of process stuff. And also sometimes—so the bear thing reminds me of—some kids will just feel bad, you know, like feel bad sometimes from, like, a full backpack, or maybe they don’t even know what it is, they can’t connect. Or maybe they’re just tired and low-resourced and their brain is kind of like, “Why do I feel bad? Why do I feel bad?” And she’s like, “Oh, the bear.” You know, she remembers, like, the bear. Like, I’ve had clients tell me, my kid will say, like, “I miss Grandpa,” who they never met, who died before they were born—like, just kind of casting around for, like, “Why could I be feeling this way right now? Oh, I know—it’s ’cause I can’t find that bear.”

Or maybe the bear is so important to her that it really is—that she thinks about it and it just makes her feel bad. But I think what you wanna remember when it seems like she’s wallowing is that, you know, getting—like, having empathy. And I actually also did a podcast about this too, with another coaching call, where I talked about, you know, cultivating a certain amount of nonchalance after you feel like you’ve been pretty empathetic and welcomed the feelings. Because I think if we’re too empathetic sometimes—and I do wanna be very careful with this because I don’t want anyone to take this as, like, “Don’t be empathetic”—but, you know, there is a time where you just say, like, “You know what? I hear how upset you are about this, and I get it. And I would be really bummed if I couldn’t find the bear I wanted also. And we have to decide, like, are we gonna stay here and just keep feeling sad about the bear, or should we figure out another plan?” Like what you said, right.

Joanna: Yeah, I have heard you say that before, and that’s been so helpful for her. Mm-hmm. It seems like if I’m not so reactive to her emotions, she realizes that they’re not an emergency either.

Sarah: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean—and that’s a good point too, because I didn’t even ask you, like, how’s your regulation when this is happening? Like, are you getting, like, annoyed, frustrated, upset for her, kind of drawn in? Are you able to, like, kind of center yourself and stay calm?

Joanna: It varies. I would say I currently am the most resourced that I’ve ever been—good with, like, the emotional regulation piece. And then that—I see, like, sometimes she is able to come out of it more quickly, or it just depends on, you know, what her tolerance is at that—at that time. So—

Sarah: Joanna, it might be that, you know, you’re coming out of—almost like you’re coming out of a fog of, you know—you said all the things: like the NICU experience, and then the—and then COVID, and then your new baby, and—and that it might be that you’re really, finally for the first time, kind of getting to tend—you know, look at yourself, your own regulation, and be more present and connected with your daughter. And all these things are gonna start having a little bit of, um, of a snowball effect. And it may be that you’ve just had this, like, seven-year period of difficulty, you know?

Joanna: Oh, that’s horrifying.

Sarah: Well, but the good news is it sounds like things are shifting.

Joanna: Yeah. It really does feel like that. Yeah. You’re—I feel like even if I talked to you a few months ago, I would’ve been like, “Oh, help me.”

Sarah: Well—and that you’re recognizing what you brought—what you bring to the table, and that, you know, things have been fraught with your daughter, and that you’re sort of starting to come out. And—and honestly, also doing that—doing that bedtime—after-school bedtime by yourself five days a week, that’s gonna be tough too. Uh, so you’ve got situ—just that current situation doesn’t sound like it’ll change, but you’re changing what you’re bringing to it.

Joanna: Yeah. Yeah. Um, if I can maybe just ask you, like, one more little thing?

Sarah: Sure.

Joanna: Maybe this is—it all comes back to, like, wanting a lot of connection, but this is also what kind of drains my battery. She constantly wants to, like, talk to me or ask me questions from, like, the time that she wakes up to the time that she goes to bed. And it will be—like, currently it’s, like, “Would you rather.” It’s like, “Would you rather eat all the food in the world or never eat again?” Uh-huh. In the past it’s been, like, “Guess what’s in my mouth?” But then she always really tries to make it—make me wrong in the circumstance, if that makes sense. Like, I don’t know if that’s just her, like, looking for power or, like, the upper hand, or like—I don’t know. I’m not sure what it is.

Sarah: Well, I mean, if you feel—if you have a sense that she’s looking for power, I would bring that into the roughhousing—where you are the one who’s weak and bumbling and idiotic, and, you know, you’re so slow, and she beats you every time at a race. So I would really try to bring some of that—some of that stuff into your roughhousing where she gets to be—Do you know the kind of stuff I’m talking about? Like, “I bet you can’t—um, you know, I bet you can’t beat me at arm wrestling,” and then, like, you know, you flop your arm over in a silly way, and like, “How are you so strong? Like, I’m gonna beat you next time.” And it’s obviously playful, because probably you are stronger than she is at this point, but, you know—feats of strength or speed, or, you know, figuring things out, and you act like you really don’t know anything. And—but in, of course, in a joking way, so she knows that you’re not—you know, you’re pretending to be all these things, but she still gets to gloat and, like, “Ha, you know, I’m the strongest, I’m the best.” So really giving her that in roughhousing.

And then also, like, real power. Like, I don’t know if she gets to make—what kinds of decisions she gets to make, or, you know, how much—how flexible you are on limits. Because sometimes, as parents, we do set unnecessary limits, which can make our kids, you know—make them look for power in other ways. So really looking at what limits you’re setting and if they’re necessary limits, and—and how you’re setting them. Uh, and also I think it sounds like it’s connection-seeking—like, she just wants you. You know, she wants to know that you’re there and paying attention to her. And so everything else that you’re doing—that we’re talking about—that you’re gonna try to do more—more time with her and get more one-on-one time with her, hopefully that will help too.

And I think it is okay to say, like, after you’ve done, like, 25 “would you rathers,” I just say—like, I used to say to my kids, “You know what? My brain is just feeling really stimulated from so many words. Like, can we have some quiet for a few minutes?” And not—and being very careful to not phrase it like, “You’re talking too much,” or “I don’t wanna listen to—” and I’m exaggerating for effect—but just framing it as, like, your brain and a regulation thing—like, “My brain,” and it is words. Yeah. And so, like, “Do you—should we put some music on?” You know, “Can we—like, think of—can you connect in a way that—let’s listen to a story.” Okay. Something like that where you still, like, keep up connection with her, but—and it might not work. She—she might not be able to stop talking, but you can try it at least.

Joanna: No, that’s a—that’s a really good suggestion. Almost like replacing it with some other kind of stimulation if she’s looking for that in that moment.

Sarah: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So I think—I think it’s just—I think it’s fair. Like, it’s totally—I, at the end of the day, with people, like, talking at me all day, I sometimes am like—you know, when my kids were younger, I’d be like, “Okay, you know, I—I just need a little—my brain needs a little bit of a break. It’s feeling overstimulated.” So I think just using that language with her.

Joanna: Okay. Okay. Great. Thank you. Well—

Sarah: Yeah, I think you’re—you know, I think that I’ve—that we’ve connected at a point where you’re, like, at—you’re, like, at the—sort of the top of a mountain, you know? And you’ve been, like, having all this struggle and uphill battles. And I think you’ve put—before even we talk—you’ve put a lot of pieces [together] of what—you know, why some of the challenges were. And they do seem to be connection—you know, connection-based, just in terms of, um, you know, her wanting more and you not being as resourced. And so hopefully working on connection is gonna help with that too.

Joanna: Yeah. I’m gonna keep that at top of mind.

Sarah: And your self-regulation too. You said you’re—you know, you’ve been having—you’re more resourced now than you ever have been, so you’re able to work on really staying, like, calm and compassionate in those times when she’s dysregulated. Going back to what I said in the beginning, which is that, you know, the steps for the meltdowns really start with our own regulation.

Joanna: And I find it’s a snowball effect too, because once you start seeing positive changes, it allows you to, like, rest in knowing that things will not always be so hard.

Sarah: Yeah. So it—

Joanna: It gives you motivation to keep going, I think.

Sarah: Totally. And, you know, with complex kids—which it sounds like your daughter is one of those more complex kids—um, brain maturity makes such a huge difference. Um, like, every month and every year as she’s starting to get older. And, you know, you mentioned ADHD—that you—that you suspect that she might be ADHD. ADHD kids are often around three years behind, um, in terms of what you might expect for them in terms of, like, their brain development. And not—and not across the board. But in terms of, like, their regulation, in terms of what they can do for themselves, um, like in—you know, and obviously every kid is different. But it really helps to think about, um, your ADHD kids as sort of, uh, developmentally younger than they are. My—my girlfriend who has—her son and my daughter are the same age, so they’re both just starting college or university this year. And, um, she was—I—she lives in California, and I was talking to her, and her son has ADHD, and she was talking about how much support he’s still needing in first-year college and how she was feeling a little bit like, “Oh, I feel like I shouldn’t be supporting him this much when he’s 18.” And—and she said, “Actually, I just re—you know, I always remind myself of what you told me a long time ago: to think of him as three years younger than he is in some ways,” and that that’s made her feel a little bit better about the scaffolding that she’s having to give him.

Joanna: Yeah, I’ve never heard that before. That’s good. She’s also gonna be starting to work with an OT in a couple of weeks, so we’ll see if that has any effect as well.

Sarah: Cool.

Joanna: Cool.

Sarah: Alright, well, I look forward to catching up with you in around maybe three weeks or a month and seeing how things went, and, um, good luck, and I hope this was helpful and gave you some things to work on.

Joanna: Okay. Thank you so much.

Sarah: Hi Joanna. Welcome back to the podcast.

Joanna: Hi Sarah.

Sarah: So—how has—it’s been about—I think it’s been about four weeks since we talked the first time. How have things been?

Joanna: Yeah, things I think have been going a little better. Like, every day is a little bit different. We definitely have, like, a lot of ups and downs still, but I think overall we’re just on a better trajectory now. Um, it’s actually—I was wondering if things—if, like, the behavior has actually been better, or if it’s more just, like, my frame of mind.

Sarah: That is the classic question because—it’s so funny, I’m—I’m laughing because so much of the time when I’m coaching parents, after a couple of sessions they’ll say, “This isn’t even about my kids. This is all about me.” Right.

Joanna: Yeah, it really, really is and just continues to be about, like, my own—not just frame of mind, but, like, my own self-regulation. That’s always the biggest thing.

Sarah: Yeah.

Joanna: Um, I think the biggest challenge is, like—ever since, like, about six months ago, I just have had really bad PMS. So I find, like, the week before—

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Joanna: I just feel so irritated by everything.

Sarah: Yeah.

Joanna: So I feel like that’s a really—just so much more of a challenging time because then things that normally don’t bother me are bothering me a lot more.

Sarah: Right.

Joanna: And then it’s harder to keep that connection strong.

Sarah: Totally. Yeah. And you also—as we mentioned last time—you have come off of a whole bunch of different events of, you know—we talked your daughter’s premature birth, and then COVID, and then the new baby. And the new baby—you know, you’re not sleeping that much, and, um, all of those things would make it also have your resources be low. Like, not only the PMS, but, like, anything that puts a tax on us—on our resources—is gonna make us more irritable.

Joanna: Totally. And—but I’m really trying to lean into having a lot more compassion for myself, because I know that when I do that, I can have a lot more compassion for her and, mm-hmm, whatever’s going on that she’s bringing to the table too. So that’s—that’s, I think, probably the biggest thing. But I think that our relationship is just starting to have a lot more resilience—like, when things do start to go sideways, either she or I—we’re able to kind of get back on track a lot more quickly than before, and it doesn’t become as, like, entrenched.

Sarah: That’s awesome. And we—we talked last time about trying to get some more time with her so that the only time that she has with you isn’t just at bedtime when you’re trying to get her to go to bed. Have you been able to do that, and has it—do you think that’s been helping?

Joanna: Yeah. It depends. Like, we had a really busy weekend this past weekend, so not as much. And then I find that sometimes, like, a barrier to that is, like, by the time the weekend finally comes, I’m so depleted and really just, like, needing time for myself. As much as I’m like, “Okay, I need to spend one-on-one time with her,” I’m like, “I don’t want to—I just, like, be by myself for a little while.” So it’s—

Sarah: I hear that.

Joanna: It’s always that—like, yeah, it’s always that balancing act. And then, like, feeling guilty of, like, “Okay, no, I know I should want to hang out with her,” and I kind of just don’t really.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. No, you’re—you’re totally not alone. And it’s funny that you just—you mentioned self-compassion and then you said, “I feel guilty ’cause I—I don’t wanna hang out with her,” but we all—the theme so far in this five minutes is that, um, you know, what you’re bringing to the—what you’re bringing to the relationship has been improving. Like you said, your mindset has shifted, and that’s helping things with her. So even if you’re not getting time independently with her—and hopefully you can work towards that after you fill your own cup—but you’re still helping things with her by getting time to yourself.

Joanna: True. Yeah, because then I’m coming back just a much better, happier—yes—parent and person.

Sarah: Totally.

Joanna: Oh, thank you. That’s helpful.

Sarah: Yeah, and the—and I think you’ve—you know, you’ve touched—just in these few minutes—you’ve touched on two big things that I always say: if you can’t really take these two things to heart, it’ll be really hard to be a successful peaceful parent. And one is what you said—the mindset shift, you know, of how you see her behavior with, you know, that children are doing the best they can. You know, they’re not giving us a hard time; they’re having a hard time. And the other one is self-compassion. So making strides in both of those areas will really help you be that parent that you wanna be.

Joanna: Yeah. And even though we’re maybe not getting huge chunks of time individually, I am really trying to make the most of, like, those little moments—

Sarah: Good.

Joanna: —of connection. Yeah. So even, like—what we’ve started doing is, because my husband’s on night shift, he is waking up with her in the morning because she has a really hard time in the morning. So now he’s sort of with her, getting her ready in the morning. And then I am—like, we used to all walk to the bus together because my son likes to go too. But now my husband’s hanging back with my son, so now I’m just walking her to the bus. And even though it’s five minutes, it’s like we’re holding hands. She’s able to tell me—

Sarah: Yeah.

Joanna: —you know, talking about whatever.

Sarah: That’s still—that—that totally counts. That’s—and that also, um, that also takes care of something we talked about last time too, which is your husband and your son having more time together, um, so that the nights that—when your husband is home—maybe he can put your son to bed and start trying to shift that dynamic. So yeah. That’s amazing that you’re doing—that. Yeah, I think that’s a great shift—walking to her—to the bus by herself.

Joanna: And I think it—it actually makes a huge difference. You know, before it was like she would just kind of get on the bus and not really look back, and now she’s, like, giving me a hug and a kiss and waving—

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Joanna: —waving in the window. So, like, I can see that it’s having a positive effect right away.

Sarah: You could even leave five minutes earlier than you have to and have—turn that five minutes into ten minutes.

Joanna: I would love to do that. It’s always just—like, it’s really hard to get to the bus on time as it is. We will work toward that though.

Sarah: I hear that. Well, if you did try to leave five minutes earlier then it might be more relaxed, even if you didn’t even have any extra time, but you were just, like—leave, you know, change your whole morning back five minutes and try to get out five minutes early.

Joanna: Yeah. Yeah. True. So I think that we had talked a lot about roughhousing last time too—

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Joanna: —and I do find that that’s—that’s really—it works well for her, but I run into this really specific problem where when, uh, like, we start roughhousing, and then she’s enjoying it, but then my son wants to get in the mix—

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Joanna: —and then right away she’s like, “No, like, get outta here.” So then she’ll start kind of, like, pushing him or, like, throwing kicks or something. So—and then he gets upset because he’s like, “Mom! Mom!” So then I end up sort of, like, pinned underneath both of them—

Sarah: Right.

Joanna: —they’re mad at each other, hitting each other—

Sarah: Oh no.

Joanna: —they both want me.

Sarah: Well, maybe—maybe don’t do it then if that’s how it ends up. But I do have a couple of shifts that might help before you give up on it when you’re alone with them. One is, do you ever try to do those “two against you”? Like, start it out right from the get-go—“You two against Mommy. See if you can—see if you can—” Um, it’s funny you just said you end up pinned down because that’s what I often say. Like, “See if you can stop Mommy from getting up,” or “See if you can catch me,” or, you know, trying to align the two of them against you. That might help.

Joanna: Yeah, I love that idea. Never thought about that. Yeah, I think she would love that.

Sarah: Yeah. So, “Okay, you two are a team, and you have to try to stop me from jumping on the bed,” or “You know, you—you have to stop me from getting to the bed,” or, you know, something like that.

Joanna: Okay, I’m gonna try that. I think that they’ll love it.

Sarah: Yeah. Another idea is, um, what I call “mental roughhousing,” where you’re not doing, like, physical stuff, but you’re being silly and, like, um—I think I mentioned her last time to you, but A Playful Heart Parenting—Mia—W—Walinski. She has a lot of great ideas on her Instagram—we’ll link to that in the show notes—of, like, different, um, like, word things that you can do. When I say mental roughhousing, it’s like getting everyone laughing without being physical.

Joanna: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Uh, which—you know, the goal of roughhousing is to get everyone laughing, and sometimes being physical might not work. But you can—like, I’ll give you an idea. This isn’t from Mia, but this is something that I used to do with my kids. Like, you know, one of you—you’re like—you say to JR, “Oh—where did your sister go?” And she’s sitting right there. “She was just here a minute ago. Where did Jay go? I don’t see her. What happened to her? She disappeared.” And meanwhile she’s like, “I’m right here! I’m right here!” You know—something like that that’s more of, like, a—more of a mental roughhousing.

My kids and I used to play this game that actually my brother-in-law invented called Slam, where, like, you both say a word at the same time. Um, so, like—I’m just looking around my—like, you know, “curtain” and, you know, “lemonade.” Uh, and then it’s like—you both say it—both—you both say your word at the same time. And that actually wasn’t a very funny one—kids come up with much funnier ones than I do—but it’s like, “Is that, like, a lemonade that is made out of curtains, or is it a—what—” It’s such a dumb example now that I think of it, but—but—or is it, like, a curtain that hides the lemonade? And so you just try and—like, you think of silly things that the two words together—the two words “slam” together—mean.

Joanna: Okay, great. That’s—that’s on my next book—that’s on my next thing to read. You—man—you keep mentioning—what is it? Playful—Playful Heart Parenting? She has an—I—

Sarah: There was a book—there was a book too. And—

Joanna: Oh—

Sarah: Playful Parenting—the Larry Cohen book.

Joanna: The Larry Cohen book, yeah.

Sarah: Yeah.

Joanna: Yeah.

Sarah: That’s a great book. Yeah, and he was on my podcast too, so you could listen to that. We’ll also link to—Mia was on my podcast, and Larry was—so we’ll link to both of those in the show notes as well.

Joanna: Okay, great. I may have listened to one of those, but—yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Sarah: And Playful Parenting is really great for also talking—and, like, Mia is just straight up, like, how to be more playful in life and to, you know, make more joy in your family kind of thing. And Larry talks about how to be more playful to also support your child through transitions and through big emotions and different things—like, it’s a—it’s a little bit more, um, like, all-around parenting—Playful Parenting.

Joanna: Okay.

Sarah: But it is different.

Joanna: Yeah. I used to have a really hard time getting the kids upstairs to start the bedtime routine. And now it’s like—I’ll be like, “Okay, I’m gonna hide first,” and, like, I go upstairs and hide and we start—

Sarah: Oh, I love that.

Joanna: —we play hide-and-seek, and—

Sarah: Oh yeah, it was a stroke of genius one day, and it’s been working so well just to get everyone, like, off the main floor and—

Joanna: —upstairs.

Sarah: I’m gonna totally steal that idea. That’s such a good idea. Yeah, because you could also send them up—“Okay, go hide upstairs and I’ll come and find you.” And then you could do a round of you hiding. And I love that. That’s a great idea. Yeah.

Joanna: And I especially love hide-and-seek for sometimes when I need, like, 30 seconds by myself in a dark closet—

Sarah: —to, like, take a breath.

Joanna: That’s great.

Sarah: I love it. I love it. Yeah, it’s—that’s so great.

As I mentioned before, I forgot to ask Joanna for an update about a few things. So here’s the update about breastfeeding her son in the night.

Sarah: Okay.

Joanna: Hi, Sarah. So, in terms of the night-weaning, um, I haven’t gone ahead and done anything about that yet just because he does have his last molars coming in and has been sick. So I want to wait until he’s well and pain-free to kind of give us our best chance at getting that off on the right foot. But I have really realized that because he’s my last baby, that this is really the last little home stretch of being woken up by a baby at night—specifically to nurse. So that’s helped me kind of reduce my feelings of resentment toward it.

Sarah: I love that Joanna zoomed out and looked at the big picture and the fact that this is her last baby, and used that to sort of just change her mindset a little bit and make it a little bit easier to continue on with something when she knew it wasn’t the right time to stop. And now here is her update about bedtime with her daughter. And for this, I love that she got preventive—you’ll see what I mean—and also playful. Those are two really great things to look at when you’re having any struggles with your kids: like, how can I prevent this from happening? And also, how can I be playful when it is happening and shift the mood?

Joanna: And in terms of bedtime with my daughter, we’ve made a couple of schedule changes to set us off on a better foot once I get back together with her after putting my son to bed. So I think we used to have a lot of conflict because it was like she was still asking for another snack and then hadn’t brushed her teeth, and then it was just kind of getting to be too late and I was getting short on patience. So now we have, like, a set snack time where everybody has a snack, and I let them know, like, “This is the last time that we’re eating today,” and then we’re going upstairs—using hide-and-seek, like I mentioned—and then just really continuing to be playful in all doing our bedtime tasks together.

So, for example, I’m saying, like, “Okay, I’m gonna go into my room and put my pajamas on. Can you guys go get your PJs on—and then don’t show me, but I have to guess what pajamas you have on?” So she really loves that because, like I mentioned, she loves to get me to guess things. But also she’s then helping her brother get ready for bed, and he’s far more cooperative with her than with me in terms of getting his pajamas on. So it all works really well.

Yeah, and then just kind of continuing to be silly and playful is really helping with brushing teeth—it’s like, “Who can make the silliest faces in the mirror?” and stuff. So, really kind of moving through all those tasks together so that by the time I’m out of the room and ready to put her to bed, everything’s done, and we can just get into playing cards and then snuggling and chatting and—and leaving from there after maybe a five- or ten-minute snuggle. So there’s been way fewer meltdowns at the end of the night because we are able to just not get in this place where we’re getting into power struggles in the first place. It’s just really all about, like, the love and connection at the end of the day.

Sarah: The final thing I wanted to check in with you about is—you were asking about the meltdowns. You know, when Jay gets really upset and, you know, how to—um—how to manage those. Have you had any chances to practice what we talked about with that?

Joanna: Yeah, she actually had a really, really big, long, extended meltdown yesterday, and, um, I just continue to not really feel like I’m ever supporting her in the way that she needs supporting. Like, I don’t—I always end up feeling like I’m not—I’m not helping. I don’t know. It’s just a really, really hard situation.

Sarah: I was just talking to a client yesterday who—who actually wanted to know about supporting her child through meltdowns, and I said, “Well, what would you want someone to do for you?” You know—just kind of be there. Be quiet. You know, offer a—you know, rub the—rub your back—rub her back. I mean, I don’t know exactly what your child wants, but I think that’s a good place to start if you feel like you’re not being successful—like, “Well, what would I want if this was happening to me?”

Joanna: And I think that really—that’s enough, right? It’s enough—

Sarah: Oh, totally.

Joanna: —to be there. And it always—maybe I’m just feeling like it’s not enough because we don’t really even get, like, a good resolution, or, like, even—eventually it just kind of subsides, right?

Sarah: If you were having a meltdown, that’s what would happen. Nobody can come in there and fix it for you.

Joanna: Um, exactly.

Sarah: Nobody can come in and say the magic words that’s gonna make you not feel upset anymore. So it’s really just about that—being there for somebody. And we’re—it’s not that the resolution is “I fixed their problems.”

Joanna: Yeah.

Sarah: The resolution is “I was there with them for the journey.”

Joanna: Yeah. And it goes back to what you were saying, where it’s like, “Oh, this work really is just about me.”

Sarah: Yeah, totally.

Joanna: And learning how to show up.

Sarah: And not feeling anxious when your child is upset and you’re like, “I don’t know what to do,” and just think, “Okay, I just have to be here. I just have to be here for them.”

Joanna: Yeah.

Sarah: And help them, you know, feel not alone in their meltdown.

Joanna: Yeah.

Sarah: Gosh. It’s also hard.

Joanna: Yeah, it’s hard.

Sarah: And it’s also, like—sometimes I think it’s more simple than we think it is. Like, it’s simple—simple doesn’t mean easy, but it’s—so—it’s not easy, but also can be simple. Like, just, you know—be there. Be there for her.

Joanna: Yeah.

Sarah: Keep forward and try not to—

Joanna: —get—

Sarah: —try not to have the wave take you over as well.

Joanna: Yeah. That’s always the challenge.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Joanna: But no, I’m—I am motivated to stay the course because I’ve already seen how—the positive effects of peaceful parenting, so—

Sarah: Yay. Yeah. Thank you so much.

Joanna: You’re welcome.

Sarah: Keep in touch, and, um, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your experience with other parents. It’s—I always hear from listeners how helpful these coaching episodes are.

Joanna: I’m glad.

Sarah: Yeah. So thank you so much for having me—for sharing.

Joanna: Perfect. Thanks, Joanna.

Sarah: Okay, bye.

You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, OR— BRAND NEW: we’ve included a fully edited transcript of our interview at the bottom of this post.

In this episode of The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, I am giving you another sneak peek inside my Peaceful Parenting Membership!

Listen in as I interview Tosha Schore as part of our membership’s monthly theme of “Aggression”. We discuss why kids get aggressive, how to handle it no matter how many kids you have, and dealing with the aggressive behaviour from many angles.

**If you’d like an ad-free version of the podcast, consider becoming a supporter on Substack! > > If you already ARE a supporter, the ad-free version is waiting for you in the Substack app or you can enter the private feed URL in the podcast player of your choice.

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We talk about:

* 6:35 Is a child’s aggression OUR fault as the parent?

* 13:00 Why are some kids aggressive?

* 15:00 How do you handle aggression when you have multiple kids?

* 22:00 A new sibling being born is often a trigger for aggression in the older child

* 29:00 When you feel like you are “walking on eggshells” around your child

* 35:00 How naming feelings can be a trigger for kids

* 37:00 When aggression is name calling between siblings

* 42:00 Friends- roughhousing play or aggression?

* 49:00 Coming from aggression at all angles

* 50:35 Using limits when there are safety issues

Resources mentioned in this episode:

* Yoto Player-Screen Free Audio Book Player

* The Peaceful Parenting Membership

* Tosha’s Website

xx Sarah and Corey

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Transcript:

Sarah: Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Peaceful Parenting Podcast. Today’s guest is Tosha Shore, a peaceful parenting expert on aggression. I invited her into the Peaceful Parenting Membership a few months ago to talk to us about aggression and to answer our members’ aggression-specific questions.

So many fantastic questions were asked. I know they’ll help you if you’re at all having any issues with aggression. And remember, aggression isn’t just hitting. It’s any expression of the fight, flight, or freeze response—including yelling, spitting, throwing things, and swearing.

Tosha is such a valuable resource on this issue. I really, really admire how she speaks about aggression and the compassion that she brings to both kids and parents who are experiencing aggression.

One note: one of the members was okay with her question being used in the podcast, but she didn’t want her voice used. So in the podcast today, I paraphrased her question and follow-up comments to preserve the flow of the conversation.

As I mentioned, this is a sneak peek inside the Peaceful Parenting Membership. If you would like to join us, we would love to have you. It is such a wonderful space filled with human touch and support. There are so many benefits, and it’s my favorite part of my work as a parenting coach.

We’ll put the link to join us in the show notes, or you can visit reimaginepeacefulparenting.com/membership. If you know anyone who could use this podcast, please share it with them. And as always, we would appreciate your five-star ratings and reviews on your favorite podcast app.

Let’s meet Tosha.

Hello, Tosha, welcome to the membership. I’m so excited that you’re going to be here talking to us about aggression today. So maybe you could start out by just giving a brief introduction of who you are and what you do.

Tosha: Absolutely. So my name is Tosha Shore and I am the founder of Parenting Boys Peacefully, where we are on a mission to create a more peaceful world, one sweet boy at a time.

I’m also the co-author of Listen: Five Simple Tools to Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges. And I work with a lot of families with young kids who are struggling with hard behaviors like aggression, and my goal is to give you all hope and inspiration—to keep on keeping on with peaceful parenting practices because they do absolutely work. Even, or maybe even especially, for really hard behaviors.

Sarah: I love that you added that—especially for hard behaviors—because I think there’s this fallacy out there that, yeah, peaceful parenting’s nice if you have easy kids, but, you know, my kid needs more “discipline” or whatever. So I love that you called that out, ’cause I think it’s absolutely true also.

So maybe—just—we have some questions from our members that people sent in, and I’m not sure, some people on the call might have questions as well. But maybe we could just get started by you sort of centering us in what causes aggression.

I was just on a call with some clients whose child was having some issues at school, which, if we have time, I might ask you about. The mom was saying, “Oh, you know, he’s being aggressive at school because I sometimes shout or lose my temper.” And I said to her, you know, of course that plays a part in it, but there are lots of kids whose parents never shout or lose their temper who still are aggressive.

So why is that? What causes aggression?

Tosha: I mean, I think there are a few things that can cause aggression. I often will say that aggression is fear in disguise, because I’ve found that a lot of kids who are getting in trouble at school—they’re yelling, they may be hurting siblings or hurting their parents—they are scared inside.

Sometimes it’s an obvious fear to us. Like maybe they’re playing with a peer and the peer does something that feels threatening—goes like that in their face or something—and instead of just, you know, play-fighting back, they clock the kid or whatever.

And sometimes the fears are a little bit more hidden and maybe could fall even into the category of lagging skills. I don’t even like to say “lagging skills,” but, like, skills that maybe they haven’t developed yet. School’s a perfect example. I think a lot of kids often will be acting out in school—even aggressively—because they’re being asked to do something that they don’t yet have the skills to do.

And that’s pretty frustrating, right? It’s frustrating to be asked, and then demanded, to perform in a certain way or accomplish something specific when you don’t either feel the confidence to do it, or you don’t yet have the skills. Which sort of spills into another reason that kids can get aggressive, and that’s shame.

We can feel really ashamed if everybody else in the class, for example, or a lot of kids, are able to just answer the questions straight out when the teacher asks—and maybe we get stage fright, or maybe we didn’t quite understand the example, or whatever it is.

So I definitely want to pull that parent away from blaming themselves. I think we always tend—we have a negative bias, right? Our brain has a negative bias. All of us. And I think we tend to go towards taking it on ourselves: It’s our fault. If we had just done X, Y, or Z, or if we hadn’t done X, Y, or Z, my child wouldn’t be acting out this way.

But I always say to parents, well, that’s a choice. There’s like a 50/50, right? We could choose to say, you know what, it could be that I did something, but I don’t think so. That’s the other 50%. But we always go with the “it’s my fault” 50.

So part of my job, I think, is to encourage parents to lean into the “It’s not my fault.” Not in the sense of nothing I do has an impression on my child, but in the sense of: it’s important that we as parents all acknowledge—and I truly believe this—that we are doing our best all the time.

There is no parent I’ve ever met who purposefully doesn’t behave in a way they feel good about, or purposefully holds back their love, or purposefully yells, or anything like that. If we could do differently, we absolutely would as parents.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. So more like, “I didn’t cause this. There’s maybe something I could do, but I didn’t cause this.” Right.

Tosha: I mean, like, look, let’s just be honest. Maybe she did cause it, okay? I mean, I’ve done things—maybe I’ve caused things—but so what, right? There’s nothing I can do at this point.

I can either sort of wallow in, “Oh gosh, did I cause this?” Or I could say, probably I didn’t, because there are so many other factors. Or I could say, you know, maybe I did, but one, I’m confident that I did the best that I could in that moment.

And two—and this is an important part—is that I am doing whatever work I need. I’m getting the support I need, right? I’m showing up to Sarah’s membership or this call or whatever, to take steps to do better in the future.

So if we’re just making a mistake and not doing anything to try to behave better next time, that’s not worth much either. Like, I remember once when my kids were little—I don’t even remember what I was doing, I don’t remember what the situation was—but I do remember very clearly that I apologized. I said, “I’m sorry, I won’t do that again.”

And my kid goes, “You always say that and then you do it again.”

And that was true. But if that were true because I was just saying “I’m sorry” and going about my next thing and not paying attention to the why or getting to the crux of what was causing me to behave that way, then that would be disingenuous.

But in fact, I was doing my own emotional work to be able to show up more often in ways that I felt good about. So I could genuinely feel good about that apology, and I could not take it personally. I could say, “You know what, you’re absolutely right. I do keep making this mistake. And I want you to know that I am working hard to try to change that behavior.” And that was true.

Sarah: Yeah. Makes sense. So you mentioned before that you want parents to see aggression as fear in disguise. And you mentioned that the fear can be something obvious, like someone’s gotten in your face and you’re scared. Or it can be fear of not being able to meet the expectations of your teacher or your parent. Or shame that can come from maybe even having made a mistake.

You didn’t say this, but I’m thinking of something common that often happens—like a kid makes a mistake or does something they didn’t mean to do, and then they lash out. Right?

So how do we get from those feelings of fear and shame to aggression? Because that doesn’t happen for every kid, right? Some kids will just cry or say something, but then some kids really lash out and hit, throw things, shout, scream. So how does that happen? How do we get from A to B?

Tosha: Well, I think all kids are different, just like all adults are different. And when we encounter fear—any of us—we go into fight, flight, or freeze. And kids who are aggressive go into fight.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Tosha: So some kids do and some kids don’t. And you know, I don’t have any scientific research to back this up, but I would say part of this is DNA, part of this is the nature of the kid.

Sarah: Right.

Tosha: And I think that’s also going back to the self-blame. I’ve got three kids, they’re all very different, right? Same house, same parents, same everything. They’re different. They came into this world different, and they’re still different.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Tosha: And I can help guide them, but I can’t change the core of who they are. So I think that aggression is those kids who go from “I’m scared, I’m having to protect myself” to that attack mode.

Sarah: Right. Makes sense. And just—I mean, I know this—but is it in the child’s control?

Tosha: No, it’s not in the child’s control. It is absolutely a reaction. And I think that’s why I feel like having that concept of aggression being fear in disguise can be so helpful from a mindset perspective for parents. Because it’s so much easier to have empathy for a child who we see as being scared, right? Than one who we see as being a jerk, picking on his brother, or disrespectful, rude—all of those terms we use when we’re struggling.

Sarah: Right. Well, there may be a few other points that I want you to make, but they might come out in the context of some questions from our members.

So I know at least two people on the call right now had sent me a question in case they couldn’t make it. But I’m going to ask Sonya—are you willing, Sonya, to unmute yourself and ask your question?

Sarah: Hi.

Sonia: Sure. Hi.

Sarah: Hi, Sonya.

(Sarah narrating): Sonia wonders how to handle aggression when you have multiple kids. She has three kids—a 7-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a baby—and it’s often her 7-year-old who reacts in fight mode. She’s trying to figure out how to keep her cool and also how to handle it and take care of the other kids and manage him.

Tosha: Yeah. So one thing that I noticed is how Sonia kind of glossed over the keeping her own cool. And I want to bring that to everybody’s attention, because we all do that. But actually, when we’re dealing with aggression, we have to come at it from a lot of different angles.

There’s no one magic pill I can give her, but it has to actually start—

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Tosha: So it doesn’t mean we have to reach Nirvana or become the Buddha or never yell before we can make any progress. But we can’t put that aside and just go, “Okay, what do I do to get my kid to stop doing this?”

Because our energy has a huge effect on our kids’ aggression. And usually—well, let me just say—it makes sense to ask yourself questions like: how am I feeling about this? Because most people are feeling scared—either scared of their child (“they’re going to hurt me” or “they’re going to hurt a sibling, hurt the baby”), or scared for their child (“he’s going to end up in juvenile hall, he’s going to end up the next school shooter”).

We project forward. So if we’re having fear for our child or fear of our child, that child is soaking up that feeling. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve never met anybody who could actually change their behaviors—who was inspired, motivated, or able to change their behaviors—when everyone around them was scared of them or scared for them.

Maybe occasionally there’s somebody who’s like, “I’m going to prove the point because the world is against me,” right? And this is like a Hollywood film. But most of us don’t work that way.

So I want to come at it from all the angles. There’s the “take care of yourself” piece. But at the same time, we have to keep our kids safe.

One thing that I think really helps is to pay attention to the pattern of when the aggression is happening, so she’s not surprised. Because if we’re surprised, then we act in surprising ways to ourselves. We don’t show up as our best.

So pay attention. Does this happen at a certain time of day? When there’s a certain constellation of kids playing together? When one particular child is present? When you’re doing something specific? If there’s another parent—when they’re present or absent? Pay attention to these things so that you can show up ready.

Because if you can change your story in your head from, “I have no idea when this happens, it happens all the time, it happens out of the blue”—which is really disempowering—to “I’ve noticed that every afternoon when I pick my 7-year-old up from school and bring him home, then I go in the kitchen to make a snack… and then he lays on top of the baby,” or whatever—then it is much more manageable.

Then you can say, “Okay, well, I remember this call that I was on and they talked about maybe there being some fear in there. Well, I don’t know what the fear is, I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m going to be ready. I’m not going to let it happen.”

So rather than make that snack, I’m going to make it before he comes home, or I’m going to just pull out some frozen pizza. But I’m going to stay present with that child during that time and expect that the upset will happen.

Because then, when that child goes to lay on the baby—or whatever the aggression is—you can actually physically get in the way. You can prevent it from happening. And then what happens is, because that child—the 7-year-old—has something to push against, something preventing them from acting on their fear response, from fighting—what happens then is like a magic reaction.

He’s able to erupt like a volcano and release the tension, those fears, the upsets. Maybe it’s 12 things that happened to him at school today. Maybe there was shame around not knowing the answer when he was called on. Whatever it was.

But there’s suddenly space with an attentive adult who remembers that the child is scared. So they have empathy. They’re not worried, they’re not caught by surprise. So we’re not going to jump at them. And that child has the opportunity then to heal.

That release of the feeling is what heals the child. It’s like pulling up weeds in your garden by the roots, as opposed to just pulling and having them break off, and then the next day you’ve got the whole thing back again.

So this tool—which in our book we talk about as Stay Listening, where we’re staying and allowing space for the child to feel—is what, over time, will change that fight response. That’s actually the gold nugget that, over time, will both change the intensity of the outbursts and also change the frequency.

Is any of that landing for you?

Sarah (narrating): Sonia responded that it was very helpful. She’s told me before that her baby’s almost one, and this started happening a lot right after she had the baby. She also says that she’s done my Transform Your Family Life course, and she’s still working on it. She’s done more of the welcoming feelings, and she has put together that it’s usually in the afternoons—so Tosha is right about that—and it’s happening after school.

She’s also connected that there are things happening at school that aren’t in line with how she and her husband want their child treated, and she thinks that’s related.

Tosha: Yeah. So in light of this new information, I would also say—and I’m sure Sarah’s talked to you about this as well—but pouring in as much connection to that child as possible.

And it can feel, especially when you have multiple kids, that it’s unfair, right? One kid is getting more… Are you familiar with the concept of special times, Sarah? Is that something that you teach?

Sarah: Yeah.

Tosha: Okay. You know, if you’re doing special time—oftentimes we talk about, or I talk about at least—I’m not a “fair” kind of a person. I’m a “life’s not fair” kind of a person. My kids will tell you that.

But when it comes to special time, I always encourage parents to think about a week and to try to give your kids about the same amount of special time over a week. But—and here’s the caveat—when we have a kid who is struggling, they are demanding more of us. They are demanding more attention. And our time didn’t increase.

Tosha: So that means we are going to need to devote more time. It’s going to be uneven. But that child—and especially, like, this is probably the number one reason that I hear for aggression to start, and we didn’t talk about this at the beginning—is when a younger sibling is born. I mean, it is so often the trigger, I can’t tell you.

And if I could go back to all of those parents and say, “Don’t worry about being fair. Just pour as much extra love and connection and yumminess into that child who’s struggling as you can. It will pay off later. You can make it up to the other kids later.” In fact, you’re giving them a gift by helping their older brother, because then his behavior isn’t going to have that negative effect on them.

So I think that we get stuck in the fairness sometimes. I’m not saying you do this, Sonya—this is just from my experience. And then we hold back from giving that child what they need. So special time isn’t the only thing. I would say: make a list of things that you do with that 7-year-old that creates laughter between you, that you both feel really good—where you have that yumminess, like, oh, you’re loving on him and he’s loving on you. Maybe that’s shooting hoops in the front yard, or maybe it’s drawing a picture together, or jumping on the trampoline, or reading a book. I mean, it could be anything at all.

You can do those things, and you can do them with the other three kids around. Also, keep doing all of that stuff. And you’re going to have to, I think, carve out some time for one-on-one special time—named, timed—where he gets to lead and he gets to be the boss.

Sarah: That’s awesome. And we always talk about equity versus equality with the sibling relationships, and I think that’s—

Tosha: Oh yeah. I love that.

Sarah: Okay, awesome. Thank you so much. Priya, do you want me to ask your question, or do you want to ask the question since you’re on the call? Maybe she’s stepped away or can’t unmute herself. Uh, she wants me to ask. Okay. So I’m going to find Priya’s question and ask it.

Uh, Priya says: “My five-year-old gets angry at anything and everything. He has zero tolerance for any kind of dislike or disagreement. We acknowledge his feelings with empathy, doing our best to stay calm and give him time to process his emotions. The only limit we consistently set is holding him from hurting people or property while he yells, screams, says hurtful things, and tries with full rage to attack us.

“We’re consciously making time for roughhousing, special time, connection, laughter, and tears—though he rarely cries—and we talk about asking for help before things escalate. I’ve been trying to track patterns by logging some incidents, but sometimes it feels completely unpredictable. We often have no idea why he’s screaming. If I push a chair slightly, he gets angry. If someone else presses the elevator button, he gets upset. If he has a plan in his mind and we don’t pick up on it, he becomes extremely frustrated. He gets irritated and grumpy very easily. It’s gotten to the point where we feel like we have to expect an outburst at any moment. It looks like it’s becoming a habit for him, and I feel like I’m starting to walk on eggshells—always watchful for what might happen when I say or do something.”

Tosha: Yeah, so this is a really—believe it or not—common situation. Did she say he was five? Is that five?

Sarah: Yeah.

Tosha: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I cannot tell you the number of parents who come to me and this is what they say: “I’m walking on eggshells.” Right? If we get to the point where we’re walking on eggshells, generally what that says to me is that we are not either setting enough limits or we’re not setting limits effectively.

And one thing that I would suggest to Priya is to take a minute to think about whether or not there are places where she’s feeling resentment. That’s always a good sign for me—like, if I’m feeling resentment about something, then that’s probably a place I need to hold a limit. If I’m not, then there’s more wiggle room.

So when this is happening all the time about everything, I would say: get really clear on what limits are important to you and what limits are not. Right? So if you’re in public, in the elevator, and you don’t want to deal with a big meltdown about the elevator button, can you plan for that? If you know that that’s an issue, when you go in, you can say to people, “Hey, my son would really like to press the buttons—what floor would you like?”

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Right.

Tosha: “Here’s our elevator operator—exactly. What floor, please?” Or, if somebody presses the button—or if she’s pressing the button—to just go in knowing, “I’m not going to press the button. I’m going to let my child do this.” And if somebody else has already pressed it, you can say, “You know what? Hey, let’s take the next elevator and then we’ll press it. You can press it.”

So there are places where we can be flexible. But we don’t want to do that all the time, because essentially what this child is showing me is that he has a real intense lack of flexibility. And ultimately, the goal that I would have for him would be—slowly, slowly and lovingly—to help him increase that flexibility. So that, yeah, maybe he’s not going to say, “Oh, shoot, I’m feeling really disappointed because I didn’t get to press the elevator button and I really like to do that.” But maybe instead of having a huge tantrum, he just gets a sourpuss face and crosses his arms. Okay, I’ll take that. That’s better. We’re moving in the right direction.

So it sounds like you’re doing a lot of things right, but I would hone in on limit-setting. Really: are you taking the time to think about what kind of limits you want to set? Are you letting go of limits when you know that you don’t have the wherewithal to stay calm in the face of the upset?

So, oftentimes—I’m hearing Priya say she does a lot of Stay Listening—I would be curious to know: what does that Stay Listening look like? Because I was working with a dad this week, a client of mine, and we were talking about a situation that was going on with his kid, who was coming home really frustrated with homework. And what ended up coming out of his mouth was, “I thought I was Stay Listening, but I think I actually wasn’t Stay Listening.”

Right—because Stay Listening isn’t about trying to calm the child, or trying to get them to stop what they’re doing. It can’t be with the goal of, “Let me get this kid to quiet down,” kind of a thing. Stay Listening is really holding space lovingly for whatever needs to come out, which means—yeah—all the words, all—like, we don’t take them personally.

Sarah: Can I just interject something? For my community, what they would recognize Stay Listening as is “welcoming feelings.” Mm-hmm. Just because that’ll be a familiar phrase to them. So I just wanna—

Tosha: Yeah, absolutely. Right. But “welcoming feelings”—I feel like we need to also talk about: what does that look like? Mm-hmm. What does that look like when we welcome feelings? Because, you know, you could be upset and I could just be like—

Sarah: Yeah.

Tosha: —like waiting for you to be done. Right? I could be like, “Okay, I’m not gonna shut you down, but, you know, hey, whatever you do, what you need to do, I’m gonna go answer my email.” That’s—you know—I can “welcome” the feelings like that. But again, coming back to our energy: what energy are we bringing to that? Are we really staying present with the energy of “We are gonna get through this,” with the energy of “You are safe,” with the energy of “I’m here with you.”

Mm-hmm. Right? Like, can that child sense that they’re not alone—that you’re on their team? And that’s maybe a good litmus test. If you were to ask yourself: do you feel like your child would feel like you’re on their team, or that you’re butting heads? Mm-hmm. And if the answer is “butting heads,” then the question is: what can you shift so that your child will feel like, “Hey, we’re in this together”?

Sarah: Sounds good. Priya, I don’t know if you have anything to add. It sounds like maybe she can’t unmute herself, but—oh, she says he screams really loud, so we usually stay quiet and don’t say anything because it’s really loud. We wait for the moment to pass before we can say anything, at the same time being present. So she’s saying they’re trying to be present, sometimes trying to say, “I see you’re really upset.”

Tosha: Yeah. And so when she says—I’m sorry, it’s a little bit via you here—but before, when you say, “Priya, before I say something,” what is it that you’re saying? Because another thing about Stay Listening—or welcoming feelings, from my perspective—is that saying something actually doesn’t really have a place. So if we need to say something, it should—I think—uh, or let me just rephrase that: I find it most effective when it’s something that essentially allows that child to feel safe, to realize that they’re not alone.

Right—to realize that we’re on their team, and to realize that it’s not gonna last forever. So that they’re loved—these types of things. So I wouldn’t—if you’re naming feelings, and I don’t know that she is or isn’t, but if you’re naming feelings—which is something that a lot of professionals, for example, will recommend—I would play around with stopping that and seeing if that makes a difference, because sometimes that’s a huge trigger for kids. And maybe even, “I see you’re upset,” or whatever it is that she said—that also might be a trigger.

Yeah. Don’t be afraid to really not say anything at all, and just think about each of these things as an experiment. Take a day and don’t say anything at all and see if it makes a difference. Other things to try—’cause it sounds like he’s quite sensitive—is distance, right? How close are you to that child? Some kids don’t want you all up in their face. Some kids want to be on your lap and hugged. Some kids want to be a room’s distance away. So play with distance; play with tone.

Sarah: Love that. Thank you so much, Tosha. Does anybody else who’s on the call have a question? And if not, I have questions that were sent in, but I want to give priority to people who are here. Uh, and—and Priya says, “Thank you, Tosha.”

Tosha: Yeah, my pleasure. I’m trying to work without the direct back and forth.

Sarah: Yeah.

Tosha: No—so I hope that was helpful.

Sarah: Yeah, that was great, Lindsay.

Tosha: And I want to acknowledge that it is really hard. It is hard.

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It’s one of the most—

Tosha: It won’t last forever either. Like, it’s absolutely—move through. I can assure you of that.

Sarah: Lindsay, do you have a question?

Member B: Yes. I have a question about my son, actually. He’s 10 years old, and I have a 10-year-old boy and then a 7-year-old girl. And a lot of times—there’s kind of two different questions—but between the siblings, a lot of times my daughter will be, like, have verbal aggression towards him, and then he—he is my—he is a little more sensitive, and he will hold it in, and he won’t spit out things back at her, but then he eventually will just hit her. And, like, he comes with the physical aggression. So kind of, as the parent, proactively trying to step in there—like, how do I handle both of those when one is verbal—maybe aggression—and one is physical? I know it can escalate there. Where do I step in?

Tosha: Yeah. First of all, I just want to appreciate that you can see that there’s a dynamic there. Because oftentimes we get into this place as parents where we’re like, “This person is the aggressor and this person is the victim.” Because oftentimes there is a pattern like that, but it’s—it’s beautiful that you can see this dance that they’re doing.

Member B: Yeah.

Tosha: And so if you see it kind of as a dance, you can interplay around and experiment with interrupting it in different ways. Okay. I would say that, in terms of the verbal aggression, what I have found works best—and again, I was talking to a client yesterday and he was saying to me that this is what works. Mm-hmm. I’m like, “Okay, so let’s do more of that. You came out of your mouth; you said it works when you do it—let’s do more.” And that is being playful in the face of the verbal aggression.

And so it can look like a lot of different things. You could say ahead of time to your daughter something like, “Hey, I’ve noticed that, you know, sometimes these nasty words come out of your mouth towards your brother, and I know you don’t mean them. So I’m gonna—I’m gonna pay attention and just try to help you with that, ’cause I know you don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

Member B: Yeah.

Tosha: And just, you know, outside the moment, just kind of toss that out there. And then in the heat of the moment—I mean, you can just get as goofy as you can think. You could get a paper bag and just pull it over her head, right? Or you could get those indoor snowballs and just start pelting her with snowballs. You could do what we call the “vigorous snuggle,” which we write about in the book, which is something like, “Do you know what happens to little girls who call their brothers, you know, ‘stupid buttheads’” or whatever it is—

Sarah: Uh-huh.

Tosha: —and then you—rather than push away, which is what we tend to want to do—you do something goofy, right? “They get their elbows licked!” And then you’re, like, chasing after her elbow and trying to lick it. What you’re going for is laughter. You’re trying to elicit laughter, because she’s stuck in a hard spot where she can’t feel compassion for him and she can’t feel your love or anybody’s. And so laughter will loosen that up.

So I would say: interrupt the verbal aggression with play.

Member B: Okay.

Tosha: Some of those things will maybe annoy her; some of them will lead to laughter. And then sometimes you’ll do an experiment and it’ll annoy her—mm-hmm—and she’ll explode. And what I want to say about that is—that’s okay. Because, like we talked about with the school incident, it’s an opportunity for her to do that healing and release the tensions and the hurts and the upsets and the gripes and all the stuff that she’s holding in there. So when that happens, if you can welcome those feelings and not try to shut them down or judge her—or what many of us, sort of in the peaceful parenting world, will do is just talk, talk, talk, talk to her about it—if you can let all of that go—

Member B: Yeah.

Tosha: —you’ll see the behaviors lessen. Okay? You know, that would be—I mean, we talked a little bit about the physical stuff before, so I thought for this question I would focus more on the verbal.

Member B: Yeah.

Tosha: But in the sibling dynamic, just kind of rotate who you go to, so they don’t feel like there’s one “bad guy” and one “woe-is-me” sibling.

Member B: Yeah. Right.

Tosha: Because ultimately, our goal as parents is to nurture that sibling relationship. Right. I don’t—I don’t know—like, I just had a birthday. I’m like, “This is my best birthday ever.” And people are like, “Really? How is it your best birthday ever?” I’m like, because, like, a lot of people couldn’t come to my party but all three of my boys were home, and we sang karaoke, and the three of them sang me a song and sang all this. It was like—there is nothing I think we want more than to see our kids loving each other, enjoying each other—mm-hmm—having a strong relationship down the road.

And let me tell you, these kids were at each other. I mean, now they’re 18, 20, and 22. But I have been in your shoes where my mom would call me and be like, “I’m afraid they’re gonna kill each other. I’m worried.” I’d be like, “It’s okay. I got this, Mom. You know, things will change.” Yeah. But we do want to experiment—interrupt the behaviors.

Member B: Yeah, I appreciate the trying different interventions and then also being prepared for her to, like, not enjoy some of them as well. ’Cause I think that happens a lot more than, like, the positive, you know, playful things. Right. So I appreciate that space to, like, let that happen too—and that’s okay.

Tosha: Yeah. It’s—even more than okay. Like, that’s kind of what needs to happen—mm-hmm—in order for her to shift—yeah—in order for her to be able to show up differently. She’s stuck. Just think of her as being stuck.

Member B: Yeah. And maybe it’s not gonna fix that moment, but later on it’ll be less and less, right?

Tosha: Yeah. And it happens much more quickly than we think, oftentimes.

Member B: Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah. The other quick question—do I have time, Sarah, to ask the second—

Sarah: Sure.

Member B: Okay. The second one is more—it’s my 10-year-old. So recently, like, he was at a playdate. He’s getting to play with a lot more of his friends. They’re all playing football and sports and things, and he’s just a bigger kid—my husband’s 6’5”, so he’s just naturally bigger than a lot of the kids. And he is super playful, but he gets, like, playful aggression. And, like, one of the moms was saying, like, “Oh my—” I’ve seen the dynamic of how all the boys are playing, and I noticed Calvin sometimes gets a little too aggressive. And her son Luke is pretty small. And Luke is like, “Yeah, I get trampled sometimes.” And so the mom was like, “I just try and tell Calvin, like, how big he is and, you know, his awareness.” But I know it happens with his sister, and I think it probably happens at school sometimes too—that he doesn’t realize his size, and that maybe it comes out to be as, like—I don’t know if he has internal aggression or if it’s just playful and he’s not aware of how big he is.

Tosha: Yeah, I mean, I’d say two things about this. One is: I always have to ask the question in these situations—Is it the kids who are having the problem, or is it the parents who are having a problem?

Member B: Yeah.

Tosha: And I don’t know the answer in this situation, but oftentimes our kids play a lot rougher than we feel comfortable with—but they’re all actually having a good time. Yeah. I mean, the way that you said that kid reported didn’t sound like it was a problem. I could be wrong and it could be a problem, but I think it’s worth asking: whether or not it’s a problem—Is that mom worried, or is the kid not having fun?

Member B: Yeah.

Tosha: So just to keep that in mind. Because there’s often a par between what we are feeling comfortable with and the way our kids are going at each other. Right. And I think in that situation, we do want to stay close if we’re not sure. And just ask—like, if you notice that energy going up—just say, “Hey, are you all having fun?” If everyone says yes—okay. If one person says no, then we know we need to intervene. Okay. So that’s one piece.

And then I think it’s about body awareness for him. Mm-hmm. And maybe one thing that you could do at home would be some practice—sort of—physical wrestling matches or something of the sort, where you could just pretend like you’re in a ring—

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Tosha: —with a timer, and do, like, 15-second, 30-second sessions—or whatever you call it. I’m not a boxing person or whatever, but I don’t—

Sarah: Rounds.

Tosha: Rounds. Maybe it’s rounds, right? Yeah. So where somebody’s actually the ref and saying, “Okay, go at it,” and then when the whistle blows—when the ref blows the whistle—everyone has to run back to their corners. And so we’re increasing the awareness of stop-start, stop-start.

And then also I think it’s oftentimes a good idea to have kind of a—what do you call it—an emergency word, secret word, whatever it’s called—

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Tosha: —the word—

Sarah: Safe word.

Tosha: What’s the word? Safe word. Safe word.

Sarah: Safe word.

Tosha: Yeah. Safe word. And so you all could figure that out at the beginning of this game. And, in fact, that’s something that he could transfer over to his play with his friends. Like, “Yeah, once he learns—he’s like, ‘I know I’m big; I’m just having a good time. I know I don’t want to hurt you, but if things are getting too rough, say banana and I’ll know I gotta pull back.’”

Yeah. But “banana” is going to work a lot better than, “Hey, stop doing that,” or a parent coming in and saying, “Hey, be careful, you need to be careful, you’re a lot bigger than him, you need to pull back.” That’s not going to work as well. But you have to practice those things at home. So—come at it from two different angles.

Member B: Yeah. I like how that is—he and his sister have a thing where if they’re being too much, they yell “T.” Yeah. Okay. And so if they’re like “T, T,” then they know like, oh, that’s a timeout—like, I need to pause for a second.

Sarah: Perfect.

Member B: So yeah, maybe just—yeah—telling him, like, set it up with your friends so they can say it.

Tosha: Yeah. If he already has that skill with his sister, that’s amazing. Mm-hmm. And then, yeah—could we just transfer it over to a friend?

Member B: Yeah, and I agree—it could be a little more parent than kid, because the kid’s inviting Calvin over all the time and wants him to come back. So I’m like, I think they’re having fun. You know, and it just may be the parent’s perception of—or protection of—her child.

Tosha: Right. And I think it’s—I think it’s fair to just ask.

Member B: Mm-hmm.

Tosha: You know, ask the child. I mean, you can ask the child if the child’s at your house. Yeah. You can just say, like, “Hey, you know, if you guys need me, I’m in the other room,” or whatever. Like, you don’t have to— I just—I don’t like to assume that there’s a problem.

Member B: Mm-hmm. Yeah, because he’s—he—it’s very sweet. I just think he—he just plays rough sometimes and—

Tosha: Yeah. Well, some kids like to play rough. And the other thing is, if we interrupt too much, we’re interrupting the development of important emotional intelligence. Because one of the ways that kids learn—or build—emotional intelligence is through playing with one another. Right? If they play too rough, they’re going to lose their playmate. Right. If they don’t play rough enough, they’re also going to lose their playmate. Right. This kid might like to play rough. I mean, this little kid might like to play rough—mm-hmm—because he doesn’t have that opportunity with other kids. And, like, it’s an opportunity to sort of be bigger and use strength and feel—I mean, I don’t know.

Sarah: Yeah.

Tosha: But there’s something about the dance that they do when they play. I remember reading research about this in the animal kingdom. It was like a—it was a—I forget what his name was. This was like a million years ago at a conference when I was—back when I was a linguist—who was talking about this. And it was super, super interesting. I thought, “Wow, okay.” And so I think we need to let our kids also do that dance and just be present—so if there is a problem, we can step in—let them know that we’re there. But don’t assume there’s a problem when nobody’s complaining.

Member B: Right. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, Lindsay. That’s helpful.

Sarah: So I’m conscious that we only have about, uh, eight minutes left with you. And I don’t think anyone else on the call has a question, so I will go to a question that was sent in. And actually two questions that were sent in, and I’m not sure how different they are, so I’m going to tell you both of them.

Okay. And if you can answer them both together, or if you think they’re separate—if that works. Okay. So one of them is a person, a member who has a child—a girl—who is just about to turn eight. And when she gets upset, she hits and throws things at her mom. And they haven’t been able to—and she’s been following peaceful parenting—but still hasn’t been able to curb this. She doesn’t have any issues anywhere else, except for—

Tosha: Okay.

Sarah: —her mom. The second person has a 12-year-old daughter that is hitting, kicking, pinching, saying mean words, etc., to her younger siblings when they’re not doing what she wants them to do. She’s the oldest of five; has younger siblings who are 10, 8, 4, and 2. And she didn’t mention this, but I know she also—when she gets upset—she will do that to her mom too.

Tosha: Yeah. Yeah. So for me, these are really both limit-setting issues, right? Like I’ve said earlier, we have to come at aggression from all the different angles, right? So we talked—we started out at the beginning with the first question about, like, hey, let’s—we gotta focus in on our own healing and our own triggers, and make sure that we’re not sort of trying to skate over that and pretend that we’re gonna be able to be better without addressing anything.

We also have to focus on connection. Like—somebody said they’re tracking. Yeah, we need to pay attention—like, when does this stuff happen? We need to pour in connection, like we talked about. Make a list of all the things that are yummy when you do them together—just do more, do more, do more. Use play in the ways that we’ve talked about.

But limits aren’t necessarily the place to start—but if there are safety issues, then we have to go right there. So if the problem—well, there are lots of problems—but one thing that I’ve seen is that if we let a child, quote-unquote, succeed—or if a child succeeds in hurting us—let’s just say throwing—like, let’s say we get a stapler thrown at us and we end up with a black eye, or a cut on our face, or whatever it is—that child feels more fear than they felt before. Because there’s a huge amount of fear associated with having that much power when you’re so small, and feeling like the adults in your life can’t keep everybody safe.

Right? Because our number one job, in my opinion, is to keep everybody safe and alive. Let’s just start there. Mm-hmm. So this is just basic. So that means that in a situation like this, you’re gonna want to pay attention. You’re gonna really want to track when this happens. It’s good—it only happens with you, I think. That’s telling in the sense that she feels safe enough with you to be able to show you that she’s kind of holding things together out in the world, but actually feeling yucky inside, and these feelings need to come out somehow.

And the next step is you figuring out: well, how do I want to show her that, yes, I can keep her safe? And that is likely gonna look like you physically anticipating—for her throwing something—or you see that she reaches for the stapler, and you’re gonna rush in and you’re gonna put your hand on her hand on that stapler: “I don’t want that stapler to get thrown.”

And I’m not gonna lie—it’s gonna look messy, and it’s gonna be a struggle, and all of the things. That’s fine—as long as you’re calm. If you feel triggered by the throwing, and you don’t feel like you can stay calm, and you can feel like—to talk about, you know, the sweet child underneath the yucky feeling. So let’s—got the throwing or the hitting or the cussing out or the whatever up here, and there’s just always this sweet child underneath.

If you lose sight of that child, then in a situation like this, I would rather you walked out of the room and the—you know—the stapler hit the door. You know, it breaks the window or it dents the door or whatever it is. I don’t want that to happen, but I would rather that happen than it hit you and then you hit her, or you held her harder than you want, or you screamed horrible things at her that you wished afterwards you could take back.

Right. And I say these things not because I think you’re doing this, but just because in my 20 years of working in this world and raising three kids—I know what those feelings feel like, and they’re real, and they happen to all of us. So if you feel out of control, remove yourself.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Tosha: Even at the cost of the window. But—which is why we have to start with our own—getting ourselves in what I call “good enough emotional shape.” Because ultimately, you need to be able to move in, put your hand on that hand with the stapler, and just say something like, “I can’t—I can’t let you throw that, sweet girl. I can’t let you throw that.” And that’s it.

And then she’s gonna have a huge upset. She’s gonna fight, and she’s gonna try and—“Let go of me,” and “I can’t breathe,” and whatever. And unless she breathes through her hand—like, she’s breathing okay, right? But that upset, again, is the gold nugget. Like—then you welcome the feelings and you allow them to pour out. Because something happened. Something is going on. And it might not be that one thing happened during that day at school, or wherever, but it might be that there was a little nick and a little nick and a little nick. And every time—whatever—she didn’t get what she wanted, or a sibling got something and she didn’t, or you answered a sibling before you answered her, or whatever it is—they’re just all little things.

They happen. They’re not your fault or anybody’s fault. It’s just that if, every time they happen, she doesn’t release the yucky feelings that arise in her as a result, then what’s happening is they’re building up. And so I like to think of it as the sand—or the sedimentary rock—on the beach. You can see those striations in it, right? So it’s like—sand is really soft; you can kind of brush it off, but when it sits and it hardens, then you have to take, like, a chisel to it.

Sarah: Yeah. For our people, we call that “getting a full emotional backpack,” when you’re talking about the nicks that build up over time. So that’ll resonate for people.

Tosha: Exactly. Exactly.

Sarah: Thank you so much, Tosha.

Tosha: Yeah.

Sarah: I hope—that was—

Tosha: Helpful. But you have to physically get in there.

Sarah: Yeah, physically get in there. And if it happens too fast to catch the first one, you just kind of do your best and try for the second one.

Tosha: Yes.

Sarah: Yeah.

Tosha: Yes. And then you expect the upset, and you stay with it if you can.

Sarah: Yeah.

Tosha: Remembering that that’s just a scared little girl in there.

Sarah: Yeah.

Tosha: Right. You don’t know what this is about. Just trust that her body knows that it needs to do this healing, and she’s picked you because she knows you can handle it—that you won’t lose sight of her goodness, that your love is strong. And that’s an honor. I know it feels hard, but it’s actually a real honor when we’re the one who gets chosen for that emotional work.

Sarah: I love that, and I want to highlight that a lot of what you talked about today was our own inner work on keeping ourselves calm and keeping our mindset of keeping track of that sweet child—as you say, the sweet child inside that’s just afraid and needs us in those moments. ’Cause it can feel—I think a lot of parents can feel—like, quote, victimized, and that’s probably going to get them deeper into the aggression than get them out of it.

Tosha: Exactly. Exactly. And so we want to feel—I hope that after this call you feel empowered. I mean, I hope there’s just one thing that you can take away and experiment with doing differently. Just think of these things as experiments. You don’t have to get it perfect—right? Whatever the word is that you have in your head. Right. Just try something.

Sarah: Just—

Tosha: Pick one idea that you heard and try it. Try it for a day. See how it goes. And remember that if it leads to big upset on the part of your child, that doesn’t mean you did it wrong. It probably means you’re actually doing something right.

Sarah: That’s so key. I love that. Thank you so much, Tosha. We really appreciate you and your work, and everyone, be sure to let us know how it goes for you when you try some of these things. Let us know in the Facebook group. And thank you, Tosha—thanks for getting up early and meeting with us today.

Tosha: Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you for inviting me back, Sarah.

Sarah: Thanks, everyone.

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You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, OR— BRAND NEW: we’ve included a fully edited transcript of our interview at the bottom of this post.

In this episode of The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, I am giving you another sneak peek inside my Peaceful Parenting Membership!

Listen in as I interview Rachel Simmons as part of our membership’s monthly theme of “Friendship Troubles”. Rachel is an expert on relational aggression, AKA mean girls. We discuss how to intervene in this behaviour when kids are young, how to prevent our child from doing this, and how we can support our children when they’re experiencing it.

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We talk about:

* 6:27 What is relational aggression?

* 8:50 Both boys and girls engage in this type of aggression

* 10:45 How do we intervene with young kids

* 14:00 How do we teach our kids to communicate more effectively

* 22:30 How to help our children who are dealing with relational aggression

* 33:50 Can you reach out to the aggressive child’s parents?

* 38:00 How to reach out to the school

* 47:30 How to help our kids make new friends after relational aggression

Resources mentioned in this episode:

* Yoto Player-Screen Free Audio Book Player

* The Peaceful Parenting Membership

* Rachel’s website

xx Sarah and Corey

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Rachel interview transcript

Sarah: Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Peaceful Parenting Podcast. Today’s episode is another sneak peek inside my membership, where I interviewed Rachel Simmons — an expert on relational aggression, AKA “mean girls.” She wrote a book called Odd Girl Out, which is all about the topic of relational aggression and how we can support our children when they’re experiencing it — and what to do if our child is actually doing that to other people.

If you don’t know what relational aggression is, don’t worry — listen up, because she goes into the definition of it. This was a great conversation. My members had questions, I had questions, and in the end, we all agreed it was a very helpful discussion. I think you’ll find it helpful as well — no matter how old your child is or whether or not they’ve experienced any relational aggression.

This is something we should all be aware of, and as parents, we actually have a lot of control over preventing our child from becoming someone who uses relational aggression.

As I said, this is a sneak peek inside my membership, where we have a theme every month. This month’s theme was “Friendship Troubles,” and it actually came as a request from one of our members. So we brought in Rachel to talk to us about relational aggression, which this member’s child had been struggling with.

Every month in the membership, we have a theme — I do some teaching about it, and we also bring in a guest expert for teaching and Q&A.

If you’d like to join us inside the membership, you can go to reimaginepeacefulparenting.com/membership to learn more and join us.

Another thing we do inside the membership is office hours. You may have heard a recent podcast that gave a sneak peek into what those are like. We do office hours twice a week where you’re welcome to drop in, ask a question, get support, or share a win — from me, Corey, and other members. It’s just a wonderful place.

Our membership is my favorite corner of the internet, and we’ve been doing it for six years. It really is a special place. I’d love for you to join us! Please let me know if you have any questions, or just head over to reimaginepeacefulparenting.com/membership to learn more.

And now — let’s hear from Rachel.

Hey Rachel, welcome to the podcast.

Rachel: Thank you.

Sarah: Can you just tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Rachel: Sure. Well, I’m based in Western Massachusetts, and I’m a researcher and author. Over the last eight years, I’ve also become an executive coach. I’ve always been fascinated by — and inspired by — the psychology of girls and women.

Over what’s now become a long career, I’ve worked with women and girls across the lifespan — beginning, I’d say, in elementary school, and more recently working with adult women.

I’ve always been animated by questions about how women and girls experience certain phenomena and spaces differently, and how paying attention to those experiences can contribute to their overall wellness and potential.

Sarah: Nice. And I just finished reading your book Odd Girl Out, and I could see how much research went into it. I think you mentioned you interviewed people for a few years to write that book.

Rachel: It was a long time, yeah. I was just actually reflecting on that. I came across a shoebox filled with cassette tapes — little cassette tapes of the interviews I did when I wrote that book, which came out 20 years ago.

I worked all over the United States and tried to speak to as many girls as I could.

Sarah: It’s a great book — highly recommended. We’ll put a link to it in the show notes. Thank you for writing it.

So today we invited you here because we want to talk about relational aggression. Can you give us a definition of what relational aggression is?

Rachel: Yes. Relational aggression is a psychological form of aggression — a way that people express themselves when they’re trying to get a need met or are upset about something. It usually starts as early as two or three years old, when kids become verbal, and it’s the use of relationship as a weapon.

It can start off as something like the silent treatment — “I’m going to turn away from you because I’m upset with you” — cutting someone off as a way of communicating unhappiness. That silence becomes the message.

I remember once interviewing a seventh-grade girl who told me she gave people the silent treatment — that she’d stop talking to them as a way to get what she wanted. That was really unusual, because most girls won’t come up and be like, “Yeah, here are all the ways I’m mean.”

In fact, it’s often the secrecy that makes this stuff hard to talk about. So I was like, wow, here’s a unicorn telling me she’s doing it. And I asked, “Why do you do it?” And she said, “Because with my silence, I let my friends know what’s going to happen if they don’t do what I want.”

A very powerful description of relational aggression.

So that’s the silent treatment, but it can also take more verbal forms. Like, “If you don’t give me that toy, I won’t be your friend anymore.” Or, “If you don’t play with me at recess today, then our friendship is over.”

The threat is always that I’ll take away a relationship. And it’s so powerful because — what do we want more than connection? That’s a profound human need. So it’s a very, very powerful form of aggression.

Sarah: Your book is called Odd Girl Out, and you focused on women and girls. Do you think this also happens with boys? Has it started happening more with boys? What’s your take — is it still mainly a girl thing? I mean, when I think of relational aggression, I think of “mean girls,” right?

Rachel: Yes, I think a lot of people do — and certainly did when I first started researching this book many years ago. I did too.

It’s important to remember that yes, boys definitely do this, and they do it as much as girls starting in middle school — at least according to the research I read. I haven’t read the very recent studies, so that could have changed, but back when I was doing this work, no one was writing about boys doing it.

There was almost no research, and frankly, because of my own experience — seeing boys being more direct and girls being indirect — I assumed it was just a girl thing. But it most definitely is not.

I think I and others, in many ways, did a disservice to boys by not studying them. I wish I had. It’s something that’s much more widely understood now by people out in the field doing this work.

Sarah: Yeah, interesting — because my oldest son, who’s now 24, definitely experienced a lot of relational aggression in elementary school. And my daughter did too.

And just as a side note — it’s so painful to watch your kids go through that. I want to ask you more about parents’ roles, but it’s so painful as a parent to watch your child have their friends be mean to them.

You mentioned it can start as young as two or three, and I remember reading in your book — that sort of “you can’t come to my birthday party” thing. Even little kids will say that to their parents sometimes, right? Using that relational aggression.

You said that if we don’t actively get involved, it can turn into older-kid relational aggression that never goes away. What do you suggest parents do or say when they hear this kind of thing — whether it’s to other kids on the playground, to a sibling, or even to the parents themselves?

Rachel: Yeah, with little kids — we’re talking about little, little ones — I often answer that question with a question back to the parent: What do you do when your kid hits or bites somebody?

Usually what most of us do is stop the behavior, make sure the other kid’s okay, and then turn to our own child and say, “You can’t do that. We don’t do that in our family. That’s not what we say, that’s not what we do. You have to use your words.”

And we say, “We don’t ever threaten people when we’re angry.” It’s okay to be mad — that’s really key — but it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. Certain ways of speaking are off-limits, just like certain words are off-limits.

It’s also key, though, to practice self-awareness as a parent. Because if you’re the kind of person who goes quiet when you’re upset, or withdraws as a way of expressing yourself, that’s probably where your kid’s picking it up. They’re not unaware of that.

It’s kind of like when parents tell teens, “Hey, get off your phone,” and the teen says, “You’re on your phone all the time.” Modeling is key.

Sarah: That makes a lot of sense — treating relational aggression like any other form of aggression, giving alternatives, correcting the behavior.

Rachel: Exactly — and helping them cultivate empathy. Ask, “How do you think that other person felt when you said that? How do you think it feels when someone says they won’t be your friend anymore?”

You don’t want to lose friends just because you made a mistake.

Unfortunately, so many people believe this is just “kids being kids.” When you hear that phrase, it’s almost a way of disqualifying or invalidating the behavior as aggression. We have to be really careful not to trivialize it or write it off. That’s the gateway to not taking it seriously and not holding kids accountable.

Sarah: One of the things you talk about in your book — which I thought was really great food for thought — is how this often happens with girls because girls are socialized not to express their anger and to be “nice” and “good.” So it goes underground and comes out in these covert, or even not-so-covert, forms of relational aggression.

What can we do as parents to change this? Any concrete ways to help girls express themselves or communicate more effectively so that this doesn’t happen?

Rachel: That’s a really good question. I think one approach I value — both as a parent and in my work — is taking a more integrated approach to parenting, not just saying something in the moment.

If we want kids — and we don’t even have to say “girls,” just kids — to be more emotionally expressive and authentic so they don’t resort to indirect or harmful behaviors, then they need to be raised with certain principles.

Those principles have to be voiced, reinforced, and practiced throughout daily life — not just in response to an acute moment of aggression.

Some of those principles are: It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. All feelings are welcome, but not all behaviors are. You have the right to be treated with respect and dignity by your friends, and you owe that to them as well.

And not even just your friends — everyone. You don’t have to be friends with everyone, but you do have to treat everyone with respect.

That’s key for girls, in particular, because they’re often expected to be friends with everyone, which makes them feel resentful. So another principle is: You don’t have to be friends with everyone. You can be acquaintances and still treat people respectfully.

You’re striking a balance between supporting expression — it’s good to say how you feel — and being thoughtful about how you do it.

It’s also a practice. Sometimes we’ll make mistakes or feel awkward expressing ourselves, but that’s far better than going behind someone’s back or ignoring them forever.

Sarah: Right. I’m reminded of a line we often use in peaceful parenting when one sibling is being “mean” to another verbally. We’ll say, “You can tell your sibling how you feel without attacking them,” or, “You can tell your sibling how you feel without using unkind words.”

That’s really what you’re saying — it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.

So as I was reading your book, I realized that many of the things we teach in peaceful parenting already help kids express themselves in healthy ways — and also not put up with being treated poorly.

If you learn at home that you don’t have power or agency because your parents don’t treat you with respect, then you’re more susceptible to peers treating you poorly.

Rachel: Yeah, I think so. Parents teach us what to expect from other people. They also teach us how to respond in difficult moments.

If they normalize difficult moments and your day-to-day life includes not feeling valued or safe, you’ll import that into your relationships with others.

It can be more subtle too — if you don’t feel unconditionally valued, or if you have to fight for your parents’ attention, or you don’t feel consistent attachment, you might become vulnerable to pursuing peers who recreate that familiar but painful dynamic.

If your “happy place” becomes constantly trying to get the popular girl to win you over, that might mirror how you once tried to win your parents’ attention.

Sarah: If your child is the victim of relational aggression — what should you do? Both in terms of how to support your child and whether there’s anything you should do with other parents or the school?

Rachel: Great questions. First, how to support your child when they go through something like this — and you’re absolutely right, it can be really triggering for us as parents.

Empathy really matters. And I know some people are like, “Yeah, duh, empathy.” But in my work — and in my life as a parent — I’ve found that we’re wired to help and fix, not to empathize. That’s how humans have survived — by fixing and protecting, not empathizing.

So our instinct when we see our child in distress is to jump in and try to fix it.

Sarah: It’s called the “righting instinct,” I think.

Rachel: The righting instinct — oh! Like to put them upright again?

Sarah: Yeah.

Rachel: Oh, that’s helpful — I didn’t know that! Yes, the righting instinct.

So we have to override that and remember that what a child really needs is to know that what they’re going through is normal — even if it’s incredibly hard — and that their feelings are normal. They need to know they’re not alone.

Say things like, “You must feel really hurt,” or “That sounds so hard.”

Now, some kids will say, “No, I’m fine.” Not every kid will respond with, “Thanks for empathizing, Mom.” But you can still name the feeling — “If I were you, I’d feel the same way,” or, “That’s really hard.”

The feelings are scary, and kids want to know it’s okay to feel how they feel — that they’re not alone, and that it’s normal.

After that, try to override the fixing instinct as much as you can. Because unless your child is in acute distress, these are opportunities for them to develop problem-solving skills.

They will experience social aggression — that’s inevitable. If they don’t, they’re probably not connected to other people. So it’s not a question of if, it’s when.

These moments are opportunities for you to be with them and support them — but not to do it for them.

Ask, “Okay, this is going on — tell me one way you could respond. What’s something you could do?”

What we’re doing by asking that is not jumping in with, “Here’s what I’d do,” which doesn’t teach them anything. We’re giving them a chance to think.

A lot of kids will say, “I don’t know,” or get annoyed — that’s fine. You can say, “Okay, what’s one thing you could do?”

If they say, “Nothing,” you can say, “Nothing is a choice. That’s a strategy. What do you think will happen if you do nothing?”

We live in a culture that’s consistently deprived kids of opportunities to become resilient — deprived them of discomfort, and that’s cost them problem-solving ability.

I’m not saying kids should handle social aggression alone, but these moments are a chance to hold them and be with them — without doing it for them.

So those are kind of the first two steps.

Sarah: Well, I mean, I think empathize and empath—one thing that I read in your book is that sometimes parents dismiss that it’s really happening, or because of their own fears of their child. Wanting their child to fit in, they might try to encourage them to stay in the relationship or to try to fix the relationship. Maybe you could speak to that a little bit.

Rachel: Sure. Well, I think these kinds of moments can be incredibly disorienting for parents and triggering. And I use the word disorienting because we start to lose—we stop losing—the ability to differentiate between our feelings and experiences and our kids’.

So, for example, if we have a lot of emotion and a lack of resolution around what happened to us, when our kids go through it, all those feelings come right back up. And then we may start to assume that our kids are actually suffering more than they are.

Like, I’ll give you an example of a kid I met and her parent. The kid had been not treated well in middle school and she said, “I just want to sit at a different table.” And her mom was like, “But this is terrible! This is a terrible thing. We have to do something about it.” And her kid was like, “I just want to sit at a different table.”

So remaining aware of any delta between how your child is reacting and how you are is very key. And if you sense that difference, then you really need to conform to where your kid is and not insert or enforce your own emotions on them.

I also think it runs the other direction. To your point, Sarah, if you yourself fear—if you remember being really afraid of what happened when you felt alone—and you start to imagine that if your child were to make a move that would put them in more isolation, that would be bad for them because it was bad for you. Again, that’s a flag.

Anytime you find that you’re sort of flooding your parenting with the memories or the experiences that you had long before you were a parent—if you have the ability to differentiate—that’s really where you learn how to do it differently. But becoming aware of that is most important.

Sarah: That makes a lot of sense. And then I love how you’re talking about inviting problem-solving—you know, “What do you want to do?” Because often we come in with this, “Well, this is what you do. You march back in there on Monday and you say this.”

But as you said, that doesn’t allow them to develop any skills.

And, you know, where’s the spot—where’s the space—for encouraging? Because I know that my daughter, I went through this with her, with some mean girls in our community and at her school. And I just wanted to say, “Just make friends with different kids! Why do you keep trying to be friends with these same kids that are not being nice to you?”

Like, where’s the space for that? And what do you do?

And that actually is a question that one of our members sent in: what should we do, if anything, if our child still wants to be friends with the kids that haven’t been kind to them or who have been relationally aggressive?

Rachel: Yeah, it’s such a great question, and it’s one that many, many parents hold. Because it is certainly a phenomenon where, you know, you keep going back to the person who has hurt you.

And girls can be very inconsistent or all over the place—like, one day we’re really good friends, the next day you don’t want to sit with me at lunch, three days later you invite me to your house for a sleepover, right? You kick me out, you take me back in.

There comes a point in a kid’s life where they’re old enough to make their own decisions. They’re going to school, they’re going to hang out with whoever they want. And I’m most interested in supporting the parents who actually can’t control who their kid hangs out with.

Because if it were as easy as just saying, “Well, you can’t go over to their house anymore,” that would be fine. But it’s not—because the kid’s going to make their own social choices when they’re out and about.

So I think the answer is that relationships are a classroom. Relationships are a place where we learn all kinds of life skills—including how to say what we want, how to compromise, how to forgive, and how to end a relationship.

I think that while it is incredibly frustrating and stressful for a parent to watch their child return to an aggressor, trying to remain as much of a guide as you can to your child, rather than bringing down the hammer, is key.

So, in other words, one strategy I’ve suggested—which is not maybe for everyone—but it’s kind of like: think about a friend you’ve had in your life as an adult who keeps going back to somebody who isn’t good to them. Maybe you remember—they were in a relationship with a crappy person—and you’re like, “What are you doing with that person? Why are you dating them?”

And you probably weren’t yelling at them or saying, “You better stop dating them or I’m not going to be your friend anymore.” You had to stick with them as they figured it out, and you knew they were learning and you hoped they would learn.

There’s a bit of that with your kid. Your kid is not your friend—your kid is much more triggering than your friend—but they’re actually in a very similar learning experience to your friend who’s dating somebody that everyone knows isn’t right for them.

And so as a parent, you want to stay connected and say, “Okay, so what’s your takeaway from what just happened? What are you learning about this person—how they’re treating you?” And you’re going to say it a hundred times before maybe some neuron fires next week or next year, and they’re like, “Oh, I get it.”

Sarah: Yeah.

Rachel: Like, they need to keep hearing from you. They need to keep hearing that this isn’t a good person—that this person’s not good to you, that this person doesn’t have the values our friends have.

Sarah: That happened with my daughter—with a best friend from birth, too. I think it was around age eight when things started shifting, and the girl started being pretty mean to my daughter.

And it took her four years until she finally made the decision on her own. One thing happened, and it finally cracked it open for her, and she just said, “I don’t think [name] and I are best friends anymore.”

She cried for about three hours, and she went through maybe a month or two of grieving that friendship. But that was kind of like—it had been the straw that broke the camel’s back, where she finally saw everything in the true light. You know what I mean?

But it was so hard for those four years to watch her keep going back and trying and giving her the benefit of the doubt. Anyhow, it was rough.

Rachel: It was rough. And what do you think she learned from that?

Sarah: Well, I think she learned to look other places for friends. And I think she learned how she wanted to be treated.

So we’ve talked about how to support your child who’s going through this. Is there anything you recommend doing with the other child’s parents or with the school to support your child?

Rachel: Yeah. I mean, I think it depends on their age, right?

Sarah: Let’s say tweens.

Rachel: Okay. I think it depends. So first, with the other parents—it’s important to remember that if you call another kid’s parents without clearing it with your own kid first, you just never know what those other parents are going to disclose to their own child.

If you don’t know these parents well, you have no idea whether they’d go to their kid and say, “Guess who called me today?” So, as much as possible, have some communication with your own child about reaching out to another parent, especially if you don’t know that parent or have a prior relationship.

I understand the intention is to help, but when you call another parent, you can’t control what that parent does with your words—or how that affects your own child. So you have to be very careful.

Now, does that mean you always have to have your child’s permission to reach out? No, it doesn’t. There are times where you’ll just do that because that’s your job. I just want people to be aware of that.

Also, when you call another parent, it’s critical to start the conversation with: “I know I only have one perspective here. I know I can only see what I can see. Can you tell me if there are things I’m not seeing? I’d love to know what’s going on from your perspective.”

In other words, you’re not going in heavy-handed or accusatory—you’re going in with humility. It’s okay to say you’re upset and to talk about what you know, but it’s critical to maintain the humility of realizing you don’t know everything.

And that children—just like everyone else—can have their own distortions or lenses through which they experience their peers.

Finally, when you talk to another parent, be very precise in your language when you describe what happened. Stick to the behaviors that allegedly occurred.

Like, you can say, “My understanding is that your kid called my kid with some kids over while they were having a sleepover, and it left my daughter feeling pretty embarrassed and hurt. Can you tell me more about what you know?”

So you’re not saying, “Your kid did this and really messed up my kid.” You’re saying, “Here’s my understanding of what happened, and here was the impact.” Those are two things you can control knowing—without accusing.

Sarah: Yeah, that makes sense. I made all the mistakes with my friend’s daughter’s mother, so yeah, I think your advice is good.

And I wish I had had it then. It’s so hard not to rush in as a parent, especially when kids are younger. It’s so hard not to rush in and try to—like you said—right things, to try to fix it and make things better.

There’s just a comment from Mare—when we were talking about kids going back to people who are unkind—she said that her grandson, who I know is nine, told her that he’s “an easy mark.” And when she asked why he felt that way, he said his friend punched him in the stomach and he just accepted that and continues to be friends with him.

Do you have any words for her around that—how she might support her grandson?

Rachel: Yeah. I mean, first of all, I like that he’s comfortable talking to his grandmother in that way—how wonderful for her that he’s so vulnerable and authentic. So I would, as the grandma, be very cautious and handle delicately the vulnerability your grandson’s giving you.

And I would be very inquisitive. I’d put on my coach’s hat and say, “Tell me more about that. Tell me more about what happens and why. Tell me more about your decision to accept it. What do you think would happen if you didn’t accept it?”

I’ve learned a lot in the later part of my career about the importance of just holding space for people to talk something through. You don’t have to give advice. You don’t have to have an idea. You can just ask questions and let them talk it through.

Talking aloud to someone who cares and listens closely is not that different from journaling. Both can help you arrive at new insights that you couldn’t otherwise on your own—but don’t require someone telling you what to do.

So I think that kind of stance, if you can take it with your grandson, would be very effective—and you’d probably learn a ton.

Sarah: Thanks. That’s great. So the final part of that three-part question that we keep getting back to is—what about with the school?

One thing that I thought was interesting in your book is you talked about how a lot of the kids that are doing the relational aggression have a lot of social status, and that it often flies under the radar—that the teachers don’t see what’s going on.

I think that would make it especially tricky to try to get support from the school if they’re not seeing what your child is reporting back to you.

Rachel: Yes, it does make it tricky. And you know, psychological aggression is just that—it’s psychological. So unless you’re listening, you’d miss it.

It’s also the case that—like Eddie Haskell in Leave It to Beaver—when the adult shows up, a lot of the most aggressive kids turn into very likable, charming, dynamic kids. They know how to work the adults in the room.

This is why even the most devoted, skilled teachers who really want to catch this stuff still say to me, “Why don’t I see it? I’m trying so hard.”

That does make it hard. And I say that because it makes it particularly hard for a school to respond if they’re like, “We don’t see it.”

So, when you talk to the school, it’s important to keep that in mind—that this stuff might not be visible.

It’s also important to practice that same humility, because often the school does see things you don’t. They may have awareness of the different sides of the story.

Schools are filled with human beings who are tired, and if they get a two-page single-spaced email from a parent at 11:30 at night with a call the next morning saying, “Why haven’t you responded?”—they’re not super psyched to work with you.

Treating people like they’re customer-service reps who are there to serve you—especially if you pay tuition—I understand why that happens, but you’re going to catch a lot more flies with honey.

Sarah: Than with vinegar.

Rachel: Yeah, I couldn’t remember what the insect was—but I think you catch more flies with honey.

It’s hard. It’s heavy. It’s a tall ask, because you’re hurting as a parent—you’re frustrated, you’re angry, you’re worried about your kid. But it’s a really complex situation.

A couple other ways to approach this: figure out if your school has an anti-bullying or behavior policy that acknowledges these more indirect forms of aggression.

Also, I’d caution parents against using the word bullying unless it actually meets that definition. That’s a big turn-off for school administrators and teachers when parents elevate something to bullying that isn’t.

Bullying is more of a protracted campaign of one person against another, typically with a big power dynamic. Most of what kids experience are acts of aggression, but not ongoing campaigns.

So being careful about the words you use is important too.

And then, see what training teachers have—what professional development they’ve been given around what to look out for, how to manage their classrooms.

There was a long period in my life where all I did was professional development sessions for schools. We talked about, “Have you talked to your students about body language? About the power of rolling your eyes when someone speaks up, or laughing, or staring?”

Those are silent behaviors, but they send strong messages. Many teachers don’t have those conversations with students—and that’s the kind of thing that makes a difference in communicating expectations.

Sarah: Someone on the call just asked a question related to that. She’s curious what you have to say about shame being used by girls as a form of aggression—especially middle schoolers.

Rachel: That’s interesting—when you say shame, meaning like trying to shame the target for something they’ve done?

Sarah: Yeah, she says yes. Like rolling your eyes at somebody when they do something—that would make someone feel a sense of shame. She also said her daughter was shamed for talking to boys.

Rachel: Yeah. So I think there’s quite a bit of shame that both boys and girls experience.

So—sorry, I’m reading the comments too—your daughter was shamed for talking to boys who came to their lunch table, and was asked to sit at a different lunch table?

Yeah, I wonder if that’s about shaming for breaking an unwritten code—“We don’t talk to boys.” Which can also be rooted in cultural expectations around girls—like, “You’re such a slut if you talk to boys,” or “We don’t.”

And so there’s a way in which girls can police each other and shame each other by channeling messages from the culture that they’ve learned.

What I have to say about that is that girls do become agents of the culture—and of patriarchal culture—that says, “You’re not supposed to talk to boys because that means you must be sexual with them,” or, “We just don’t like those people, so we’re going to punish you.”

Boys will do it to each other too—when they’re vulnerable or show feelings.

So, to support a girl who’s going through that: if we think about the definition of shame, it’s to feel like you are a bad person—that your core identity is defective.

The difference between shame and guilt is that shame is about you, and guilt is about the thing you did.

We’re all vulnerable to shame, but I think tween girls are particularly so because they’re both able to understand what adults are saying and still in a very self-focused moment in development. That’s a pretty toxic brew.

It means you can easily take on shame without fully understanding what’s being said to you.

So I think just really taking a moment to say, “You are a good human being. You are valued. You are loved. You’re not alone.”

You may not think a moment like this requires those words, but if your child is feeling ashamed because of those behaviors, it’s important to remind them they’re just like everyone else—in the best way—and that even if they’ve been othered or singled out, they’re still part of a loved whole, whether that’s family or friends.

Sarah: Yeah, when you were saying that, I was reminded of something I did with my daughter that I talk about a lot—making sure our children, even if they’re having social troubles or not feeling like they have friends or the friends they want—making sure they feel unconditionally loved and appreciated and delighted in and celebrated at home can be very protective, I think.

And I’ve heard adults talk about that—who were bullied—and say, “The only reason I came through it with my self-esteem intact was that my parents made me believe this wasn’t happening because there was something wrong with me.” They made me feel loved and celebrated and appreciated at home.

So I think that’s something for all of us to keep sight of too—if our kids are having friendship troubles—to do the work at home to help them.

Rachel: Yes. A thousand percent. That has nothing to do with their friends.

Sarah: Yeah.

Rachel: Yes.

Sarah: Okay, two more questions before we let you go. A question from a member who couldn’t be on the call: any advice for making future friends once they’ve gone through a mean relationship?

So this person’s child is on the other side of a difficult elementary school relationship, starting middle school at a new school, and is finding it hard—maybe she’s a little hesitant about making new friends after what she’s gone through. Any advice about that?

Rachel: I think you validate it. You validate the hesitation.

And you also say, “Hey—do you notice how many people date and break up and then start dating new people? Or get divorced and marry new people? Friendships are the same thing.”

We’re not meant to have one best friend forever—that’s a myth. People lose friends and also cut loose people that aren’t right for them.

Maybe your daughter’s been through that—but remind her we’re constantly regenerating new connections.

It’s okay to feel a little gun-shy or apprehensive. Ask, “What would make you feel more comfortable making new friends so you don’t feel like you’re exposing yourself too much?”

Again, always staying curious, inquisitive—not assuming you know what’s right because you’re the parent—but asking, “What would need to be true for you to feel comfortable making this new friendship?”

Maybe she’s not comfortable socializing one-on-one outside of school for a long time and wants to keep it to school. That’s okay.

So being flexible and kind of flexing to where your child is, while also holding the line about the importance of continuing to connect—that’s important.

Sarah: Love that. My final question to you is one I ask all my podcast guests—and you can answer this in any context, not just what we were talking about today—but if you had a time machine and could go back to your younger parent self, what advice would you give yourself?

Rachel: Oh my God, so much. Don’t let your kid have YouTube as early as you did. That would be the first one.

I guess I’d say that feeling out of control is normal—and you’ve got to learn to breathe through that more. Yelling isn’t going to give you anything but a false sense of control, and it’s just going to upset your kid.

That’s the truth of it. I think I would’ve yelled less if I’d been more comfortable with the discomfort—feeling like things were out of control and I couldn’t manage or have the solution for something.

Sarah: Love that. Thank you so much for joining us. Where’s the best place for folks to find out more about you and what you do?

Rachel: Find me at rachelsimmons.com.

Sarah: All right. Thank you so much, Rachel.

Rachel: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Great questions.

You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, OR— BRAND NEW: we’ve included a fully edited transcript of our interview at the bottom of this post.

In this episode of The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, Dr. Jo-Ann Finkelstein returns to talk with me about what parents need to know about concerning anti-woman rhetoric and actions in the “manosphere” and the “womanosphere”.

We cover the philosophy of each, the terms and important figures of these movements, as well as what to do if your kid is already being influenced and how to protect them from these harmful messages.

**If you’d like an ad-free version of the podcast, consider becoming a supporter on Substack! > > If you already ARE a supporter, the ad-free version is waiting for you in the Substack app or you can enter the private feed URL in the podcast player of your choice.

Know someone who might appreciate this post? Share it with them!

We talk about:

* 7:10 What is misogyny?

* 7:45 What is the “manosphere”?

* 15:00 What is the “womanosphere”?

* 20:00 What are the false statistics that have a lot of traction?

* 22:00 What do we do as parents for our boys?

* 26:00 What to do if your boys are listening to misogynistic influencers

* 28:00 The four parts of developing critical media literacy

* 35:30 How to mentor not monitor social media

* 34:00 Terminology we need to know as parents

Resources mentioned in this episode:

* Yoto Player-Screen Free Audio Book Player

* The Peaceful Parenting Membership

* Sexism and Sensibility: Raising Empowered, Resilient Girls in the Modern World with Jo Ann Finkelstein: Episode 164

* Sexism & Sensibility Raising Empowered, Resilient Girls In The Modern World

* Episode 118: Raising Kids in the Era of Technology with Devorah Heitner

* Jo-Ann Finkelstein’s Substack

* Jo-Ann Finkelstein’s website

xx Sarah and Corey

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Transcript:

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Peaceful Parenting Podcast.

I’ve been noticing a lot in the media, and in the world around me, an enormous amount of tension around gender equity and ideology—as well as seeing concerning anti-woman rhetoric and actions. I’ve also heard from parents who are worried about the influencers and media their kids are being exposed to, and the really quite problematic ideas that come with that.

That’s why I asked Dr. Jo-Ann Finkelstein to come back on the podcast. She was on an earlier episode about her book Sexism and Sensibility—we’ll link to that in the show notes if you haven’t heard it yet. I wanted her to talk with me about what parents need to know about the manosphere and the womanosphere.

You might not even have heard of the womanosphere—I just learned about it through Jo-Ann’s work. And while I think most of us have heard of the manosphere, we might not be quite sure what it is. Jo-Ann gives us a great overview of the big ideas, terms, and key figures of these movements, as well as what to do if your child is already being influenced—and how to protect them from these, quite frankly, harmful ideas.

If you know anyone who needs to hear this, please share it with them. And we’d really appreciate it if you’d rate and review the podcast on your favorite podcast player app—it really helps us reach more families and support more children and their caregivers.

Let’s meet Jo-Ann.

Sarah: Hey, Jo-Ann, welcome back to the podcast.

Jo-Ann: I am so glad to be back.

Sarah: I’ve really been wanting to talk to you about today’s topic because there’s just so much going on in the world—and in North America right now—that feels so hard. Especially as a person who cares about people, and as a parent. I get your Substack and I love what you write about gender equity and sexism. Of course, your book Sexism and Sensibility was what you were on the podcast to talk about last time—it’s a wonderful book. We’ll link to that episode and to your book in the show notes.

But before I dive in any further, tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do.

Jo-Ann: I’m a clinical psychologist and a writer. I wrote the book Sexism and Sensibility: Raising Empowered, Resilient Girls in the Modern World, as you just mentioned. I see all genders in my private practice, but I do see a lot of girls and women—and a lot of mothers and daughters.

Since writing the book, and especially since the political changes we’ve seen in the United States, I’ve really expanded the areas I study, think about, and write about. So I’m glad to be here to talk about such an important topic—the manosphere and the womanosphere.

Sarah: I’m so glad you’re here to talk about it. My feeling is that we’re going backwards in terms of gender equity and women’s rights—rights that were hard-won over generations. We’ve seen the loss of reproductive rights in the U.S. and threats of even more restrictions. And it feels like it’s become more acceptable again to share misogynistic viewpoints, especially with the rise of the manosphere and the womanosphere.

Before we go further, can you explain a few things for anyone who might not know? What is misogyny?

Jo-Ann: Misogyny literally means “hatred of women,” but it’s often used more broadly to describe the sexism women experience. It can be an attitude or an action—something someone does to put down or harm someone who identifies as female.

Sarah: Okay, and then the manosphere and the womanosphere—or femosphere, as you said it’s sometimes called.

Jo-Ann: Yes, though there are slight differences between the womanosphere and femosphere. But basically, the manosphere is a diverse collection of websites, blogs, and online forums that promote masculinity, misogyny, and opposition to feminism.

In a world where two-thirds of young men say that nobody really knows them—and where there’s no clear agreement on what a “good man” looks like or how to become one—it creates the perfect conditions for men to look for connection online, often through the manosphere.

This network swoops in to provide what feels like clear messaging about gender roles and relationships—and it promotes the belief that for women to advance, men have to lose something.

Sarah: When I was reading about it yesterday to prepare for this, one thing that stood out was that a lot of young men don’t necessarily encounter the overt anti-woman content right away. It often starts with fitness advice, or how to talk to girls—kind of self-improvement content. The anti-woman message is the undercurrent, but it’s still there.

Jo-Ann: Exactly. They swoop in with these simple explanations of how to be a man—and they groom these boys in a very slow-drip way. The scary messages are mixed in with talk about gaming, relationships, mental health, wellbeing, getting rich, and getting enough protein.

The misogyny starts as memes or jokes—things that can be brushed off as humor or “locker room talk.” But over time, algorithm pulsl them further down the rabbit hole, toward deeper messages about being victimized by society.

You can imagine a lonely, rejected boy sitting at his computer thinking, “Yeah, that’s not fair—I haven’t done anything wrong. The system is rigged against me. I’m being victimized.” It’s a very appealing message for someone who feels like a loser—to reframe himself as an underdog, downtrodden by a world that’s unfair to him.

Sarah: Do you think that connects to the Me Too movement? Was the rise of the manosphere a response to that, or did it start earlier?

Jo-Ann: I don’t know if there’s a direct line, but yes—I write a lot about backlash. Me Too was a real moment for women to speak up and have their voices heard, to talk about the things in our culture that are frightening, violent, and deeply unfair.

Whenever there’s progress, there’s backlash. As women began to be heard and things started to change, it felt threatening to some men. That’s part of what fuels the manosphere.

And just to clarify for your listeners—kids don’t call it “the manosphere.” Adults do. The kids think that term is totally cringe.

Sarah: Right, your teenager’s not going to respond if you say, “Who do you follow in the manosphere?” They’ll be like, “What?”

Jo-Ann: Exactly.

Sarah: But I have had a friend—a progressive dad—reach out to say, “My 15-year-old son loves Andrew Tate. What do I do?” And Andrew Tate seems like one of the biggest figures in the manosphere.

Jo-Ann: Yes, Andrew Tate is huge—and very toxic. He was charged with sex trafficking and sexual assault in Romania and London, and Trump is thought to have even helped bring him back to the U.S. so he couldn’t be tried.

Sarah: Let’s talk a bit about the femosphere, but before that, I just want to say—my 18-year-old daughter started working in restaurants this year, and as much as it feels like we’re going backwards in some ways, I can see progress too. When I was her age, there were things that were totally acceptable—especially in restaurant culture—that no one would ever do now, at least not openly.

And I see in my kids’ generation this awareness and confidence—when someone says or does something inappropriate, they call it out right away.

Jo-Ann: Yes, we don’t want to be too depressing—there has been real progress. I wouldn’t say those things never happen anymore, but maybe they happen less, and there’s much more awareness around them.

Sarah: I think maybe part of the rise of the manosphere is that feeling among some men that the ground has shifted under them. There was this celebrity who got “canceled” for behavior that would have been considered normal when I was a teenager, and I think a lot of men who grew up with that were like, “Wait—that’s just how it’s always been.”

Jo-Ann: Exactly. That used to be part of masculinity—and now you’re saying they can’t do that. So they ask, “What is masculinity?” And women are saying, “Just behave well. Don’t be a creep.” And they’re like, “Wait—I thought that was being a man.” It’s confusing.

We have to listen to boys, take them seriously, and teach them well.

Sarah: Thank you for saying that—much more eloquently than I did. Okay, so what’s the womanosphere?

Jo-Ann: Before we go on, I want to add that some of the other big manosphere influencers are people like Logan Paul and the Nelk Boys—who, by the way, are from Canada originally. They’ve had a huge influence on boys and even on the U.S. election outcomes.

Sarah: I’d never even heard of them—thank you.

Jo-Ann: So, the womanosphere includes people like Brett Cooper and Candace Owens. It’s helpful to know what to look out for.

If the manosphere is toxic masculinity dressed up as philosophy, then the womanosphere is misogyny dressed up in milkmaid clothing.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jo-Ann: It looks soft, harmless, even aspirational—cottagecore filters, tradwife influencers with gorgeous homes and perfectly dressed kids. But beneath that aesthetic is a push for women to shrink themselves, to submit to their husbands, and to trade ambition for dependency.

It preys on the very real struggles women face. But instead of fighting for systemic change—like paid leave, affordable childcare, or equal partnership—it sells women this glossy rewind to the days when women were expected to find fulfillment only through being a wife and mother, taking on all the domestic labor with a smile.

If you’re a woman suffering, —or a girl who sees your mom — suffering under the weight of everything she does, the message “Just let him take care of you” can sound pretty appealing.

Sarah: It must also be a direct response to how hard it is for women to juggle it all. I was listening to an interview with Elizabeth Warren, and she talked about how, as a young mother, her biggest struggle was finding reliable, affordable childcare. Then her daughter’s biggest struggle was the same thing—and now her granddaughter’s is too.

And I recently listened to Ketanji Brown Jackson’s memoir, where she talked about crying on the kitchen floor because she didn’t know how she could keep working and still care for her kids, even with two working parents.

So when it all feels overwhelming, that romanticized domestic ideal must look really appealing.

Jo-Ann: Absolutely. Working and raising kids—it’s exhausting. I look back and don’t know how I survived those years. None of us can be the moms we want to be when we’re that tired and still fighting for equality at home.

So yes, when you see a woman on the internet who looks like she has it all together, you think, “I want that.”

Sarah: Yeah. And I think it can be even darker than just the “make your own bread and stay home” message—there’s also the undercurrent of submission, of not being an equal partner.

Jo-Ann: Oh yes. There’s a lot about submitting to your husband. The goal seems to be: if we glorify femininity and motherhood enough, women will stop demanding things like birth control and abortion access. They’ll become too overwhelmed, overburdened, and outnumbered to organize against a culture built to serve men’s needs at women’s expense.

I really do think this comes from a deep fear—among men in power—of women’s power. A fear that they’ll lose what they’ve long believed is their birthright.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jo-Ann: Their birthright of power, head of household status, sex—all the things they’ve been raised to believe they’re entitled to.

Sarah: Right? So, where does it make sense to go to next in our conversation here? I mean, I had some anecdotes that I’ve shared a couple of along the way, but one thing that made me think about this was watching this documentary—have you seen the Lilith Fair documentary on Netflix?

Jo-Ann: No, I haven’t.

Sarah: It was really good.

Jo-Ann: I’ve heard it’s really good.

Sarah: It was really good. Why Sarah McLachlan organized Lilith Fair was because she would go to a radio station, and they’d be like, “Oh, we really like your music, but we already have a woman on this week—we’re playing Tracy Chapman.” There was just so much sexism in the music industry, right? There wasn’t room for more than one woman at a time. So she was like, “I’m going to do a whole festival with only women.” And it was enormously successful.

Then the next weekend, I went to a three-day music festival, and I started counting how many women were on stage. I had to stop because it was so depressing. It’s still the same. It’s a little off-topic from the womanosphere and manosphere, but sometimes I just feel so helpless. Like, what’s the point in all of this? So what can we do as parents?

Jo-Ann: Before we get into the how-to, I just want parents to get a sense of what their kids are hearing. They’re hearing the same false statistics over and over again—like “false rape allegations are very common.” They hear that all the time.

So as a woman, you’re saying, “I’m counting these people on stage, and there are very few women.” But they’re hearing the opposite. They’re hearing, “Women are taking over,” that “men are losing out,” that “they’re being rejected because 80% of women only date 20% of men,” which is false. They hear conspiracy theories that feminists want to destroy white men, who are supposedly the real victims of society.

So your son is online, finding this community of guys who feel the same way he does—and they’re offering him belonging he may not have felt before. These are ready-made friends. And like you said, it’s this drip, this undercurrent. When they start to realize that these men are actually calling for the rape and destruction of women, it doesn’t sound that bad anymore because they’ve been so overwhelmed by these messages. It starts to sound normal—maybe even righteous—to incite hatred toward girls and women.

It doesn’t just harm women—it harms boys and men too, because it promotes unrealistic and extreme measures to “improve” their social standing. For example, “looksmaxing”—which can mean anything from hygiene tips and fitness routines to extreme dietary restrictions, cosmetic surgery, or steroid use.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jo-Ann: So as parents, we have to help boys integrate the idea of themselves as caring, emotionally connected, cooperative people—to see those qualities as aspirational, not emasculating.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jo-Ann: For the good of everybody. That’s a basic value that I’m sure many of your listeners already hold, but we have to help boys understand that those are human qualities, not feminine ones. Because at the root of sexism is the rejection of the feminine.

Sarah: The people listening to my podcast already care about connection, but I just want to call out—having raised two boys—don’t listen to anyone who tells you they need you less than your girls might, or that they’re not as bothered by things. They still need connection, care, and intimacy with their families just as much as girls do.

Jo-Ann: And they need it within friendships too. But when they seek it out, they’re called “soy boys” or “white knights.” If they’re seen as subservient to women in any way, or having needs that women have, they get called derogatory names.

Sarah: Okay. So, onto the how-to—what would you say to my friend whose 15-year-old loves Andrew Tate?

Jo-Ann: The first thing I’d say is don’t panic. Be curious. Really listen without jumping to react, even if what they say is shocking or upsetting—because that will just push them away.

I went through this with my son. It wasn’t extreme, but he was listening to a lot of those streamers. Thankfully, he was bringing some of this stuff to us, kind of with bravado. Inside, I’d feel disgusted or angry, but I kept my poker face and really listened.

We’re lucky—he grew up with parents who think critically about these things, and in a liberal extended family, so he was less likely to go down that road. But he really could have. He’s also very skeptical. He’d notice when some streamers shifted politically—from liberal to very conservative—and he’d say, “These people are getting paid.”

So we really want to help our kids develop critical media literacy.

Engaging online with your kid can be a natural way to start conversations about what they’re exposed to. I talk about this in my book—it can be broken down into four parts.

Sarah: Sure.

Jo-Ann: The first one is to promote skeptical thinking. Teach your kids to question information they see online. Encourage them to consider the source and the creator’s intentions. For example, they can ask, “Why is this person telling me this? What are they trying to sell me?”

The second is to explain the origins of online content. Teach them that many influencers monetize controversy. They use shock value, misinformation, or skewed statistics to get views—and their advice often lacks expertise. You can say, “These guys aren’t experts. I wonder where they’re getting their information. Let’s look up the real statistics.”

Third, teach them that these ideas aren’t just internet fads—they’re tied to larger political goals, like restricting reproductive rights, pushing “hyper-motherhood,” and keeping women too overburdened to organize.

Also, teach them how “anti-victim” language reframes systemic issues as personal failures. “It’s not sexism—it’s your mindset.”

Sarah: Right.

Jo-Ann: That’s especially true for girls, because it turns structural inequality into an individual woman’s problem to fix.

Sarah: Right—like, “You’re just not working hard enough,” or “You don’t believe in yourself.”

Jo-Ann: Exactly. Or, “It was just a joke. Stop being so sensitive.” It’s the same old stuff. We want them to understand that real liberation isn’t just “dealing with the cards you’re dealt.”

Because in the womanosphere, you’ll hear, “Men are just naturally stronger and need to lead—and if you let them, everything will be fine.” And in the femosphere, it’s “Men are trash; you’ve got to game the system, use them for money.” We want girls to see that real liberation is the opposite—it’s about naming injustice, demanding systemic change, and building communities of women.

The fourth part is to debunk pseudoscience. Teach kids to recognize misinformation—distorted statistics or pseudoscientific gender theories—and help them identify reputable sources. Give them solid information about mental health and relationships.

And finally, talk openly about and challenge gender stereotypes. Point out the endless denigration of girls and women in movies, TV shows, and other media. Help them see that stereotypes limit everyone and reinforce the rigid beliefs of those online echo chambers.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jo-Ann: I give a lot of examples of this in Sexism and Sensibility—common sexist themes in media that parents can use to reach their kids. Of course, you don’t want to “yuck their yum” too much, or they’ll tune you out. Ask open-ended questions, share your thoughts, and encourage reflection—but don’t be heavy-handed, or you’ll lose them.

Sarah: Yeah, that’s super important. Because if you go too hard, they’ll just go underground. They won’t tell you what they’re following or listening to, and you’ll have even less ability to help them think critically about it.

Where do you stand on social media guidelines? Do you think people are right to say “no social media until 16”?

Jo-Ann: I’m not a social media expert, but I don’t think waiting until 16 is realistic. I really believe “mentor, not monitor” is the more effective way—because kids will always find ways around the rules.

Of course, when they’re young, the longer you can delay Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok, the better. But that’s how teens find community and connect. It’s not all bad. Boys, for example, do find real communities online—on Discord, for instance—it’s just which communities they find that’s the problem. So yes, mentor, not monitor.

Sarah: “Mentor, not monitor.” I like that. That’s helpful.

Jo-Ann: Credit to Devorah Heitner.

Sarah: I was going to say! Aren’t you friends with Devorah Heitner? I’ve heard her say that. She’s also been on the podcast, and we’ll link to that episode in the show notes.

So—what should I have asked you about that I haven’t?

Jo-Ann: Maybe some of the terminology. Do parents know what “red-pilling” is?

Sarah: Tell us.

Jo-Ann: It’s basically the manosphere’s core philosophy. It comes from The Matrix and means “waking up” to feminism’s supposed oppression of men. The “blue pill” represents ignorance—someone who doesn’t realize men are being oppressed. The “black pill” is used by incels, meaning they’ve accepted their “terminal celibacy.”

Maybe I should explain who the different groups of the manosphere are.

An incel believes men are entitled to sex but aren’t getting it because women deny them—and that women should be punished for that.

Then there are Pickup Artists—this is a $100 million global industry led by men who boast about rape and believe it should be legalized on public property. They train men to harass and assault women.

Then there are Men’s Rights Activists. They claim to care about men’s issues, but in practice, they focus on attacking women and dismantling feminism—bringing lawsuits to defund sexual violence services or weaken women’s protections.

And finally, there’s “Men Going Their Own Way” (MGTOW)—men who believe women are so toxic they have to cut them out of their lives altogether.

Sarah: Wow. This is dark stuff.

Jo-Ann: It really is.

Sarah: It reminds me of that idea that there’s only one pie—if other people get rights, it takes away from yours.

Jo-Ann: Exactly. But I believe we can help boys and men see that it’s not a limited pie. They may have to give something up, but they also gain something—relationships, connection, emotional fulfillment.

Care work in this culture is so demeaned that men avoid it—but it’s also where so much of women’s connection comes from. Many men’s deathbed regrets are about not having the relationships they wanted.

So yes, as women take on more public work, men will have to take on more private work—not more overall, but more equally—and they’ll also gain. Yes, they might have to wash the toilet, but they’ll get more time with their kids, more friendships, more access to their own emotions.

Sarah: I remember when our first son was born, my husband hadn’t really taken care of babies before, and I had. I was much more comfortable changing diapers, all that. His first instinct was, “You do that—you’re better at it.” And I said, “This is where all the connection happens—in the caregiving. If you miss out on that, you’ll miss out on the connection.”

He was like, “Oh, okay.” I think he was just nervous.

Jo-Ann: What a beautiful thing to say to him. That’s so impactful.

Sarah: Yeah, because connection was important to him—he wanted that bond with our baby, but he didn’t realize how much of it comes through caregiving.

Jo-Ann: Exactly. And you’re reminding me of a statistic: people say women are more nurturing, but research shows proximity changes hormones. When men spend more time caregiving, their “nurturing” hormones increase too.

Sarah: I’ve read that! It’s so cool. And it feels good too, right? The oxytocin.

Jo-Ann: Yes, exactly.

Sarah: Thank you so much. I think this will be really helpful for parents to understand what their kids are being exposed to.

Jo-Ann: My pleasure. I’m so glad you’re talking about this—it’s so important.

Sarah: I encourage everyone to check out your Substack and your book. We’ll link to both in the show notes. Before I let you go, I ask all my guests this: if you could go back in time to your younger parent self, what advice would you give yourself?

Jo-Ann: Oh boy, so much. I’d tell myself not to get caught up in the competitive stuff. At the time, I thought I wasn’t, but I was. I told myself I wasn’t a good enough mother because I wasn’t baking endless banana bread like my mom did, or because my house wasn’t as neat as someone else’s. But that’s just culture’s way of undermining women and making motherhood a competitive sport—when really, we all just need to have each other’s backs.

Sarah: Love that. Thank you so much, Jo-Ann, for coming on. What’s the best place for folks to find you?

Jo-Ann: My website is jo-annfinkelstein.com. My Substack is Raising Her Voice—jo-annfinkelstein.substack.com—and I’m also on Instagram and TikTok at jo-annfinkelstein.phd.

Sarah: Great. We’ll link to all those in the show notes. Thank you so much.

Jo-Ann: Thank you. I really appreciate it.

You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, OR— BRAND NEW: we’ve included a fully edited transcript of our interview at the bottom of this post.

In this episode of The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, we have a coaching call with Laurel and Derrick.

This call is such a good one because we cover ALL the big ideas behind the peaceful parenting approach, while applying them to real life scenarios in a home with three kids.

Topics include sibling rivalry, nurturing our kids, self regulation, how to handle kids asking lots of questions and always wanting more, what parenting without punishment looks like, and more!

**If you’d like an ad-free version of the podcast, consider becoming a supporter on Substack! > > If you already ARE a supporter, the ad-free version is waiting for you in the Substack app or you can enter the private feed URL in the podcast player of your choice.

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We talk about:

* 7:00 What it looks like when our children truly respect us

* 9:00 7-year-old refusing to get dressed

* 12:10 Why it is okay baby and nurture our kids

* 14:00 Tuning into our own self regulation

* 18:00 Mindset shifts to give our kids the benefit of the doubt

* 19:30 How to handle sibling rivalry

* 24:00 Don’t try to make it a teachable moment

* 38:00 When kids ask questions over and over

* 41:00 Why kids always want more!

* 45:00 Helping kids see how their actions affect other people

* 55:00 Why kids lie and what to do

* 57:00 Natural consequences, boundaries, and limits

* 1:02 Peaceful Parenting Mantras

Resources mentioned in this episode:

* Yoto Player-Screen Free Audio Book Player

* The Peaceful Parenting Membership

* Free Stop Sibling Fights E book

* Free How To Stop Yelling at Your Kids e-course

xx Sarah and Corey

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Transcript:

Derrick: Hi, good morning.

Sarah: Hi Derek. Nice to meet you. Hi Laurel. Hi. Are you a firefighter, Derek? I’m—yeah, I’m actually—I see you’ve got your sweatshirt.

Derrick: Yeah. Just a heads up, I may have to jump off if we get a call.

Sarah: Okay. Well, so nice to meet you guys. So you’ve got three—boy, girl, girl. And what would you like to talk about today?

Laurel: I think I just love your whole—I’ve sent Derek a couple things—but I just love your whole premise of peacefulness and remaining calm when it’s easy to get angry. Mm-hmm. And just some tools for doing that. I guess like some basic things, because we would both like to say where, you know, we have like, you know, the streaks where we’re all calm, calm, calm, and then just—and then her, yeah, limit. Yeah.

And so yeah, just tools for when that happens. We have very typical age-appropriate kind of response kids, mm-hmm, that need to be told 80 times something. And so it’s frustrating. And then how to help them kind of see—without bribing, without threatening discipline, without all of that. Yeah. Like how to have a better dialogue with our kids of teaching respect and teaching kind of “we do this, you do this.”

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, maybe. Okay. So there’s always gonna be situations where it’s hard to stay calm, you know? Just being a parent—like of course your kids are gonna push your buttons sometimes. But rather than—so, we do always start with self-regulation.

And what I mean by self-regulation isn’t that you never get upset. It’s that when you do get upset, you know how to calm yourself and take a minute, take a breath—whatever you need to do—so that you don’t yell. Because yelling hurts our relationship with our kids. You mentioned respect. I think there’s an old idea of respect that used to mean that kids were afraid of their parents, right?

But real respect is that you care what another person thinks. Like, that’s real respect. I don’t want to do this because I don’t want my dad or my mom to be unhappy with me—not that I’m afraid of what’s gonna happen if I do it, but I care what they think and they care what I think. And that’s how I define respect. True respect doesn’t mean that you’re afraid of somebody; it means that you care what they think, right?

So when we yell, we chip away at that. Like yeah, we could get them to do what we want through yelling or threatening things or taking things away, but we’re chipping away at our relationship with them. And that’s really the only true influence.

And as your kids are getting older, you’re gonna see that you can control them when they’re little, right? Because you can pick them up and move them from one place to another or whatever. But there’s a famous quote by a psychologist that says, “The problem with using control when kids are young is that you never learn how to influence them, which is what you need as they get older.” Right? You need to be able to influence them, to get them to do what you would like them to do. And it’s all about the relationship. That’s really what I see as the most important thing.

So back to what I was saying about yelling—yes, that’s really important to be working on—but there’s also: how do I be more effective so the kids will listen to me and I don’t have to ask 80 times? How do I get their attention in an effective way? How do I get them to cooperate the first time or at least the second time?

So it’s a combination of learning how to calm yourself and stay calm when things are hard, and also being more effective as a parent—not asking 25 times, because that just trains them to ignore you. Like, “Oh, I don’t have to do it until they yell,” or “I don’t have to do it until they’ve asked me 25 times.”

If there’s something really unpleasant you had to do at work that you didn’t want to do, you might also ignore your boss the first 24 times they asked you until you knew they were really serious, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, you wouldn’t, but you know what I mean. If they can keep playing a little bit longer, they will keep playing a little bit longer.

So I think what would be helpful is if you gave me some situations that have happened that you find challenging, and then we can do a little bit of a deeper dive into what you could have done instead, or what you could do next time if a similar thing comes up.

Laurel: Yeah. I mean, for my daughter, for example, the middle one—she’s so sweet, she’s such a feeler—but then when she gets to the point where she’s tired, hungry, it’s all the things. She often doesn’t wanna pick out her clothes. Something super simple like that.

But when I’m making lunches and the other kids are getting ready and all the things, I just have to have her—I’m like, “You’re seven, you can pick out clothes.” I give her some options, and then she’ll just lay on the floor and start screaming, “You don’t care! Why don’t you pick out my clothes?”

And then instead of me taking the time that I know I need to, I just tell her, “You have one minute or else this—so you lose this.” I just start kind of like, “This is yesterday.” You know, so she doesn’t wanna get dressed, doesn’t wanna get her shoes on. “You get my socks, you get all the big—” And then I end up picking her up, standing her up, “You need to get dressed.” And then both of us are frustrated.

Sarah: Yeah. No, that’s a great example.

So first of all, whenever there’s difficult behavior in our child, we try to look below the surface to see what’s causing it. The symptom you see on the outside is a kid lying on the floor refusing to do something she’s perfectly capable of doing herself. That’s the iceberg part above the water. But what’s underneath that?

To me, I’m seeing a 7-year-old who has a 3-year-old sibling who probably does get help getting dressed, a capable older brother, and it’s hard to give enough attention to three kids. What I see this as is a bid for attention and connection from you.

I don’t know if you listen to my podcast, but I did an episode about when kids ask you to do things for them that they can do themselves. Seven is a perfect age because you’re like, “Oh my God, you’re so capable of getting dressed yourself—what do you mean you want me to put your shoes on you?” But if you can shift your mind to think, Ah, she’s asking me to do something she can do—she needs my connection and nurturing.

So what if you thought, “Okay, I just spent all this energy yelling at her, trying to get her to do it. What if I just gave her the gift of picking her clothes out for her and getting her dressed?” It would probably be quicker, start your day on a happier note, and you would have met that need for connection.

And yes, it’s asking more of you in the moment, because you’re trying to make lunches. But this is a beautiful example because you’ll probably see it in other areas too—what’s underneath this difficult behavior? Kids really are doing the best they can. That’s one of our foundational paradigm shifts in peaceful parenting. Even when they’re being difficult, they’re doing the best they can with the resources they have in that moment.

So when someone’s being difficult, you can train yourself to think: Okay, if they’re doing the best they can, what’s going on underneath that’s causing this behavior?

I just want to say one more thing, because later on you might think, “Wait—Sarah’s telling me to dress my 7-year-old. What about independence?” Just to put your fears aside: kids have such a strong natural drive for independence that you can baby them a little bit and it won’t wreck them. Everybody needs a little babying sometimes—even you guys probably sometimes. Sometimes you just want Laurel to make you a coffee and bring it to you in bed. You can get your own coffee, but it’s nice to be babied and nurtured.

So we can do that safely. And I tell you, I have a 14-year-old, 17-year-old, and 20-year-old—very babied—and they’re all super independent and competent kids. My husband used to say, “You’re coddling them.” I’d say, “I’m nurturing them.”

Laurel: Oh, I like that.

Sarah: Okay. So I just wanted to say that in case the thought comes up later. Independence is important, but we don’t have to push for it.

Derrick: Yeah. No, I think that’s super helpful. And I love—one of my good buddies just came out with a book called The Thing Beneath the Thing.

Sarah: Oh, I love that.

Derrick: It’s such a good reminder. I think sometimes, like you addressed, Laurel is often a single mom and there is the reality of—she’s gotta make lunch, she’s gotta do laundry, she’s gotta whatever. And sometimes there’s just the logistical impossibility of, “I can’t do that and this and get out the door in time and get you to camp on time, and here comes the carpool.”

And so sometimes it just feels like there needs to be better planning. Like, “You just gotta wake up earlier, you gotta make lunch before you go to bed, or whatever,” to have the space to respond to the moment. Because the reality is, you never know when it’s coming.

Like, totally independent, and she wants to pick out her own clothes in one example—but then all these things creep up.

Another way to describe what Laurel and I were talking about in terms of triggers is: I feel like we both really take a long time to light our fuse. But once it’s lit, it’s a very short fuse.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Derrick: So it’s like for me especially, I’m cool as a cucumber and then all of a sudden the wick is lit and I’ll explode.

Sarah: Yeah. I think that’s really good to be aware of. The thing is, if you go forward from today and start looking—you’re calm, calm, calm, calm, calm—sometimes what’s actually happening is what my mentor calls gathering kindling.

We don’t realize it, but we’re gathering kindling along the way—resentment, eye-roll frustration. If you can start tuning in a little bit, you’ll see that yeah, you’re not yelling, but maybe you’re getting more frustrated as it goes on. That’s when you can intervene with yourself, like, “Okay, I need to take a five-minute break,” or, “We need to shift gears or tap each other out.”

Because it feels like it comes out of nowhere, but it rarely does. We’re just not aware of the building process of gathering kindling along the way.

Derrick: Yeah. No, that’s helpful. I have two examples that maybe you can help us with. You can pick one that you think is more important.

Sarah: Sure. And I just want to comment on one more thing you said before you go on—sorry to interrupt you. If it’s annoying to have to dress a 7-year-old in the middle of your morning routine, you can also make a mental note: Okay, what’s under the thing? What’s under the difficult behavior is this need for more connection and nurturing. So how can I fill that at a time that’s more convenient for me?

Maybe 7:30 in the morning while I’m trying to get everyone out the door is not a convenient time. But how can I find another time in the day, especially for my middle child? I’ve got three kids too, and I know the middle child can be a bit of a stirring-the-pot kid, at least mine was when he was little, trying to get his needs met. So how can I make sure I’m giving her that time she’s asking for, but in more appropriate times?

Derrick: Yeah, no, that’s helpful. I think part of my challenge is just understanding what is age-appropriate. For example, our almost 10-year-old literally cannot remember to flush the toilet.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Derrick: And it’s like, “Bro, flush the toilet.” It’s been this ongoing thing. That’s just one example. There are many things where you’re going, “You’re 10 years old, dude, you should know how to flush the toilet.” And then all the fears come in—“Is he ADD?”—and we start throwing things out there we don’t even know.

But it seems so simple: poop in the toilet, you flush it when you’re done. Why is that? And that’ll light a wick pretty quick, the third or fourth time you go in and the toilet’s not flushed.

Sarah: Yeah.

Derrick: And then you talk about it very peacefully, and he’ll throw something back at you.

Sarah: So do you have him go back and flush the toilet?

Derrick: We do.

Sarah: Okay, good. Because if you make it a tiny bit unpleasant that he forgot—like he has to stop what he’s doing and go back and flush it—that might help him in a kind and firm way. Like, “Oh, looks like you forgot. Pause your video game. Please go back and flush the toilet.”

Also, maybe put up some signs or something. By the sink, by the toilet paper. There are just some things that, if they’re not important to kids, it’s very hard for them to remember. Or if it’s not…

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told my boys, “Don’t put wet things in the hamper.” They’re 17 and 20 and it drives me insane. Like how hard is it to not throw a wet washcloth in the hamper? They don’t care if it smells like mildew.

Derrick: Yeah.

Sarah: It’s very frustrating. But they’re not doing it on purpose.

Derrick: That’s the narrative we write though, right? Like, you’re just defiant, you’re trying—because we’ve talked about this a million times. This is my desire.

Sarah: And you feel disrespecedt.

Derrick: Right.

Sarah: That is so insightful of you, Derek, to realize that. To realize that’s a trigger for you because it feels like he’s doing it on purpose to disrespect you. But having that awareness and a mindset shift—he’s not trying to give me a hard time. He’s just absent-minded, he’s 10, and he doesn’t care if the poop sits in the toilet. He’s just not thinking about it.

Derrick: Yeah.

I think the other example, which I’m sure is super common, is just: how do you manage them pushing each other’s buttons? They can do it so quickly. And then it’s literally musical chairs of explosive reactions. It happens everywhere. You’re driving in the car, button pushed, explosion. The 3-year-old’s melting, and Kira knows exactly what she’s doing. Then Blake, then Kira. They just know. They get so much joy out of watching their sibling melt and scream. Meanwhile, you’re in the front seat trying to drive and it’s chaos.

For me, that’s when I’ll blow my top. I’ll get louder than their meltdown. And my narrative is: they’re not even really upset, they’re just turning it on to get whatever they want.

Sarah: Classic sibling rivalry. Classic. Like, “How can I get Mom or Dad to show that they love me more than the other kid? Whose side are they gonna intervene on?” That’s so classic.

Kira came along and pushed Blake out of his preferred position as the baby and the apple of your eye. He had to learn to share you. Is it mostly Kira and Aubrey, or does everything roll downhill with all three?

Derrick: It just triangulates and crosses over. They know each other’s buttons. And you’re right—it’s always, “You always take her side. You never—”

Sarah: Yes. And whenever you hear the words “always” and “never,” you know someone’s triggered. They’re not thinking clearly because they’re upset and dysregulated.

Sibling rivalry, or resentment, whatever you want to call it, is always about: “Who do they love more? Will my needs get met? Do they love me as much as my brother or sister?” That fear is what drives the button-pushing.

It doesn’t make sense that you’d pick a fight hoping your parent will choose you as the one who’s right. But still, it’s this drive to create conflict in hopes that you’ll be the chosen one.

So I could go over my sibling best practices with you guys if you want. That’s really helpful for rivalry.

Derrick: Yeah.

Sarah: Okay. Do you currently have any rules about property or sharing in your house?

Laurel: Not officially. I mean—

Derrick: We typically will say stuff like, “That’s Kira’s. If she doesn’t want to share it with you, give it back.” But the problem is we have so much community property.

Sarah: Okay. That’s what I call it: community property. Yeah. So you’re doing exactly the right thing with things that belong to one person. They never have to share it if they don’t want to, and other people have to ask before they touch it. Perfect.

And in terms of community property, I’d suggest you have a rule: somebody gets to use something until they’re done. Period. Long turns.

I didn’t know this when my kids were little, and I had ridiculous song-and-dance with timers—“Okay, you can have it for 10 minutes and then you can have it for 10 minutes.” But that actually increases anxiety. You want to relax into your play, not feel like, “Oh, I’ve only got this for 10 minutes.”

So if it belongs to everyone, the person using it gets to use it as long as they want. And you empathize with the other person: “Oh, I know your brother’s been playing with that pogo stick for an hour. It’s so hard to wait, isn’t it? When it’s your turn, you’ll have it as long as you want.”

So if you have good sharing rules and community property rules right off the bat, you take away a lot of opportunities for resentment to build up

Derrick: My biggest question is just how do you intervene when those rules are violated?

Sarah: You just calmly say something like, “Oh, I know you really, really wanna play with the pogo stick. You cannot push your brother off of it just because you want a turn.” I’m just making things up here, but the idea is: you can’t push your brother off just because you want something. Then you go back to the family rules. You could even make a sign—I actually have one I can send you to print out—that says, “In our family, we get to use it as long as we want.”

And then you empathize with the aggressor about how hard it is to wait. Keep going back to the rules and offering lots of empathy. If someone’s being difficult, recognize that they’re having a hard time.

Laurel, when Derrick said, “You always…” or “You never…,” anytime you hear words like that, you know somebody’s hijacked by big feelings. That’s not the time to make it a teachable moment. Just empathize with the hard time they’re having. Nobody ever wants to calm down until they feel empathized with, acknowledged, and heard. You can always talk about it later if something needs to be discussed, but in the moment of heightened tension, just acknowledge feelings: “Oh my goodness, you were doing this thing and then your brother came and took it. This is so hard.”

I also have a little ebook with these best practices laid out—I’ll send it to you.

The third best practice is: always be the moderator, not the negotiator. If there’s a fight between the kids, your goal is to help them talk to each other. Don’t try to solve it or say who’s right or wrong. Even if you’re right and careful not to favor one child, your solution will always fuel sibling rivalry. The child who wasn’t chosen feels slighted, and the one who was chosen might think, “Dad loves me best.”

So my phrase is: “Be Switzerland.” Stay neutral, intervene in a neutral way, and help them talk to each other. Give each child a chance to speak. Do you want to give me an example we can walk through?

Derrick: A lot of times it’s not even about taking, it’s about disrupting. Aubrey has this baby doll she’s obsessed with. She carries it everywhere—it looks really real, kind of creepy. Blake will walk by, pull the pacifier out of its mouth, and throw it across the room. Instant meltdown. His thing is, he knows the rules and how to toe the line. He’ll say, “I didn’t take the baby, I just disrupted it.”

Sarah: Right, right.

Derrick: And then, “Deal with it.”

Sarah: Yeah, okay. So that’s not exactly a “be Switzerland” moment, because it’s not a two-way fight. He’s just provoking his sister to get a rise out of her. That’s classic sibling rivalry. It also sounds like he worries you don’t love him as much as his sisters. Does he ever say that out loud?

Laurel: He has sometimes. His other big thing is he doesn’t have a brother, but they have each other. He constantly brings that up.

Sarah: That’s what I call a chip on his shoulder. When he provokes her like that, it’s because he has feelings inside that make him act out. He’s not a bad kid; he’s having a hard time. Picking fights is often an attempt to get rid of difficult feelings. If we have a bad day and don’t process it, we might come home cranky or pick a fight—it’s not about the other person, it’s about us.

So I’d suggest having some heart-to-hearts with Blake, maybe at bedtime. Give him space to process. Say, “It must be really hard to have two little sisters and be the only boy. I bet you wish you had a brother.” Or, “I wonder if it’s hard to share me and mom with your sisters. I wonder if it’s hard being the oldest.” Share your own stories: “I remember when I was growing up, it was hard to be the big sister.” Or Derrick, you could share what it was like for your older sibling.

The same goes for Kira: “It must be hard being in the middle—your big brother gets to do things you can’t, and your little sister gets babied more.” The point is to let them express their feelings so they don’t have to act them out by provoking.

That provocative behavior is just difficult feelings looking for a way out. Your role is to open the door for those feelings. Say things like, “I know this must be hard. I hear you. You can always talk to me about your feelings. All your feelings are okay with me.” And you have to mean it—even if they say things like, “I wish they didn’t exist,” or, “I wish you never had that baby.” That’s totally normal. Don’t be afraid of it. Resist the urge to offer silver linings like, “But sometimes you play so well together.” It’s not time for optimism—it’s time for listening and acknowledging.

You can also say, “I’m sorry if I ever did anything that made you feel like I didn’t love you as much as your sisters. I couldn’t love anyone more than I love you.” You can say that to each child without lying, because it’s true. That reassurance goes to the root of sibling rivalry.

Derrick: That’s really helpful. I’d love your insight on some of the things we’re already doing. Lately, I’ve realized I spend more time in the girls’ room at bedtime. Blake has his own room. He’s more self-sufficient—he can read and put himself to sleep. For the past year, I’ve been reading in the girls’ room instead, since they need more wrangling. So I’ve tried to switch that and spend more time in Blake’s room reading with him. We’ve also started doing “mom dates” or “dad dates” with each kid.

Sarah: That’s perfect! My final best practice is one-on-one time. You’re on the right track. It doesn’t have to be a “date.” Special Time is 15 minutes a day with each child, right at home. You don’t need to go to the aquarium or spend money. Just say, “I’m all yours for the next 15 minutes—what do you want to play?” Try to keep it play-centered and without screens.

Laurel: Sometimes when we call it a “mommy date,” it turns into something big. That makes it hard to do consistently.

Sarah: Exactly. You can still do those, but Special Time is smaller and daily. Fifteen minutes is manageable. With little ones, you might need to get creative—for example, one parent watches two kids while the other has Special Time with the third. You could even “hire” Blake to watch Aubrey for a few minutes so you can have time with Kira.

Laurel: That makes sense. I did think of an example, though. What frustrates me most isn’t sharing, but when they’re unkind to each other. I harp on them about family sticking together and being kind. For example, last week at surf camp, both kids had zinc on their faces—Blake was orange, Kira was purple. She was so excited and bubbly that morning, which is unusual for her. In front of neighbor friends, Blake made fun of her purple face. It devastated her. I laid into him, telling him he’s her protector and needs to be kind. I don’t want to be too hard on him, but I also want him to understand.

Sarah: Based on everything we’ve talked about, you can see how coming down hard on him might make him feel bad about himself and worry that you don’t love him—fueling even more resentment. At the same time, of course we don’t want siblings hurting each other’s feelings. This is where empathic limits come in.

You set the limit—“It’s not okay to tease your sister because it hurts her feelings”—but you lead with his perspective. You might say, “Hey, I know people with color on their faces can look funny, and maybe you thought it was just a joke. At the same time, that really made your sister feel bad.” That way, you correct him without making him feel like a bad kid.

Do you think he was trying to be funny, or was he trying to hurt her?

Laurel: I think he was. He’ll also reveal secrets or crushes in front of friends—he knows it’s ammo.

Sarah: Right. In that situation, I’d first empathize with Kira: “I’m so sorry your brother said that—it never feels good to be laughed at.” Then privately with Blake: “What’s going on with you that you wanted to make your sister feel bad?” Come at it with curiosity, assuming he’s doing the best he can. If he says, “I was just joking,” you can respond, “We need to be more careful with our jokes so they’re not at anyone’s expense.” That’s correcting without shaming.

Laurel: I love that. Sometimes I’m trying to say that, but not in a peaceful way, so he can’t receive it. Then he asks, “Am I a bad kid?” and I have to backtrack.

Sarah: Exactly—skip the part that makes him feel like a bad kid. Sensitive kids don’t need much correction—they already feel things deeply. Just get curious.

Laurel: That makes sense. Correcting without shaming.

Sarah: Yes.

Laurel: We also tried something new because of the constant questions. They’ll keep asking: “Can I do this? Can I watch a show?” We got tired of repeating no. So now we say, “I don’t know yet. Let me think about it. But if you ask again, the answer will be no.” Is that okay?

Sarah: I used to say, “If I have to give a quick answer, it’s going to be no.” I’d also say, “You can ask me as many times as you want, but the answer will still be no.” With empathy: “I know it’s hard to hear no, but it’s still no.” Another thing I said was, “It would be so much easier for me to say yes. But I love you enough to say no.” That helped my kids see it wasn’t easy for me either.

Laurel: That’s helpful. Another thing: our kids do so much—they’re busy and around people a lot, partly because of our personalities and being pastors. We try to build in downtime at home, but often after a fun day they complain on the way home: “Why do we have to go to bed?” They don’t reflect on the fun—they just want more.

Sarah: That’s totally normal. You could go to an amusement park, eat pizza and ice cream, see a movie, and if you say no to one more thing, they’ll say, “We never do anything fun!” Kids are wired to want more. That’s evolutionary: quiet kids who didn’t ask for needs wouldn’t survive. Wanting isn’t a problem, and it doesn’t mean they’ll turn into entitled adults.

Kids live in the moment. If you say no to ice cream, they fixate on that, not the whole day. So stay in the moment with them: “You really wanted ice cream. I know it’s disappointing we’re not having it.” Resist the urge to say, “But we already did all these things.”

Laurel: I love that. We even started singing “Never Enough” from The Greatest Showman, and now they hate it. It feels like nothing is ever enough.

Sarah: That’s normal.

Laurel: I also want to bring it back to peaceful, no-fear parenting. I can be hard on myself, and I see that in my kids. I don’t want that.

Sarah: If you don’t want your kids to be hard on themselves, model grace for yourself. Say, “I messed up, but I’m still worthy and lovable.” Being hard on yourself means you only feel lovable when you don’t make mistakes. We want our kids to know they’re lovable no matter what—even when they mess up or bother their siblings. That’s true self-worth: being lovable because of who you are, not what you do. That’s what gives kids the courage to take risks and not stay small out of fear of failure. They’ll learn that from your modeling.

Laurel: That makes sense.

Sarah: And I’ve never, ever seen anyone do this work without being compassionate with themselves.

Laurel: Hmm. Like—

Sarah: You can’t beat yourself up and be a peaceful parent.

Laurel: Yeah, I know. Because then I’d see them doing it. It’s like, no, I don’t. Yeah. Yeah. I purposely don’t want you guys to be that way. Yeah. That’s great. Those are all good things to think about. I think the other questions I can tie back to what you’ve already answered, like being disrespectful or sassiness creeping in—the talking back kind of stuff. And that’s all from, I mean, it stems from not feeling heard, not feeling empathized with.

Sarah: Totally. And being hijacked by big feelings—even if it’s your own big feelings of not getting what you want. That can be overwhelming and send them into fight, flight, or freeze. Sassiness and backtalk is the fight response. It’s the mild fight. They’re not screaming, hitting, or kicking, but just using rude talk.

Laurel: Hmm. And so same response as a parent with that too? Just be in the moment with their feelings and then move on to talking about why and letting them kind of—

Sarah: Yeah. And empathizing. Just like, “Ah, you’re really…” Say they’re saucy about you not letting them have some ice cream. “You never let me have ice cream! This is so unfair! You’re so mean!” Whatever they might say. You can respond, “Ugh, I know, it’s so hard. You wish you could have all the ice cream in the freezer. You’d eat the whole carton if you could.” Just recognize what they’re feeling. It doesn’t have to be a teachable moment about sugar or health. You can just be with them in their hard time about not getting what they want. And they’ll get through to the other side—which builds resilience.

Laurel: How do you discipline when it’s needed—not punish, but discipline? For example, a deliberate rule is broken, somebody gets hurt, or stealing—like when it’s clear they know it was wrong?

Sarah: You want to help them see how their actions affect other people, property, or the community. That’s where they internalize right and wrong. If you give them a punishment for breaking something, that only teaches them how their actions affect them—not how their actions affect others. That makes kids think, “What’s in it for me? I better not do this thing because I don’t want to get in trouble,” instead of, “I better not do this because it will hurt my sister or disappoint my parents.” So punishments and imposed consequences pull kids away from the real consequences—like someone getting hurt or trust being broken.

You really want to help them understand: “The reason why we have this rule is because of X, Y, Z. And when you did this, here’s what happened.” If they have a problem with the rule, talk about it together as a family. That works much better than punishment.

Laurel: We had an incident at church where our 10-year-old was talking about something inappropriate with another kid. The other parent reached out, and I feel like we handled it okay. We talked with him, he was open, and we discussed what was said. Then we apologized to that parent in person and had a conversation. It didn’t feel like we were forcing him to do something bad or shaming him.

Sarah: That’s good—it’s about making a repair. That’s always the focus. Without knowing the whole situation, I might not have said apologizing to the parent, because technically the parent wasn’t directly involved. But if your son was willing and it felt authentic, that’s great. What matters is the outcome: repair. Sometimes parents suggest an apology to make the child feel ashamed so they’ll “remember it,” but that’s not helpful. The question is: does the apology or repair actually improve the situation? That’s what you keep in mind.

Laurel: Well, thanks for all your wisdom.

Sarah: You’re welcome. It was really nice to meet you both.

Part 2:

Sarah: Welcome back, Laurel and Derek. Thanks for joining again. How have things been since our first coaching call?

Laurel: Yeah. I feel like we gained several really good nuggets that we were able to try. One of them was about my daughter in the mornings—not wanting to get dressed, feeling stuck in the middle and left out. I’ve gotten to stop what I’m doing and pay attention to her. Even this morning, she still had a meltdown, but things went faster by the end compared to me being stubborn and telling her to do it on her own.

Sarah: So you dropped your end of the power struggle.

Laurel: Yeah. And it felt great because I wasn’t frustrated afterward. I could move on right away instead of also blowing up. If we both blow up, it’s bad. But if she’s the only one, she can snap out of it quickly. I can’t as easily, so it usually lingers for me. This way, it was so much better.

We’ve had some challenging parenting moments this week, but looking at them through the lens of making our kids feel worthy and loved helped us respond differently. One thing you said last time—that “the perpetrator needs empathy”—really stuck with me. I always felt like the misbehaving child should feel our wrath to show how serious it was. But we were able to love our kids through a couple of tough situations, and it worked.

Derrick: For me, the biggest takeaway was the “kindling” metaphor. I’ve even shared it with friends. Before, I thought I was being patient, but I was just collecting kindling until I blew up. Now I recognize the kindling and set it down—take a breath, or tell the kids I need a minute. This morning on the way to soccer, I told them I needed a little pity party in the front seat before I could play their game. That helped me calm before reengaging.

Sarah: That’s fantastic. You recognized you needed to calm yourself before jumping back in, instead of pushing through already-annoyed feelings.

Laurel: Yeah. We did have questions moving forward. We had a couple of situations where we knew our kids were lying about something significant. We told them, “We love you, and we need you to tell the truth.” But they denied it for days before finally giving in. How do we encourage truth-telling and open communication?

Sarah: Kids usually lie for three reasons: they’re afraid of getting in trouble, they feel ashamed or embarrassed, or they’re afraid of disappointing you. Sometimes it’s all three. So the focus has to be: we might be unhappy with what you did, but we’ll just work on fixing it. When they do admit the truth, it’s important to say, “I’m so glad you told me.” That helps remove shame.

Natural consequences happen without your involvement. If they take money from your wallet, the natural consequence is that you’re missing money and trust is broken. But adding punishments just teaches them to hide better next time.

Derrick: How do you frame the difference between a consequence and a boundary? Like if they mess up in an environment and we don’t let them back into it for a while—is that a consequence or a boundary?

Sarah: In peaceful parenting, we talk about limits. If they show they’re not ready for a certain freedom, you set a limit to support them—not to punish. A consequence is meant to make them feel bad so they won’t repeat it. A limit is about guidance and support.

The way to tell: check your tone and your intent. If you’re angry and reactive, it will feel punishing even if it’s not meant to be. And if your intent is to make them suffer, that’s a punishment. If your tone is empathetic and your intent is to support expectations, it’s a limit.

Derrick: That’s helpful. Sometimes we beat ourselves up wondering if we’re punishing when we’re just setting limits. Your tone-and-intent framework is a good check.

Sarah: And if you mess up in the moment, you can always walk it back. Say, “I was really angry when I said that. Let’s rethink this.” That models responsibility for when we act out while triggered.

Derrick: That’s good.

Sarah: You mentioned sibling rivalry last time. Did you try the “It’s theirs until they’re done with it” approach?

Derrick: Yes—and it’s like a miracle. It worked especially in the car.

Sarah: That’s great. I know car rides were tricky before.

Laurel: What about mantras to help us remember not to let our kids’ behavior define us as parents—or as people?

Sarah: What you’re talking about is shame. It’s when we feel unworthy because of our kids’ behavior or what others think. We have to separate our worth from our kids’ actions. Even if your child is struggling, you’re still a good, worthy, lovable person.

Laurel: Almost the same thing we say to our kids: “You are worthy and lovable.”

Sarah: Exactly. So when you feel yourself going into a shame spiral, remind yourself: “Even though my child did this thing, I am still worthy and lovable.” Hold both truths together.

Laurel: Yes. That helps. One last question: mornings. School starts in a day, and we worry every morning will be a struggle with Kira. She resists everything—getting dressed, socks, breakfast. Then she’s fine once we’re in the car. How can we help her set her own boundaries about mornings?

Sarah: It sounds like she gets anxious around transitions. She doesn’t do well with being hurried. That anxiety overwhelms her, and she goes into fight mode—pushing back, lashing out.

Laurel: Yes, that’s exactly it.

Sarah: So part of it is adjusting your routine—giving her more time in the morning. But another part is building resilience. The anti-anxiety phrase is: “We can handle this.” Remind her, “Even if it’s not going how you wanted, you can handle it. We can do hard things.” Add in laughter to ease tension.

And maybe accept that for now, you might need to spend 10 minutes helping her get dressed. That’s okay. You can balance it by giving her extra nurturing at other times of the day so she doesn’t seek it as much during rushed mornings.

Derrick: That’s good.

Sarah: Thank you both so much. I’ve loved these conversations.

Derrick: Thank you, Sarah.

Sarah: You’re welcome. It’s been wonderful.

You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, OR— BRAND NEW: we’ve included a fully edited transcript of our interview at the bottom of this post.

In this episode of The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, I have a conversation with Devon Kuntzman, an ICF-certified coach and author of the new book Transforming Toddlerhood.

We cover why toddlers are so misunderstood, and how to work with our toddlers by better understanding their needs and development. Tune in to learn better ways to work through car seat struggles, diaper changes, tooth brushing, throwing things, and more!

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We talk about:

* 7:10 Why do toddlers have such a bad reputation?!

* 10:00 Contractionary needs of toddlers

* 11:00 What hard toddler behaviours are totally normal?

* 13:00 Nuance around “limit setting” and power struggles

* 19:30 Having unrealistic expectations for our toddlers

* 24:00 Understanding crying

* 29:00 Toddlers need for movement and bodily autonomy

* 30:00 Car seat struggles

* 31:15 Refusing diaper changes

* 32:00 Tooth brushing

* 35:00 Throwing things

* 38:00 The problems with Time Outs

Resources mentioned in this episode:

* Yoto Player-Screen Free Audio Book Player

* The Peaceful Parenting Membership

* Transforming Toddlerhood: How to Handle Tantrums, End Power Strugglers, and Raise Resilient Kids --- Without Losing your Mind

* Devon’s website

xx Sarah and Corey

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Interview transcript:

Welcome back to another episode of the Peaceful Parenting Podcast. Today’s guest is Devon Kuntzman, who is an expert on all things toddler. We discussed why toddlers get a bad rap—why they can be really challenging—and what’s going on with them developmentally. Devon has so much insight into how to understand your toddler better, and therefore how to make life with them easier by knowing how to support them.

We also talked about mysterious toddler behavior, and I asked her the questions I get most from you—what to do in tricky situations like car seats, teeth brushing, diapers, and more. You are going to finish this episode with a deeper understanding of your toddler and a deeper appreciation of these wondrous and sometimes challenging little beings.

Even if you don’t have a toddler anymore, you might find it interesting—as I did—to understand in hindsight exactly why they acted the way they did. And if you don’t have a toddler anymore but you do know someone with a toddler—that’s ages one through four—send this podcast on over to them. I’m sure they’re going to find it really, really helpful. Devon is just wonderful.

Okay, let’s meet Devon.

Sarah: Hey Devon, welcome to the podcast.

Devon: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Sarah: Me too. I’m so excited to talk about your new book that’s coming out. But before we dive into that, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Devon: Yes. So, I am Devon Kuntzman, and I’m an ICF certified coach, toddler expert, and the founder of Transforming Toddlerhood. I’m also a mama to a toddler and now an author with a book coming out October 21st called Transforming Toddlerhood as well.

I really started Transforming Toddlerhood in 2018 to dispel the myth that toddlerhood is terrible. Yes, toddlerhood is very, very challenging developmentally for so many reasons, but it’s also a critical developmental period. If we just go into it white-knuckling it, bracing ourselves for the worst, we actually start to miss the magic of this developmental period and the opportunity to set our kids up for success in the long run.

The first five years of life set the foundation for brain development and social-emotional development for years to come.

Sarah: I love that. And actually, I love the toddler stage. I know a lot of people find it really challenging, and I can see why, but also, as you said, it is really magical. They’re such interesting little creatures, and I just love that stage.

So, your book is coming out October 21st, and we would encourage anyone listening to pre-order it. I was so excited to read your book because, when I was reading it, I was thinking, “You know what this is? It’s like a perfect peaceful parenting primer, except everything is focused on this age group.”

There are a lot of great peaceful parenting books out there, but they don’t focus on this age group. And this age group is so specific. I don’t know if that’s what you were intending to write when you wrote it. If you weren’t intending to, I think that’s what you did.

Devon: Yes. The reason I wrote this book is because we have so many parenting books out there—amazing books that talk about peaceful parenting, respectful parenting, and all of these things. But none of them are truly tailored to the toddler years.

At the same time, I have parents DMing me every day asking me so many different questions, and I can see the desperation of these parents. They’re searching on Instagram, they’re Googling, they’re trying to find the answers to these very real, challenging problems in their lives. And there wasn’t just one place to go to get all of these answers.

That’s why I wrote Transforming Toddlerhood. It’s an all-in-one, comprehensive, easy-to-read guide that truly covers just about every challenge you might have throughout toddlerhood. Whether it’s healthy, developmentally appropriate discipline, being on a different page from your parenting partner, your child whining, struggling with parental preference, or introducing a new sibling—I really cover everything in this book.

I wanted parents to have a place they could go to get quick answers that were trusted, so they didn’t have to search everywhere for them.

Sarah: Yeah, you absolutely did it. You succeeded at your goal. I get lots of questions about toddlers too—in my coaching and in my communities—and every single one of the questions that I get was in the book. That was great.

So, I encourage people to go out and get it. I’m actually going to order a copy for my husband’s cousin and his wife. They have a little girl who’s about 15 or 16 months now, so it’ll be perfect for them.

Devon: Perfect.

Sarah: So, toddlers—as you mentioned before—have a bad rap, right? You know, the “terrible twos,” the “horrible threes,” or whatever people call them. Why do you think that is? And maybe tell us a little bit about what’s going on developmentally. I think those two answers are probably connected.

Devon: I am so excited to answer this question, because this is a question I always ask everyone who comes on my annual summit. And I’m so excited to get to answer it myself.

I really feel that toddlerhood is so challenging for parents because it’s the first time your child is realizing that they’re a separate entity from you. And at the same time, you’re realizing your child is a separate entity from you as well.

The whole point of toddlerhood is for your child to become their own separate individual. And the way they do that is through behaviors that delineate a line between your toddler and yourself. They’re going to say “no.” They’re going to push back. They’re going to have their own agenda.

We start seeing this even as early as nine months old, with a child who doesn’t want to get their diaper changed. Or you have a 12-month-old—you ask them to come over, they laugh and run the other direction. Or you have a 14-month-old who thinks you’re moving too slowly, or doesn’t like what you’re doing, and then they hit you on the head.

It’s really the first time we move out of a purely caregiving role into what I like to call a really active parenting role, where we have to decide how we’re going to respond to these behaviors.

I think the bigger challenge is that we’re looking at these behaviors through a logical lens with fully mature brains. So, we label these behaviors as bad or wrong. But really, all the behaviors that drive us crazy are developmentally appropriate behaviors for toddlers.

Because of that mismatch—between our expectations of what we think is typical and what our toddlers are actually doing—it creates a lot of frustration. It creates fear spiraling: “Are they always going to be this way? Is my child going to grow up to be a bully?” X, Y, Z. All of that makes parenting this age group really, really challenging.

Sarah: Yeah, I was just talking to someone this morning who has a 2-year-old and a new baby—which, of course, as you know, exacerbates the challenges of toddlers when you’re adding to your family.

I have noticed anecdotally that people tend to think two or three are the hardest years, and it almost always comes back to when they had their next child. If they had them two years apart, they found two harder. If they had them three years apart, they found three harder.

This mom was just telling me about some struggles, and I said, “Yeah, your daughter is at that stage where she has her own ideas about things she would like to do or have. And it’s combined with a lack of logic, perspective, and brain development.” It’s like a perfect storm: “I know what I want, but I don’t have any experience in life or brain development to be able to express it in a different way.”

Devon: Yes, exactly. And another challenge that’s really happening in toddlerhood—which comes through in their behavior—is this idea of contradictory needs.

As I was saying, your toddler is trying to become their own person. They want to be independent. They’re developmentally driven to have a sense of control, feel capable, and exert their will. But at the same time, they’re highly reliant on the adults in their life to meet their social and physical needs.

So even though these developmental needs are so strong, they still need you—that safe and secure base—to help meet their emotional and physical needs. Toddlers are constantly trying to balance these opposing needs, and that really comes out in contradictory, challenging behavior that can drive us crazy.

Sarah: Yeah, I love that. I remember that so well—that “I want to do it by myself. No, I want you to do it for me.” The contradictory needs. That’s such a beautiful way to put it.

Devon: Yeah.

Sarah: What is something you hear all the time that you find yourself saying, “Oh, that’s totally normal for toddlers”? What’s something parents don’t know is normal, but you find yourself reassuring them that it is?

Devon: Yes. Basically, the behaviors we as adults really don’t like, that we think are inappropriate. Yes, in our logical, fully mature adult brains, hitting, biting, throwing, kicking, screaming, crying—all of these things—feel wrong.

But if you think about it, babies’ only way of communicating is to cry. Then, as toddlers start to grow, they go through a lot of physical development. They start communicating through their behaviors.

For example, if you have a toddler throwing food from their high chair at 15 or 18 months old, they might be experimenting with cause and effect: “If I drop this food, what happens? Does the dog pick it up? How do my parents respond?” They’re experimenting and exploring, which is very appropriate.

Or take hitting and biting. Toddlers, especially one- and two-year-olds, cannot say, “I don’t like this. I’m feeling frustrated.” So instead, they hit you or bite you.

I just want parents to know: behavior is not good or bad. We have to step away from that dichotomous lens. Behavior is communication. Once we understand that, we can ask: “What skill does my child need to learn to be successful here?” instead of “What punishment do I need to give to make them listen or to teach them a lesson?”

Sarah: Yes—or not only, “What skill?” but also, “What support does my child need to meet my expectation?” Right? Because sometimes the skill’s not going to come for a long time with a toddler. But the support is something you can give them.

Devon: I love that. This comes up a lot—the idea of “My toddler’s not listening to me.” We set the limit, and then we expect our toddlers to just fall in line, follow through, and listen.

But the truth is, we need to ask: “What support does my toddler need to meet this limit I’m setting?” We often think saying the limit is the end of our job, but it’s actually the beginning.

Setting the limit is step one. Then we have to help our kids follow through on that limit—especially the younger they are or the more unmet needs they have in that moment. If they’re tired, hungry, overstimulated—then they’re going to need even more help to follow through.

Sarah: Yes. And I’m going to jump ahead in my list of questions. I was going to ask you about power struggles later, but I want to ask now since you just mentioned limits.

I find parents sometimes get too hung up on limits—not that limits aren’t important, because they are—but they often get too attached to their own sense of what the limit should be.

I love that when you were writing about power struggles, you suggested starting with the question: “What’s the goal here?” I’d love for you to talk about power struggles and limits through that lens. Because, as I mentioned this morning to a parent of a 2-year-old, there’s so much a 2-year-old has no control over in their life. We want to think about how we can be flexible about the rest.

So maybe just talk about your lens of power struggles a little bit, starting with that “What’s the goal here?” I love that.

Devon: Oh my gosh, I have so much to say on this subject.

When we ask ourselves, “What’s the goal here?” the main thing to consider is: are we trying to win? Because if you’re battling your toddler to win, then you’ve probably lost sight of the bigger picture—which is: How do you want to show up as a parent? What relationship are you trying to create? What support are you trying to give your child? What skills do they need to learn?

When we get caught up in trying to win, we’re in our stress response. The more committed we get to winning, the more tightly we get locked in the power struggle. And then everyone’s just on their own emotional roller coaster.

The reality is, it takes two people to be in a power struggle. And if you’re waiting for your toddler to suddenly say, “Oh, just kidding, I’ll do what you want,” you’ll be waiting a long time. Toddlers are developmentally driven to exert their will and be their own person. They’re likely to double down.

And toddlers can be really persistent. So we have to zoom out and think about the bigger picture. Instead of being so attached to one way of doing something, we can pivot in an empowered way.

That might mean moving forward and letting your toddler follow you. Maybe it’s giving them a choice between two things within your boundaries. Maybe it’s saying, “When you brush your teeth (or pick up this toy), then we can go outside (or read a book).”

There are so many different tools we can use to pivot out of power struggles. Because quite frankly, we’re the adults. We have to be the leaders and guides in these moments. Our toddlers aren’t going to suddenly say, “Oh, just kidding, sorry.”

Sarah: Yes. And the other thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is, if we’re not modeling flexibility, how are our kids going to learn it? If we can’t be flexible as parents, then how will our kids learn to be flexible?

So often parents say, “My kid is so rigid, they’re not flexible at all.” And then you listen to the parent a little, and it sounds like they’re also being pretty rigid with their child.

I think finding those graceful sidesteps—what you’re talking about—is so important. It’s not about someone winning and someone losing, but about how we can still get to the goal we’re trying to reach.

Devon: Exactly. And this is a very Montessori-aligned thought: we as parents have to create the container, the foundation. But within those boundaries, there are a million ways something can happen and get done.

So, we can give our child freedom within the boundaries. Of course they still need our guidance, but the key is to avoid backing out in a way that says, “Fine, you win.” Instead, we ask: how can we give them a sense of control within our boundaries? That way their developmental need for autonomy is met, while we’re still in charge overall.

Sarah: Okay. Going back to expectations—one thing I read in your book really struck me. You cited research showing that half of parents believe kids are capable of self-control and milestones earlier than they actually are.

I find that too—parents’ expectations are often way too high for the age their child is, or for where they are developmentally.

So, how do you know if your expectations are out of whack? And what happens—what are the negative things that can happen—when they are?

Devon: I always say we typically underestimate our child’s physical abilities and overestimate their social-emotional capabilities and impulse control.

There’s a lot of research and polls showing this is the case. And when we hold unrealistic expectations, we get really frustrated, because we think our toddler is being “bad,” doing something they shouldn’t be doing developmentally.

Then we turn it inward: “I must be doing a bad job. I’m messing up.”

The best way to know if your expectations are appropriate is by looking at your child’s behavior over time—over several days or a week. What’s really happening in those moments? If you see a consistent pattern, you can start to say, “Okay, maybe I’m asking too much of my child.”

That doesn’t mean you just throw the expectation out the window and say, “Too bad, I’ll try again next year.” It means they need more support.

So you scaffold the skill. For example, something like getting dressed takes a lot of planning and coordination. It’s a skill that needs to be built over time. We need to start transferring those skills to our children—with our support.

So when your expectations are too big, you don’t throw them out completely. You ask: how can I support my child to get where I need them to be?

Sarah: Yeah. I always talk about when there’s the gap between your expectations and the reality, a lot of conventional parenting is like, “Okay, well what threat or consequence do I need to close that gap?” But I always think about just like, what support do we need to close the gap between the expectations and reality?

And of course, sometimes I think you do—there is a place for throwing expectations out the window. Because sometimes they’re so far off that it’s better to let go of the expectation than to try to get your kid to do it.

Or, you know, I think resources can go up and down. One day your kid might be able to do something, and the next day their resources might be a lot lower and they can’t manage. We have to be flexible.

Devon: For the parent too. There are going to be days when we’re more resourced, and days when we didn’t sleep well. Maybe our toddler was up at 2:00 AM and we’re tired. There are days when we just feel like there’s too much to do and not enough time. Days when we have our own feelings, emotions, and needs that need attention, and there’s not a lot of space for that.

That’s where we really just need to have compassion for ourselves and for our toddlers, and really give each other the benefit of the doubt—knowing that we’re doing the best that we can. Then we can start working from that place: right now, we’re doing the best we can in this moment. What’s the next step to getting where we need to be?

I didn’t mention this in the book, but something I talk about a lot with my private clients is that oftentimes we want to jump from A to Z. And that’s a really big leap, right? We want to leap across the Grand Canyon, when really what we want to do is step across on stepping stones. Move from A to B, B to C, C to D. That’s how we eventually get to where we need to be.

This is true across the board when we’re thinking about expectations, skills, and things of that nature. So when we don’t try to do it all at once, we’re going to have more realistic expectations and we’re going to be less frustrated.

Sarah: Yeah.

Devon: That makes so much sense.

Sarah: I love also that you really, in the book, normalize toddler behavior. You mentioned before, throwing—and at one point, as I was reading your book, I wondered, “I wonder if she’s going to talk about play schemas.” And then you had the section on play schemas.

So much of what toddlers do, parents just don’t know is normal. Like you were talking about throwing food off the highchair. I always remind parents of the trajectory schema—how does the food move through space, or what happens when I drop this, and learning about gravity.

Speaking of normalizing, one of the things that I loved in your book was when you talked about avoiding positive dismissiveness. I loved how you addressed that—when parents say that kids are crying for no reason. Can you talk about that a little bit, what to avoid, and what to do instead?

Devon: Yeah. I decided to dedicate a chapter to crying because crying is such an important communication tool for kids. Beyond that, research shows that crying is actually beneficial to our bodies. It helps release hormones that make us feel better.

So crying serves a lot of purposes. When we look at crying as “fake crying” or “crying for no reason,” it really shortchanges a normal biological process, a normal way of communication for young children. It also dismisses a child’s needs.

Now, I will tell you, it is hard to hear your child cry. It is so hard. I had a baby that cried for hours on end—I’m talking five-plus hours a day. So I’ve heard my fair share of crying, probably enough for ten lifetimes.

It’s really hard for me, even now with my toddler, to hear him cry. But knowing that you’re not a bad parent and there’s nothing wrong if your child is crying—that this is actually an emotional release—is super helpful.

We don’t want our kids to shove it down. Instead of saying, “You’re fine, you’re fine”—which usually comes from a good place, because we just want our kids to feel better—we can say things like, “That must have been hard,” or, “That was unexpected,” or, “Oh, you fell down and scraped your knee. I’m sorry that happened.”

This creates emotional connection and helps build emotional resilience.

Sarah: I love that. Listeners to this podcast will have heard me talk a lot about emptying the emotional backpack. That’s what you’re talking about too—crying might not even be about the thing that just happened. It might just be how they’re releasing pent-up stresses, tensions, and big feelings they’ve been carrying around.

And the second part of what you’re talking about is really empathy, right? It’s so hard because we don’t always get why something is so upsetting—like you cut the sandwich wrong, or the muffin is broken in half and they want it whole.

But I always tell parents, it’s appropriate for little kids to have big feelings about small things. That’s their life perspective right now. They don’t have big adult problems like we do; they just have toddler problems. And to them, those are just as big.

Devon: Yeah. And I think it also really stems from this idea of a lack of control. A lot of crying isn’t really about the thing that happened—it’s just the release of all the pent-up stuff, and that was the last straw.

But why that becomes the last straw—like cutting the sandwich wrong or peeling the banana when they didn’t want you to—is because toddlers have so little control over their lives. Yet this is the stage where they’re craving control so badly, as they’re differentiating themselves and becoming their own person.

So that little thing, like peeling the banana when they didn’t want you to, just reinforces the lack of control they feel—and that’s what sends them over the edge.

Sarah: That makes so much sense. I just have so much compassion and empathy for toddlers. I think toddlerhood and middle school are the hardest times of childhood.

Okay, let’s shift into some tips, because I’m going to use you to ask some of the questions I get all the time. These have been the questions on repeat for the last 12 years I’ve been doing this.

Here’s what I hear:

My kid won’t get in the car seat—or they cry when they’re in the car seat.

They don’t want their diapers changed, even if it’s really wet or dirty.

They don’t want me to brush their teeth.

They won’t stop throwing things.

So if you want to lump some of those together, go for it—or take them one at a time. I’d love to hear your advice on those situations.

Devon: Absolutely. Most of these have to do with the toddler’s developmental drive to experiment and explore—and that happens through movement. Couple that with bodily autonomy: kids know inherently that they are in charge of their bodies.

You can’t force a child to eat, use the bathroom, or fall asleep. They are 100% in control of their bodies. That idea—that control is an illusion—is really tough for toddler parents to reckon with. But toddlers are great at teaching us this.

The faster we accept that control is an illusion, and that instead we are partners who have to work with our children, the better things will go. At the same time, we are the adults, and we are in charge. Sometimes we do have to cross a child’s bodily autonomy to keep them safe and healthy.

So let’s go through the examples.

Car seats: Toddlers don’t like being restricted—in a high chair, stroller, or car seat. Every toddler will push against this at some point. It can last for a while and come in phases.

Giving your child a sense of control helps: let them climb in, let them choose whether you buckle them or they do it, let them clip the chest strap. Play a silly song as a celebration when they’re in. Keep special toys in the car that they only get to play with there.

Also, start earlier than you think you need to, so you’re not rushing. But in the end, sometimes we do have to keep them safe by buckling them in. If we go against their autonomy, we need to talk them through what’s happening, support their emotions, and try again next time.

Diaper changes: When toddlers start refusing diaper changes, it means they’re ready for something new. They want to move from a passive bystander to an active participant in their toileting journey.

The first step is to change them standing up in the bathroom. Teach them how to push down their pants, undo the diaper tabs, or lean forward so you can wipe them. Yes, it’s harder to clean them up this way, but it gives them control.

Tooth brushing: Toddlers want control here too. I recommend three toothbrushes—one for each of their hands and one for you.

Sarah: I remember letting my kids brush my teeth with my toothbrush while I brushed theirs.

Devon: Exactly! That’s perfect. Another tip: start brushing your own teeth in front of them from a young age. Don’t put pressure on them; let them get interested in what you’re doing.

If it’s become a big power struggle, change up the environment. We often brush my son’s teeth in his bedroom, with his head in my lap—it’s actually easier that way. Change of scenery can make a big difference.

Sarah: I’ll share a tip that worked with my kids—we made up a story about “Mr. Dirt” who lived in their mouths, and every night we brushed him out. They loved hearing about his adventures while we brushed.

Devon: I love that. That’s playfulness—and playfulness creates connection, which creates cooperation. Play is the language of toddlerhood. The more we can tap into that, the better things go.

Sarah: Yes! I’m surprised we got this far without specifically calling out playfulness—it’s the number one tool in the toolbox for working with toddlers.

Devon: Exactly. Playfulness, role play, brushing a doll’s teeth first, or letting your child brush yours—it all helps toddlers feel powerful and understood.

Sarah: Okay, the last challenge: throwing things. I talked to a young couple who wanted to make a “no throwing” rule in their house. I told them I didn’t think that would work, since it’s such a developmental need. How do you manage throwing when it could be unsafe or destructive?

Devon: Great question. I talk about this in my book when I explain the recipe for effective discipline: connection, limits, and teaching skills.

First, get curious about what’s driving the behavior—throwing can mean so many things. Then, set clear limits: it’s not okay to throw breakables or throw at people. Finally, teach skills and alternatives.

Sometimes you can’t expect a two-year-old to regulate in the heat of the moment, so give them safe alternatives: a basket of balled-up socks, or paper they can throw into a laundry basket. This meets the need within your boundaries, while you also work on calming skills in calmer moments.

Sarah: That’s so helpful. Now, can you talk about why you don’t recommend timeouts, and why you prefer time-ins instead?

Devon: Yes. Timeouts are usually used as punishment—to teach a lesson or stop a behavior. But that’s shortsighted. Behavior is communication, and if we don’t understand what it’s telling us, it will keep popping up—like a game of whack-a-mole.

Also, kids often escalate in timeout, because they’re being cut off from their safe base—you. They need you to help them calm down.

That’s why I recommend time-ins instead. With time-ins, you’re still upholding limits and keeping everyone safe, but you’re staying with your child, supporting them, and helping them regulate. This builds long-term skills and emotional resilience.

Sarah: Love that. Thank you so much for coming on and for writing this book. I really encourage anyone who is a toddler parent—or who knows one—to pre-order your book. It’s a fantastic addition to the peaceful parenting world, and so specific to toddler needs and development.

Before I let you go, here’s the question I ask all my guests: If you could go back in time to your younger parent self, what advice would you give?

Devon: Gosh. I waited a long time to have a child, and I had a vision of how I wanted things to go. But I had a child with a lot of extra needs, and the things I thought would happen didn’t. So I would tell myself to loosen my expectations, be grateful for the moments I have, and be flexible in how needs get met.

Sarah: I love that. Perfect advice for parents of toddlers especially. Thanks so much, Devon.

Devon: Thank you! You can find me on Instagram at @transformingtoddlerhood, or on my website, transformingtoddlerhood.com/book for preorder info and bonuses.

Sarah: We’ll put the link in the show notes. Your book is comprehensive and very readable—even for me, far past the toddler years. Great job, Devon.

Devon: Thank you. That was my whole goal.

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In this episode of The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, I have a conversation with Zach Brittle, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) and couple’s therapist certified in both Gottman Method Couple’s Therapy and Relational Life Therapy.

We focus on the two big areas that partners struggle with: what do you do when you disagree about parenting, and what do you do when one parent is highly reactive.

We talk about:

8:00 Sorting through different levels of disagreements between partners

11:00 Start by finding what you agree about/values/parenting goals

18:00 Explaining “Relational Life Therapy”

21:00 How “repair” is the goal in peaceful families

27:00 How to go into triggering conversations with our partners

30:00 Take care of yourself, so you can show up for your partner and kids

31:00 When one parent is more reactive than the other

36:00 What do you do if your partner won’t change?

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Sarah’s podcast about limits and boundaries and the issues with them

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The Peaceful Parenting Membership

Reimagining Limits (and more) in Peaceful Parenting

Zach’s podcast Marriage Therapy Radio

Zach’s private practice

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xx Sarah and Corey

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