The Peaceful Parenting Podcast

• Help Kids to Understand their Brains and Assessments with Dr. Liz Angoff: Episode 213

  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.**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:* 7:00 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 neurodiversityResources mentioned in this episode:* Yoto Player-Screen Free Audio Book Player* The Peaceful Parenting Membership* Dr. Liz’s website and booksxx Sarah and CoreyYour peaceful parenting team- click here for a free short consult or a coaching sessionVisit 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.Our sponsors:YOTO is a screen free audio book player that lets your kids listen to audiobooks, music, podcasts and more without screens, and without being connected to the internet. No one listening or watching and they can’t go where you don’t want them to go and they aren’t watching screens. BUT they are being entertained or kept company with audio that you can buy from YOTO or create yourself on one of their blank cards. Check them out HERESarah: 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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahrosensweet.substack.com/subscribe

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• Ditch Special Time? Connecting with complex kids when connecting is hard: Episode 212

  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.Know someone who might appreciate this post? Share it with them!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 routineResources 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 CoreyYour peaceful parenting team- click here for a free short consult or a coaching sessionVisit 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.Our sponsors:YOTO is a screen free audio book player that lets your kids listen to audiobooks, music, podcasts and more without screens, and without being connected to the internet. No one listening or watching and they can’t go where you don’t want them to go and they aren’t watching screens. BUT they are being entertained or kept company with audio that you can buy from YOTO or create yourself on one of their blank cards. Check them out HERESarah: 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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahrosensweet.substack.com/subscribe

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• What You Can Do When Parenting Is Hard: Coaching with Joanna: Episode 211

  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.Know someone who might appreciate this post? Share it with them!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 bedtimeResources 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 CoreyYour peaceful parenting team- click here for a free short consult or a coaching sessionVisit 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.Our sponsors:YOTO is a screen free audio book player that lets your kids listen to audiobooks, music, podcasts and more without screens, and without being connected to the internet. No one listening or watching and they can’t go where you don’t want them to go and they aren’t watching screens. BUT they are being entertained or kept company with audio that you can buy from YOTO or create yourself on one of their blank cards. Check them out HERETranscript: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] 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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahrosensweet.substack.com/subscribe

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• Dealing with Aggressive Behaviour with Tosha Schore: Episode 210

  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.Know someone who might appreciate this post? Share it with them!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 issuesResources mentioned in this episode:* Yoto Player-Screen Free Audio Book Player* The Peaceful Parenting Membership* Tosha’s Websitexx Sarah and CoreyYour peaceful parenting team- click here for a free short consult or a coaching sessionVisit 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.Our sponsors:YOTO is a screen free audio book player that lets your kids listen to audiobooks, music, podcasts and more without screens, and without being connected to the internet. No one listening or watching and they can’t go where you don’t want them to go and they aren’t watching screens. BUT they are being entertained or kept company with audio that you can buy from YOTO or create yourself on one of their blank cards. Check them out HERETranscript: 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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahrosensweet.substack.com/subscribe

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• Invite: Free 5-Day Peaceful Parenting Reset

  Feeling a little off track lately?You’re not failing. You just need a reset. If you’ve been losing your patience more than you’d like, or wondering why peaceful parenting feels so hard right now? I get it.That’s why I created the 5-Day Peaceful Parenting Reset.✨ One simple tool a day ✨ 5 days of small, doable shifts ✨ Free live coaching Zoom calls with me each dayBy the end of the week, in a few minutes a day, you’ll feel calmer, more connected, and more confident — and it won’t take hours you don’t have.We start Monday, October 20.It’s free to join: https://reimaginepeacefulparenting.com/parentingreset 🌿Join us for The Parenting Reset so you can get on track for more joy and less struggle.You CAN be more joyful, relaxed and confident- we’ll show you how. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sarahrosensweet.substack.com/subscribe

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