Today, I’ve invited occupational therapist Alisha Grogan on the podcast to share simple sensory activities for kids to help them become calmer and more regulated. 

You’ll Learn:

• What’s actually happening when you think your kid is manipulating you
• 3 “hidden” senses that we all have 
• The 2 main types of sensory sensitivities
• LOTS of simple strategies you can try to help soothe your child’s senses (including some that we used with our own neurodivergent kids)

If you’re parenting a kid who struggles with sensory issues, picky eating, or big feelings, you don’t want to miss this conversation!

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Alisha Grogan is a licensed occupational therapist and founder of Your Kid’s Table. She has over 19 years experience with expertise in sensory processing and feeding development in babies, toddlers, and children. She’s also a mom of three kids between the ages of 10 and 15. She uses her OT background as well as her experience as a mom of ADHD and anxious kiddos to provide resources to parents around sensory processing, picky eating, emotional regulation, and executive functioning.

One of Alisha’s favorite things to say is, “All behavior is communication.” And if you’ve been in my world for a while, you’re already pretty familiar with this concept. 

So often, I hear parents say that their child is manipulating them. But in reality, they are trying to communicate an unmet need. They’re trying to manipulate the environment or circumstances to get their needs met, and they’re using the best strategy they have at that time. As parents, we can see this as information, get out of criticism, and look for ways to guide our kids through the overwhelm they’re experiencing.

Unfortunately, many of the behaviors that can help kids regulate their nervous systems aren’t considered “acceptable” in our culture and society. Maybe stomping their feet, banging on something, or hiding under a blanket helps them get back into their body and feel more calm, but depending on where they are at the time, these behaviors might not be “allowed”.

As moms of neurodivergent kids, Alisha and I both see the special gifts our children bring to the world, and have often felt frustrated when others fail to recognize them. 

I believe that in many cases, the label of “neurodivergence” is based on what works best in our society - with the way we structure time, school, technology, noise, etc. We've created a pretty messy environment that then requires a lot of order as a society to keep it together.

But not every kid is built to sit quietly in their seat all day long. And what we'd label “neurodivergent” is actually a very vital and important part of our species that just doesn't quite fit in this society that we've created.

Alisha shares that her oldest son has been labeled gifted, while her middle son has ADHD. She says, “This system was created for my oldest son and the way his brain works. And it continues to propel and push him forward while it continues to edge out my son that is creative and spontaneous and has all of these other really wonderful gifts.”

It’s easy for parents to feel overwhelmed when their kid gets a diagnosis of ADHD, sensory issues, or autism. It is challenging, but we can also choose to see the beauty of it. These kids aren’t broken. It’s just a mismatch. A missed opportunity in our culture to let those types of brains flourish. 

But there might be hope on the horizon. Alisha says that she’s seen “some exciting stuff coming out with schools being set up in different ways, like movement based schools and different styles of teaching where kids are just excelling in really exciting ways.”

You’re probably familiar with the 5 senses we hear about most often - sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. Alisha shared 3 “hidden” senses that we all have, as well.

1. Propreoception. This is body awareness. When you do things like jump, give or get a hug, lay under a heavy blanket, you’re getting a lot of proprioceptive input. It is also the sense that grounds almost everybody. 
2. Vestibular. This is deep in our inner ear. Our movement is perceived by fluid swishing around in combination with what we see visually. If the two aren’t synced up, you get that carsick feeling. This is not typically an issue for young kids, but becomes more common as we get older. This is why kids can spin and spin and spin. And it’s so important for development that they get this kind of stimulation. Alisha says that, according to research, kids who don’t process vestibular input correctly can actually have reading difficulties down the line. 
3. Interoception. This is the sense of all of our internal sensations - think hunger, fullness, or tightness or lightness in your chest when you’re feeling anxious or joyful. These physical body sensations send a message to your brain about how you are feeling.

Sensory inputs stimulate our senses. Sensory sensitivities happen when we struggle with those inputs. 

There are two main types of sensory sensitivities, Alisha says: seeking and avoiding certain types of sensory inputs. Sometimes, you might also see kids not really registering some kind of sensory input. These sensitivities can happen with any of the 8 senses, with the exception of proprioception. 

She goes on to say that our needs don’t fit into separate boxes - movement here, emotions over there, sensory needs someplace else. They are all interconnected. And as with our emotional needs, when sensory needs aren’t met, dysregulation follows. 

One common sensory sensitivity is the way certain clothes feel on kids’ skin. If they are wanting to avoid this input, but they have to continue wearing the clothes that are so uncomfortable for them, they are going to become more dysregulated. Their brain is only able to handle so much dysregulation before it moves into meltdown mode.

You can see this with a seeker, too. If a kid has a high need for proprioception and vestibular input, and they’re expected to sit at a desk all day, they might lash out at school. Or you might see that they hold it together at school, but then they melt down when they get home. 

Times of transition are often challenging for kids. Times like getting in the car, school drop-off, starting homework, cleaning up, sitting down to dinner, getting into the bath, and bedtime are hard times for a lot of families. 

If things get a little nutty as you’re moving from one activity to another, use sensory activities to bring your kid back into their body and transition to the next thing. For example, “We’ll get in the bathtub once we do our 5 jumps,” or, “We’re gonna leap like a frog into the shower.”

I like to tell people to “channel their inner preschool teacher.” Play Simon Says, have them jump 2 times before sitting down at the table, do a little red light, green light. Make it fun! 

These don’t have to be a strict routine (not trying to overwhelm you here!). They’re just tools you can use when you notice that dysregulation is coming on. These types of activities, as simple as they are, get kids out of their emotions and into the executive functioning part of the brain.

If your kid is dysregulated and it doesn’t get dealt with, it will continue to grow until they hit that fight or flight meltdown mode. Our goal is to help them avoid getting to that point. 

The first step is for you, as the parent, to be aware of your child’s patterns. Alisha says you can start to notice:

1. Circumstances or times of day that seem to be challenging for them 
2. Signs that your child is starting to get dysregulated (behaviors)

Look for patterns in your kid. When are they acting out? What’s the trigger? Is there a common circumstance, environment, or time of day? Maybe you start to notice that your child gets dysregulated when they’re in a really busy environment or when they get home from school after a long day of sitting.

What are the first clues you see that they are getting dysregulated? Do they want to move their body? In what ways? Do they want to be close to you? Do they want to be alone?

There is so much variation in what triggers dysregulation and what kids find soothing. 

Movement. Alisha says that movement is usually a pretty safe strategy to start with.

Try different types of movement or activities with your child, and see what they respond to. Try jumping jacks, jumping on a trampoline, stomping their feet, or spinning in circles. Watching how they want to move their body naturally can also give some clues. 

Rhythm. Alisha also says that rhythm is organizing to the brain (you might remember this from the 3 Rs of Emotional Regulation). So bouncing in rhythm or singing a rhythmic song can be really soothing.

Pressure or compression. This is another one

Jill and Mary of Girls Mentorship are back! We’re continuing our conversation and talking about specific tools and strategies for supporting and raising teen and tween girls. (If you missed part 1, be sure to check it out.) And even though Jill and Mary focus their work on girls, these are great tips no matter the gender of your child.

You’ll Learn:

• The pitfalls of labeling all negative interactions as "bullying"
• Times when your daughter might need extra support
• 4 tips for raising teen & tween girls
• Simple talking points for digital safety & responsibility

Join us as we dive into which situations might require a little extra support for your daughter, strategies for supporting your teen or tween girl, and other resources that can help.

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A lot of people are resistant to needing help outside of the household. It truly takes a village, and it is okay to have a community of people to raise your children. It doesn't need to be one person at a time, and getting support doesn't say anything negative about your parenting. In fact, seeking out services shows that you care about your child’s wellbeing and success - not just on paper, but in life. 

It’s normal to notice changes in your kid in the teen and tween years. They’re going to spend more time in their room. They might roll their eyes or slam the door a little more. These things are somewhat expected. So how do you know when you and your daughter might need a little extra help?

Jill says that transitional periods are often when parents seek out their coaching and mentoring services. For example, the jump from elementary to middle school or middle school to high school. During these times, parents often want to make sure their kids have the skills to handle themselves in these new environments. 

And Mary adds that these transitions are even more challenging when there’s friend drama involved (also super common at this age). We’re talking cattiness, gossip, backstabbing, being left out, etc. 

She says, “As parents, we expect our kids to understand how to navigate social situations or what to do at certain chapters of their life, and that's simply not true. We have to be able to teach them these things for them to be able to understand and know them. On the other side of that, we have to give them space to practice and not jump in to try to solve.”

A certain amount of conflict is a normal part of life. Arguments with friends, make-ups, break-ups, and even name-calling are a part of growing up. These situations give our kids a chance to learn how to work through conflict in a healthy way. 

Finally, parents seek out Mary and Jill’s support when they are in an emergency situation - their child is severely depressed, maybe even having suicidal ideations - and nothing else has worked. 

Friendship issues, disordered eating, conflict, isolation, or pulling back from activities they used to love are all issues that Mary and Jill see a lot of in their coaching practice and programs. Their ultimate goal? To help girls become the brightest, most authentic versions of themselves. 

Things like self-awareness, conflict resolution, and emotional health are all skills that can be learned. And learning them at a young age sets girls up for better experiences now and as an adult.

In our society, we’ve lost places where kids are mentored and get the opportunity to learn and practice these skills. Schools are not equipped to do this work (nor should they). There’s not room for all of the emotional parts and needs of our kids. Organizations like Girls Mentorship help to fill that gap by teaching these valuable life skills to girls and their parents. 

Mary says that they start every program with self-awareness and the power of perspective. Here are a few of their favorite tools and strategies.

Do a Temp Check

Mary and Jill have every participant in their programs do a temp check when they arrive. Basically, on a scale of 1 to 5, how are they feeling when they walk in the room? 1 is pretty lousy, 5 is ready to go! This gives the kids better self-awareness of how they’re feeling and allows the adult to acknowledge how they’re feeling, talk to them about it, and ask them what they need. 

Then, at the end of the session or activity, they do a check-out on the same scale. Are they feeling better than when they walked in? Why or why not?

Mary says, “It's just that simple acknowledgment. It's being seen, heard, loved, and valued for how we're feeling in the moment,” that our kids don’t often get as they’re busy moving from one class or activity to another. 

Practicing this teaches kids to check in with themselves and recognize how they’re feeling and whether they’re showing up as their best selves. Try it when your kid leaves for school in the morning and comes back home. Or when they get home and again before they go to bed.

The Circle of Control

Jill says, “There are things that are in your control and things that aren't in your control.” If you realize that something is bothering you, but you have no control over it, you can put it on the shelf for a little while and pour back into yourself (or allow other people to pour into you).

Some check-in questions that can help with this are:

• What do I need to do now?
• Can I make this moment okay?
• What can I put a pin in or circle back to later?

This isn’t avoidance. It’s taking care of ourselves in the moment and coming back to process things when we are able. 

Mary adds, “We can't expect people to change our situation for us, but we can have the expectation that people can contribute.” 

It’s true that teens and tweens often don’t have a ton of agency, so Mary and Jill like to help them see where they DO have control in their lives and the responsibility that comes with that agency. 

Mary shared an example from their summer camp:

“If something in this conversation that we're having is heavy for you, feel free to get up, step outside for a moment, take a deep breath, get a drink of water. But you are also expected to come back into the room. And if you need to have a conversation with somebody about it, pull one of us aside. There's Jill, there's I, there's other camp counselors here who have been prepped and ready to hold space for you.”

Let Them Borrow Your Belief

Sometimes, we need someone else to lift us up or to show us what we’re capable of. You can be this person for your child.

For parents, this can look like showing up in your highest energy so that your child can borrow your energy, positivity, and belief when they need it. Or it can look like a calm, peaceful energy. 

Your teen or tween needs to borrow your nervous system way more than you realize. Working on regulating your own emotions and thoughts, like we do in the Calm Mama Club, helps you to stay in a good space so that you can show up for your kid in the way that they need.

Digital Education

The challenges of the teen and tween years have become even more complicated since our kids are growing up online. They need to understand that they have an identity, both in-person and online, and that they need to be aware of how they present themselves in both settings. 

Because they’re behind a screen, kids often feel safer online, but this isn’t really the case. Mary says, “They feel like they can communicate with more people, and they have more friends than they do in person, which also hinders their in person friendships and relationships.”

The data is clear. The use of social media apps comes with an increase in anxiety, depression, and plenty of other negative consequences. And very few of us feel equipped to teach our kids in this area, but it is so important. What you talk about can be super basic. 

Mary says that they talk to girls about their digital footprint and the fact that anything online is out there forever. Even if you think that message disappears, it can always be revived. They also talk about their safety online and why their safety matters. It’s talking about the way they can be perceived based on things they say or post. That nothing is ever truly anonymous. 

When asked if they were ever jealous of the girls in their programs for having these resources available to them, Jill responded, “No. Honestly, we became who we needed. And that is the most rewarding and beautiful position to be in. It’s an honor. It’s a privilege to show girls that their voice matters, that they matter.”

Mary adds that they get to use mistakes from their own pasts as an example. Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids are so afraid to put themselves out there. She says, “They are scared to go full force into what they love or to put themselves out there in a way that might be perceived as stupid by someone else,” and the permanence of the internet makes it even scarier. 

Mary and Jill love that they can talk about times they messed up without any guilt or shame and show girls that “you either win or you learn”. 

• The Girls Mentorship summer camp is open to ages 10 to 13, and their peer leader program is available

This is part two in my How to Heal series. Today, we’re talking about radical self trust and how to build more confidence and trust in yourself. 

You’ll Learn:

• How past emotional wounds show up in the present
• Why building radical self trust is so important for healing and creating positive change
• How to be your own grown up
• 3 strategies for building radical self trust

When I think about trust, I believe the entry point is when you have an experience of feeling really safe with somebody. So, let me ask you…

Is there anyone in your life that you feel completely safe with? That you can say or admit anything to (even the shameful, embarrassing, negative things), and you trust that they can handle your vulnerability with unconditional love?

In this episode, I’m going to help you become that person for yourself. So even when the hard stuff comes up, you know that your love for yourself will never change.

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How to Heal is a 6-part journey for healing from emotional pain, figuring out what’s not working in your life so that you can make small changes to be less reactive, feel happier, and show up as the Calm Mama I know you want to be. 

In this context, I'm talking about healing from emotional pain - going back and looking at moments in the past when your core emotional or physical needs were not met. 

Understanding these core emotional needs is also super helpful as a parent. These are tools to help you heal your past and parent your child in the present so that they don’t have the same wounds to heal from.

The core emotional needs are really questions we’re trying to answer:

• Am I safe? This is a big one for kids. Babies and young children are incredibly vulnerable, and they know that they are not able to take care of themselves. They need adults to keep them safe.
• Am I loved unconditionally? When we tell our kids that we don’t like something they’re doing or the way they’re behaving, they often take that to mean that they are bad. They can’t separate themselves from their behavior. It’s up to the adults in their life to let them know that they are unconditionally loved and accepted. 

When you experience moments where you feel unsafe or unloved, core wounds can form, and they show up later in our behaviors. 

There were definitely times in my own life when I did not feel safe. I experienced abandonment when my dad left our family. I experienced sexual abuse as a child. My mother had depression and undiagnosed ADHD, so she was not always available for me and sometimes chose men that were not safe for me. 

I started to decide that the world is not safe. When I looked around, I saw that adults were unreliable. They hurt you. They leave.

Later in life, this core wound showed up as hypervigilance, constantly scanning for hazards, being controlling, looking to see if I fit in, and lots of insecurity and anxiety.

If you have felt that you aren’t loved unconditionally, you might notice that wound come up as people pleasing, pushing others away, over-performing, perfectionism, or over-planning. 

We develop these coping strategies, often even in childhood, to help us deal with the pain and discomfort. As a parent, when these old wounds are aggravated by life circumstances or your kid’s behavior, you might find that you react really intensely. 

Overreaction is a good indication that you have something to heal from. Something is triggering you, and you might want to change your reaction. 

This is the WHY of healing. You see that you are reacting in ways that create pain for yourself or others. Your past emotional wounds are affecting the way you respond to current circumstances. 

In many ways, healing is a form of reparenting. I think of this as being the parent for yourself that you need right now. We all want our parent to say to us, “You’re safe and you’re loved. I’ve got you, and I’m here.”

I want you to do this for yourself. Tell yourself, “Hey, girl. There is no danger here. I’m right here. You’re safe, and I love you. There’s nothing you could do that would make me love you less.”

In order to admit that you’re struggling and ask for help, you first have to feel safe and loved. That’s what we’re working on here.

What unmet emotional need could be driving this behavior that you want to change?

If you want to change something in your life, you have to teach yourself that you're safe. 

Building this trust is a conversation between you and you. You have to be willing to look at your own behavior and get curious about where it is coming from. If you want the shift, you have to go through the junk and be honest about it all - and know that you’re safe with yourself to do that.

Here are some statements to support your self trust:

• I am safe with me. 
• I unconditionally love and accept myself. 
• I trust that my love for myself is unconditional.

To build radical trust, you cultivate a really deep relationship with yourself. I also like to make promises to myself. Things like…

I promise I won’t be mean to me.

If for some reason I hurt myself, I trust that I’m going to forgive myself. 

I also love to trust that I can handle the future. The grown up that you’re looking for to show you the way is YOU. She unconditionally loves you, and you are safe with her. She can handle things, and you get to trust her. 

If I deeply believe that I can handle anything and solve any problem that comes my way (except for death, and death is none of my business), I’m ready. What do you know about yourself so deeply that it makes you feel safe?

For me, it’s often as simple as “I know how to drive, and I have a credit card, so I can get out of any scrap that I put myself into.”

Maybe for you, it’s “I know I’m an adult because I know how to fold a fitted sheet.” You know how to do LOTS of things. Remind yourself of that and build the confidence that you can trust yourself because you can take care of things. 

Take in inventory of resilience. Make a list of times when you’ve been resilient. A list of things that you have overcome. If you want to trust yourself today, look to your past for evidence that you're trustworthy. What are you proud of? What’s something you didn’t know how to do that is now easy for you?

Tell a good story about the past. How you think and talk about your past decisions is going to affect how you make decisions today. The kinder you are about the things you’ve done in the past, the easier it will be to be kind to yourself today and in the future.

Think about a decision you made 10 years ago. You were in a different stage of life, under different circumstances. How do you think about that past decision? Do you think, “Oh my god, what were you thinking? That was so stupid,” or do you think, “You were doing your best, and I love you for it”?

If you’re shitting on your past decisions and past self, you’re going to assume that future you is gonna shit on current you. Trusting in your decision today is going to be a lot harder if you believe that future you is going to be super negative and mean about it.

On the other hand, if you know that you are going to be kind to all the past, present, and future versions of yourself, it will be easier to trust yourself. Let the future you know that you always have her back, and you’re here setting her up for success. 

Take care of your nervous system. This one is so basic and so hard to do. We’re meant to flow back and forth between periods of activation and rest. When you are feeling unsafe, your nervous system is activated. 

In order to get back to rest, you have to notice that activation, soothe and reset yourself. The more you practice this, the more smoothly you’ll be able to move between the two states. I teach the Pause Break to reset your mind, body, and emotions (you can learn more about it in the free “Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet”). 

Remember - you are safe with you. You can trust that your love for yourself is unconditional and that you can handle problems when they come up. You’ve got this, Mama!

• Episode 161: Radical Self Love [How to Heal, part 1]
• Episode 63: Developmental Stages from Birth to Teens
• Episode 97: Your Nervous System Explained
• Episode 2: The Pause Break

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✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will...

We’re a few weeks into summer, and you might be starting to feel like you’re in the doldrums. If you’ve been feeling frustrated, disappointed or sad that your summer isn’t going quite the way you hoped it would, this is the episode for you. I’m talking about how to do a summer reset and get things back on track.

We have a lot of ideas about what summer will be like, and then we get into it. We’re completely out of our regular rhythm, we’re spending a lot more time with our kids and they’re spending a lot more time with us and each other. And summer doesn’t feel so easy anymore. 

Before you can reset, it helps to understand what the actual problems are that you’re facing. Then, we can solve for them. Here are some top reasons you might be feeling like your summer sucks right now.

Weather. When it’s hot, humid and sticky out, people get grumpy. When we’re physically uncomfortable, it’s harder to regulate our emotions. 

Your kids are fighting all the time. Your kids are spending a ton of time together, so you start to see patterns where they’re bickering, picking on each other or just annoyed with each other all the time. (Come back next week for an episode all about summer and siblings.)

Your kids are resistant to summer camp. We think of summer camp as being so much fun for our kids, but it is still a lot of work for them - being physical, spending time outside and being in new social groups can be hard. If they hate it or resist it and are crying and having big feeling cycles everyday, it can feel really frustrating for you.

Your kids are missing school and their friends. There’s a rhythm and predictability to school that helps kids feel safe. Kids know where they’re supposed to be and what they’re supposed to be doing. And they have their school friends, who aren’t always available to them in the summer, so they might feel a bit lonely, too. 

Expectations. Kids create a “Disneyland” version of summer in their minds (and so do we). They want the fun, the freedom and the all-summer vacation feeling. But the reality is that you’re still going to tell them to eat their veggies, clean up, take a bath and go to bed. Those unmet expectations of nonstop fun can lead to disappointment and grumpy moods.

Sleep (or lack thereof). Sleep is whacked in the summer. You want to let kids stay up late to do fun things, but then they wake up even earlier. Tired kids are grumpy kids, and the tiredness often shows up as adrenaline, so they’re running wild.

Junk food. We tend to give our kids a lot more treats and quick, easy snacks in the summer. So while they get a quick burst of energy, they then burn out pretty quickly. Even if they’re not hungry, their brain starts to crave more of that energy from sugar or fast carbs, rather than foods that stay and sustain energy longer in their bodies. 

Screens. Lots of kids have extra screen time in the summer. There are a lot more hours to fill. And this isn’t wrong. But what happens is that they often end up feeling more grumpy and dissatisfied afterwards. 

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of fun things about summer. But you’re much more likely to enjoy them when everyone is pretty well regulated. Here are some strategies to get your family back on track.

Build back some rhythm. This is a great strategy if you feel out of balance with sleep, food or screens. There are no fast rules about what these limits should be. If you had a pretty good rhythm for this during the school year, start by having a day or two each week where you go back to your old routine. 

You might choose a day where you focus on your routine around meals or have an at-home night so you can get back into your evening and bedtime routine. 

Get a break. Go do something fun without your kids. Plan a mom’s night out, get a babysitter for a date night or do a kid swap with another mom so you both get a little time off. Do some things to take care of yourself.

Plan a “breathe-in day”. Summer is busy. There’s a lot of movement and energy and stimulation (the breathing out). A breathe-in day lets you chill and recharge. Think about easy, quiet activities like going to the library or to a movie or throwing a stuffed animal party. 

Check your mindset. When you have a day or a week this summer that’s not going great and you're feeling super grumpy, I want you to actually process that negative emotion. I call this Calm Mama Thinking. 

Reset your mind to the thoughts that you want to have, so you can feel the feeling you want to have. 

Step 1: Do a thought dump. List out what you’re feeling and why. Let yourself vent and be frustrated. 

Step 2: Think about what feeling you are chasing. How do you want to feel instead? 

Step 3: Do a thought swap. What thoughts do you need to think in order to feel the way you want to feel? 

The mindset will help you shift out of that grumpy feeling and get you into a place where you can have more compassion for your kids. And when they experience your compassion, they’ll be more able to calm and regulate themselves. 

There are a lot of reasons why summer goes off the rails, and it has very little to do with you. When you see a lot of off-track behavior, remember that ALL behavior is driven by feelings and your kid is probably overwhelmed in some way. 

When you’re off track, let’s reset. Reset our rhythms, reset our routines, reset our connection and start fresh.

• Common challenges with kids in the summer
• 4 strategies to do a summer reset and get things back on track
• Some thoughts you can borrow to create the feelings you want this summer

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

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✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
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Traveling with kids can feel more like a business trip than a vacation sometimes. You get excited for a break and a change of scenery, but you’re not necessarily off duty when it comes to parenting. In this episode, I’m sharing why vacation feels like so much work sometimes and my top 5 tips for vacationing with kids.

Your Expectations

Often, when we plan a trip, we think of it in its most idyllic way. We anticipate that it will be lovely and fun and relaxing. We can’t wait for the adventure, the squeals of fun and laughter. 

Then, reality hits. You’re taking your actual children with you on this trip (not some imaginary unicorn children you made up in your mind).

Maybe things fall apart pretty quickly, you start to feel discouraged and think things like, “This always happens,” or “They’re going to ruin our vacation.”

Your expectation of how things “should” go is different from the everyday, but the behavior struggles and emotional dysregulation are the same. 

Emotional Dysregulation 

When you go on a trip, you’re also taking your kid out of their normal rhythm and routine, so even if it’s really fun the situation will likely cause some stress for them.

Excitement can cause dysregulation. Basically, when our emotions go faster than our nervous system can handle, we get thrown off balance.

Add long lines, bad weather, sitting for long periods of time, sleeping in new places. possible time zone changes and all sorts of new food to the mix, and you’re facing quite a few challenges.

Big Feeling Cycles

Kids cry a lot and have a lot of big feeling cycles, whether you’re at home or on a trip. Their emotions are not on vacation. 

The location or the circumstance isn't what triggers their behavior. It's actually their thoughts and feelings that trigger their behavior. 

Even in what seems like a fun situation, kids can have thoughts that trigger feelings like disappointment, frustration or jealousy, so they end up complaining, pouting or shoving their sibling.

When behaviors come up, many parents are quick to make threats, criticize or overparent in an attempt to get the vacation back on track. But while these approaches might work in the short term, they’re not long-term solutions and may suck even more of the fun out of your vacation.

The tips I’m sharing today are meant to get you out of the command-threat model and help you know how to handle behaviors and situations that come up.

Mindset

Decide what you want to think and feel on your vacation. We often spend a lot of time planning specific activities but don’t take the time to think about what feelings we are chasing. 

Why are you going on this trip? How do you want to feel while you are there? What memories do you want to capture?

Your memories will reflect the way you felt while you were on vacation. You might look back at the pictures and look so happy, but you won't remember feeling happy because you actually weren't.

Here are a few of my favorite thoughts you can borrow to shift your feelings:

• Wow. They’re really immature (and they’re supposed to be).
• They’re really struggling right now.
• This is a temporary moment.
• My kid’s just having some big feelings.
• I really love my children.

Pause When You’re Mad

When you find yourself activated, overwhelmed, angry or frustrated or in any other negative emotion that you don't wanna be feeling on your vacation, I invite you to pause and reset.

You want to reset both the stress response in your body and the thoughts in your mind. 

Move your body to get out some of the stress juice. Take a deep breath, shake your hands, jump up and down, put some lip balm on, stand up or get a drink of water. You can also try putting your hand over your heart as a form of compassion and comfort for yourself. 

To reset my mind, I like to do a mini thought dump. Recognize and validate the emotion you are feeling and the thoughts you have. 

Then think about how you DO want to feel. What do you need to think in order to feel that way? This is the mindset shift.

Be a Flexible Leader

Your leadership is even more important for your family when you’re traveling than when you’re at home. 

As the leader, I want you to feel entitled to change your mind, to decide that maybe something isn't going well and to switch gears. 

It's okay if something doesn't go as planned. It's okay to skip a planned activity or leave early because if you keep your kids well rested, well fed and give them enough big body movement, they're gonna have more ability to regulate themselves at the next adventure or activity. 

Your kid's behavior will improve when you can do this with calm confidence. The kids will feel that the grown-ups around them are in charge and are taking care of things, and this helps them to feel safe. Step into that leadership energy.

Connect Before You Correct

What most parents tend to do when they see misbehavior is to try to fix it, change it, stop it, solve it. 

But misbehavior happens when your kids have some big feelings that they don’t know what to do with. The first step is to look at what emotion might be driving the behavior and address that emotional need.

Make a guess as to what might be going on emotionally. Name the emotion and ask if that’s how they are feeling. Allow them to feel however they are feeling without trying to logic them out of it. 

Then, address the behavior with a limit. “Your feelings make sense. You can’t hit. You’re welcome to keep eating your ice cream as long as you don’t hit.”

Be Ok With Giving Consequences On Vacation

Consequences come as a result of your child’s decision. This is following through on the limit you set. 

For example, you set a limit that you will go down to the pool as long as everyone has their sunblock on in ten minutes. If one of your kids doesn’t have sunscreen on when the timer goes off, they will stay in the room with your partner. 

If they choose to pivot their behavior and put on sunblock, you can offer to help them or let them do it themselves.

Don't add lectures, criticisms, comparisons, bribes, yelling, hurting your kids, rejection or anything else. Losing the swim time or the ice cream or whatever is all that's needed to create the learning moment. 

Traveling with kids does not have to be an endless stream of conflict and grumpy feelings. And conflict and grumpiness are normal. You and your kids are still humans, even when you’re on vacation, and you’ll continue to have a range of emotions. 

Your kids are allowed to feel happy, grumpy, annoyed, delighted, surprised and exhausted. If you can be calm and confident when their big feelings come up, your children will also be calmer.

• Why vacationing with kids doesn’t really feel like a vacation for you (the parent)
• What most parents do first when behaviors come up on vacation (and what to do instead)
• Thoughts you can borrow to shift to towards the feelings that you want
• Examples of limits and consequences on vacation

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
• Learn about the different parenting programs at www.calmmamacoaching.com
• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress for daily tips 
• Rate and review the podcast on Itunes

There is a trend in families right now to be more compassionate with their kids. I love it. But compassion is not the same as permission. There’s a big difference, and the two approaches create different results. 

In this episode I’ll explain the difference between compassion and permission in parenting, why you might find yourself slipping into permissive parenting and how to get out of that pattern. 

Behavior is driven by emotion. When your kid misbehaves, they are acting out something that they’re feeling inside. 

There are lots of ways to cope with our feelings, and some of them harm others or ourselves. These harmful coping strategies happen when a person is uncomfortable and doesn’t know what to do with their feelings. They don’t know how to process them in a healthy, safe way.

When we experience and show compassion, we recognize how someone else is feeling and acknowledge that their feeling is valid. 

I believe deeply that we can give our kids the tools of emotional health by helping them name their feelings. When we show up with compassion, we let our kids know that we understand their feelings and help them figure out what to do with them. 

With this trend toward compassion, we’re also seeing a lot of parents who aren’t setting boundaries or following through with any sort of consequences. This is when we cross the line into permissive parenting. 

Often, this happens because parents are simply confused and don’t know what to DO. They get through the feelings part, but then what? They don’t know how to set limits while still validating feelings. They’re not sure how to deliver consequences without shaming their kids. 

You might also feel like you’re being mean for following through on consequences or feel overwhelmed by your kid’s discomfort. Maybe you don’t know how to handle their big feelings. 

Many moms in our society hold themselves to extremely high standards that don’t leave room for you to emotionally regulate yourself, which leads to reactivity in your parenting.

Or you might find yourself giving in because you just want things to feel easier in this moment. But rescuing is a short-term solution, and solving your kid’s problems for them ends up hurting them in the long run. 

If you see yourself in these scenarios, you are not alone! There are strategies you can learn to regulate your own emotions, connect with your child, set clear limits and follow through on consequences without shame and blame.

The antidote to permissive parenting is validating the feelings, not the behavior.

The approach I teach is a feelings-first model, but it is not feelings-only. We address feelings first and behavior second.

When a behavior arises, approach it from a place of curiosity. How is the child feeling? What feeling is driving this behavior?

Narrate what you see, guess at the emotion behind it and validate their feelings. This is where parents often stop with gentle parenting, but the work isn’t done yet.

Next, you talk to your kid about the impact of the behavior and what they can do to make things right (aka consequences).

When there are no consequences, kids don’t feel personally responsible for their own behavior.

The truth is that letting your kid feel the impact of their actions is a good thing. We want our kids to be emotionally healthy AND we want them to be personally responsible and to understand that their behavior has an impact. 

Our kids need to learn to deal with their feelings, recognize that their behavior has an impact on others, and make things right when they make a mistake.

Through this process, they develop a strong self-concept and know that when they make a mistake, they can fix it. 

As compassionate parents, we're gonna validate the emotions. We're gonna set limits and follow through on them. We're gonna be okay with our kids' discomfort. 

And we're gonna take really good care of ourselves so that we have more capacity for compassion. 

In my programs, I teach you how to manage your feelings and know what to do when you’re upset so that you don't lose your shit and feel terrible. 

I teach you how to emotionally coach your kids so they learn how to manage their own feelings. I also teach you to use the Limit Setting Formula and a kind and effective way to follow through on consequences that isn't bribing, threatening, or punishing. 

You can talk to me directly and ask your questions so you get support on the exact behaviors you’re working through in your family. Learn more here.

• The difference between behavior-first and feelings-first models of parenting
• The problem with permissive parenting and why it happens
• Strategies to hold boundaries and deliver consequences in a compassionate way
• Examples of neutral consequences

• Episode 12: When Your Child Is Aggressive: The “Hard No”

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
• Learn about the different parenting programs at www.calmmamacoaching.com
• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress for daily tips 
• Rate and review the podcast on Itunes

This episode is coming out on the day of my oldest son’s high school graduation. I’ve been thinking, writing and feeling a LOT of feelings lately. 

And some of what came out was a poem that I’d like to share with you, titled A Very Long Goodbye. You can hear it in the episode or read it on the blog.

My son is about to arrive at the threshold. We’ve been walking this path together for a really long time, and our relationship is about to change. If you are also in this place of transition, this episode is for you.

I like to think about what it means to be an adult as having all the freedom and all the responsibility at the same time.

When kids are little, they don’t have a lot of freedom or responsibility. You have the power and you are taking care of them.

As you parent your kids, you’re teaching them how to be responsible - with their bodies, their physical wellbeing, their social life, their finances and a ton of other practical things.

And as they learn, you slowly give them pieces of freedom. The two are tethered together.

As freedom increases, responsibility also increases. 

When we are parenting a child, we have a lot of control over their environment and circumstances. In the teen years, we start to lose a lot of this control. They begin to make more of their own decisions about what they do and how they show up in the world. 

I like to challenge parents instead of doubling down on trying to regain that control, double down on the relationship with your child. Get to know who they are becoming. That connection is what will be left when they walk through that threshold from childhood to adulthood.

Parenting is a verb. It is the actions we take when we’re raising our kids. The things we do in order to help them learn to handle the responsibility of being an adult. 

We teach our kids with the idea that someday they won’t need us anymore. Ultimately, you should parent yourself out of a job.

Parents sometimes forget that their job of parenting ends when their child becomes an adult. And I think it’s because we confuse the role of parent with the responsibility for parenting.

Adults don’t parent other adults. Soon, life will give consequences to my son, not me.

The tasks of parenting will end. Being a parent will not.

I am a mom. You are a mom. That relationship we have with our kids doesn’t end, even though the act of parenting does.

I sometimes think about being a mom as being invited to be in the front row, the best seat in the house, to the best show on earth, which is your kid's life. It's a privilege, it's an honor. 

And I don't know about you, but I want to continue to have that front row view. We're going to keep showing up. We're going to keep inviting them in.

It's so easy as a parent to see all the areas that our kid isn't performing well or showing up in a good way. But if your adult kid feels like every time they're around you that you're just parenting and teaching and pointing out stuff, it will feel kind of bad. They don’t want to be scrutinized.

They want to be in a relationship with someone who's delighted by them and sees their strengths and all the ways that they are good.

My goal for you is that your kid grows up, and they want to be in a relationship with you because that relationship feels so safe. They feel seen and understood. You unconditionally love and accept who they are.

When everything is said and done, when they walk through that threshold and they step onto the path of their own life, what’s left is the relationship.

Cheers to all of you parents going through transitions right now. I’m in it with you. I’m here for you.

• The relationship between freedom and responsibility
• The difference between parenting and being a parent
• My ultimate goal for you and your kids

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
• Learn about the different parenting programs at www.calmmamacoaching.com
• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress for daily tips 
• Rate and review the podcast on Itunes

“Fix it, change it, stop it, solve it” is a phrase I use often in my coaching. When you say it out loud, it captures that feeling we have as parents when our kids behave in a way that leaves us feeling overwhelmed, angry or worried. 

It’s an emotional and physical response to what our kids are doing, and our brain jumps in and tries to fix, change, stop or solve the situation.

The most common time I see parents experience this reaction is during a Big Feeling Cycle. 

When your kid has big feelings, they might express them in ways that are overwhelming to you. 

The tendency is often to try to shut down their behavior. But because that behavior is a reaction to how they’re feeling, we end up shutting down their feelings, too.

The problem with jumping in to fix/change/stop/solve is that you miss an opportunity to connect with your kids and to help them connect with themselves and learn how to process their own negative emotion.

Here are some things I see parents do when they don’t like the way their child is expressing their emotion.

Minimizing. When our kids are upset, we want to say, “Oh honey, it’s not that big of a deal. It’ll work out.” 

This sounds like a nice thing to say, but your child is left feeling like you don’t understand. It feels like a really big deal to them. We want to validate the emotion and acknowledge the intensity of their feelings instead of minimizing it. 

Comparing. This looks like, “This sort of thing happens all the time,” or, “Other kids don’t complain about this,” or “This wasn’t a big deal to your brother.” It happens when you think their feelings aren’t warranted or justified. 

We’re trying to get them to think and feel differently but, again, we’re doing it by shutting down their feelings. 

Ignoring. There might be times when you need to take a break to calm yourself before dealing with a situation. Ignoring is different. 

This is another way of shutting your kid down, and it makes them feel unheard, unfelt, unseen and unvaluable. Your child might think, “Mom only wants to talk to me when I’m happy.”

Talking about their feelings is how they’ll learn to deal with them. 

Weaponizing gratitude. Gratitude is an incredible emotion. I love it. Weaponizing gratitude is when we use it to bypass negative emotion. 

You cannot get rid of sadness by thinking grateful thoughts. We have to feel the sadness (or anger or worry) and acknowledge it before we allow the brain to find another perspective. 

Indulging. Sometimes, you might try to change the circumstance to make your kid feel better. Maybe you tell them they can skip practice or promise to go get ice cream afterwards. 

Instead of letting them feel upset, indulging tries to give them a positive feeling so they forget about the uncomfortable feeling. 

Logic-ing. This looks like giving lots of facts, trying to logic them out of their feelings or explaining why the situation is their fault. 

Facts are facts, but giving people more information doesn’t solve feelings. We can’t think our way to a new feeling. We have to feel our way through it. 

Shutting down. When your emotion (anger, fear, sadness) gets bigger or more intense than your child’s, it’s common to try to shut them down. You have a big reaction to their big feelings. 

This often shows up as yelling or other big noises or movements to try to shift your kid’s behavior. It triggers fear, freeze or faint response or people-pleasing. It might work in the short-term, but it isn’t effective in helping your child become an emotionally healthy and self-regulated person.

What your child actually needs from you is co-regulation. They need help soothing their big feelings. They need somebody to recognize and acknowledge that their feelings are valid.

I know you might be thinking, “Oh no, I do all of these things.” Believe me when I tell you that I am so familiar with them because I’ve done them all myself. 

We do these things with the best of intentions. We want to protect our kids and ourselves. There’s no need for guilt. It’s an opportunity to notice what you are doing and try a different approach.

Here are a few alternate strategies to try. Take them one at a time (not all at once) and see what works. 

Name  it. Help your child name the feeling. This is a huge part of emotional literacy, which is made up of: I know what I’m feeling. I know how to talk about it. I know what to do with the feeling.

Move it. Rhythmic body movement regulates our nervous system. It brings our brain back to balance and lessens the intensity of the emotion.

Show it. Ask your child to act out their feeling. How big is it? They can show you with their  face, their body, on paper or with a toy. This helps take something that feels really complicated on the inside and puts in on the outside.

Describe it. What color is the feeling? Is it heavy? Is it tight? Is it in your belly? Is it sinking? Is it a buzzy feeling? Is it a hot, burning feeling? Is it murky or is it clear? 

Describing feelings using adjectives is incredibly powerful. Then you can play with and manipulate the feeling. Can you change it to a different color? Can you take that tightness and pop it like a balloon?

Distract it. We still want to name and acknowledge the emotion first with this strategy. But sometimes, we just get stuck. We need to go outside, look around, have a snack or a hug to shift gears. 

What I hope you take away from this episode is it's actually good for kids to feel upset and have you be okay with their feelings. 

When they see that you can handle their emotion, they learn that they can handle it, too. That their feelings aren’t scary. Feelings come and go, and it’s not a problem. 

You do not need to fix your kid’s feelings. You only need to acknowledge them.

You’ll Learn:

• How to view your kid’s big feelings as an opportunity instead of a threat
• The question to ask yourself as you move your child through their day
• How to validate feelings in the midst of out-of-bounds behavior
• 5 ways to help your kid manage their big feelings 

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

We don’t often talk about fun ways of improving behavior, but today’s episode will give you some strategies to do just that. I’m talking all about how to be a more playful parent so that you actually enjoy your kids more.

We also all want to feel connected and create joyful memories with our kids. 

The moments we remember most are the ones that were emotionally charged. The memories aren’t about where you are or what you’re doing. They’re about how you FEEL. 

How do you want to feel this summer? Do you want to feel joy? Delight? Do you want to create memories that are filled with laughter and positive emotions?

If so, you’re going to want to chase play and decide in advance that you want to feel more joy. 

Good memories happen when we are enjoying our kids. when we stop trying to get things done and instead be in the moment and just sit and enjoy something with them.

Being playful doesn’t require that you crawl on the ground playing with cars, dolls or building blocks. If you enjoy doing that, great! If you don’t, it doesn’t mean you can’t be a playful parent.

Being playful is more of an energy. You might be quick to smile, think delightful thoughts about your kids or notice something silly.

As adults, we are so focused on tasks, time and productivity. Kids don’t care about time. 

They only care about play. So if we can bring a little bit more playful emotion and energy into a scenario, it goes a long way.

Supports learning and growth

Through play, kids try and fail. They explore, create and develop mastery. 

If you have a kid who has a tendency toward perfectionism or is a bit more strict with themselves, bringing in a little silliness frees them (and you). They don’t have to do everything “right” because there are no rules in playfulness.

Behavior

We get so serious about behavior sometimes. I talk a lot about limits, boundaries and consequences. But when our goals are for life to be easier, for things to go smoother and to have more joy and fun in our lives, play is a great way to do it.

When you’re playful, you’re close and in connection with your kid. It makes them feel safer and in a better mood. 

Processing negative emotions

Play is also helpful for releasing emotional distress for some kids. It isn’t about discounting their feelings, but more about testing to see if they’re open to a smile or a giggle. 

Playfulness can be the release valve that turns tears into laughter, which is also a great way to process negative emotion.

Attention

When you’re playful, it naturally brings your kid’s attention to you, which gives you an opportunity to set your limit or say whatever it is you want them to hear. 

Your kids are craving for you to play with them. They are craving your joy. They're craving your delight. They can't wait to see you at the end of the school day. They want your eyeballs on them.

We love being in connection with our people, and our kids want that, too.

Follow giggles and smiles

Notice when your kids are smiling or giggling and come alongside and join in that playful energy. 

Be exaggerated

It’s hard not to smile when you see someone being goofy. Singing, pretending to fall, pretending they’re really strong or doing a silly dance are all great ways to make kids giggle (or roll their eyes if they’re a little older 🙄).

We want to watch the line here so we don’t cross over into mocking. But you can join in with them in a funny voice, going alongside their emotion and making it a little lighter. The key is to be attuned to their emotions and whether or not they want to engage in this way. 

Simon Says

This is a great one to move your morning or evening along. Remember that the goal of these games is connection and positive emotion between you and your kid, not manipulating them into compliance.

Simon Says is also a great attention grabber once your child is familiar with it. Kids get really distracted, and this can help bring them back to what they’re supposed to be doing. 

Freeze Tag

Run around and play tag. If you get tagged, you have to freeze for 5 or 10 seconds.

Walk Like a ______

Call out an animal for kids to move like on their way to the bathroom or wherever you want them to go.

Gamify Everyday Things

A few examples of this are, “Hey everybody, let’s see if we can beat this song - Finish breakfast and get our socks and shoes on before the song ends!” 

Or, “Yesterday, you put your shoes on in 20 seconds. Let’s see if you can do 18 today!”

Mystery item

Put some items on a tray and cover them up. Have kids take turns guessing. They can hide items for you, too.

Love notes

Write a little love note or draw a heart on a slip of paper and casually drop it as you walk by. This is a great way to create appreciation, love and gratitude.

Pillow “fights”

Pillow fights or stuffed animal fights can be a great way to get some of that big body movement out before bed. 

Kid sandwich or burrito

Imagine a sandwich with pillows or cushions for bread and a kid in the middle. For a burrito, wrap them up in a blanket and gently roll them back and forth. 

This little bit of compression can really help release emotional tension in their body, too.

Let them be the boss

Ask your child to be in charge of where everybody sits at the dinner table tonight or where everything goes on the table. Reverse roles for a little while and let them play pretend.

We’ve all had those moments where a game is no longer fun or playful, either for you or for one of your kids. 

I want you to feel, as the parent, that you have the freedom to set some boundaries around the play. For example, “We can only play this game if everybody's having fun. It doesn't look like sister’s having fun anymore.” 

Or you can shift gears and say, “We can do this for one more minute, and then time’s up.”

Having to shift from play into a leadership energy doesn’t mean that playtime was ruined or that it wasn’t effective. And you don’t have to wait until things get out of hand. 

Notice if you're not having fun anymore or if it starts to feel off, and make a plan to end it and move on to something else. 

Playfulness looks different for different ages, but a smile goes a long way no matter how old your kids are. 

The goal is to have a little bit of lightness in your relationship and bring as much delight as you can into your life. Go give it a try!

• The difference between playing with kids and being playful
• Benefits of playfulness - for your kids and for you
• How to shift into emotional coaching when your kid is not in the mood for play
• 11 ways to be a more playful parent

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

On this episode of Become A Calm Mama, we’re going beyond the problems with modern motherhood from last week’s episode and into the details of parenting on your own terms. 

There is a lot of pressure to fit into society’s expectations, but the way we’re told to measure performance in motherhood can actually be harmful to our kids and to us as moms. 

The goal isn’t to “perform” as a mom or to prove to others that you’re a “good” mom. This is what leads us to burnout, overwhelm and guilt.

Instead, I want to help you prioritize your child's emotional health, focus on building strong relationships with them and create a family and community that aligns with your values. 

There is a lot of fear and worry in parenting. Things like…

I don't want my kid to grow up and not like me, not like themselves or not be liked by others.

I don’t want my kid to not know how to be in the world or how to be successful. 

My kid isn’t going to be okay.

To alleviate our fears, we often try to do everything “right”.

We think that if we do everything perfectly, our kids won't experience pain or discomfort. They won't have any negative experiences, and you will have done your job as a mom. 

But that's not how the world works. You cannot prevent pain or discomfort. 

Your job as a parent is to give your kids the tools to navigate negative emotions and negative circumstances when (not if) they happen. 

And one of the best ways we can do this is by letting them know they’re okay exactly as they are.

Rather than parenting from fear, let’s parent from a place of leadership. 

The first step to parenting on your own terms is deciding for yourself what is important to you.

I frame my parenting experience in terms of three goals:

1. My kids’ emotional health and wellbeing
2. My relationship with my kids
3. My own mental and emotional wellbeing

So when I make parenting decisions or decisions about how we spend our resources (i.e. time, money and energy), I always look at them through these three lenses. 

There are times that I’ve had to drop some expectations on fitting in or showing up in a certain way in order to protect my kids’ emotional health or my relationship with them or my own mental wellbeing. 

Sometimes, this looks selfish from the outside.

But it also allows me to go back to what matters to our family. The goals I’ve chosen for myself help me to look at a situation and ask, “Where are my kids right now, and what do they need help and support with?” 

There are all these external ways that society judges our performance as moms. Things like your kids getting good grades, being kind to everyone, dressing well, being athletic, creative or funny.

These are things that society and our communities value. The reward is fitting in, being able to obtain resources and favors and connections because we (and our kids) show up in a way that is socially acceptable. 

And if you don’t perform in these ways, there is a cost.

The fear of not being accepted or our kids not being accepted brings up major insecurities, and it can feel really scary to choose our goals over these social norms because we may not be accepted.

The problem is that when you work really hard at earning that social capital and acceptance, you put a lot of pressure on yourself and on your kids to perform at a certain level.

We’re afraid of how our kids’ emotional health will be affected by not being accepted. But true emotional wellbeing is internal. It comes from deep self love. 

What your child really needs from you is to feel unconditional acceptance from their parent. Inoculate them from social harm by giving them the belief that they are okay exactly as they are.

When you find yourself comparing your kid to some standard in your head, it is an opportunity to pause, reset and reframe back to your standards and what is important to you.

The underlying message we’re trying to avoid giving our kids is that they have to conform in order to be acceptable. They need to change in order for people to like them. They need to be better in order to be worthy.

And if we don’t want our kids to get that message, we have to get rid of it for ourselves, too.

It requires us to heal and gives us the opportunity to work out some of our own insecurities. 

In our society, women are rewarded for being sacrificial. We are given social capital if we show up in this way. 

And, unfortunately, we sometimes have to choose to give up some of this social credit or validation in order to gain emotional health. But taking care of your own wellbeing is the way you teach your kids to take care of themselves.

You get to decide what's most important to you as a mom, and you get to make decisions based on those things. 

And yes, there might be some cost to it, but in the long term, the best thing you can give your child is that they like themselves. And you can give them that gift.

• *The challenges of societal pressures and expectations in parenting
• *How to redefine success in parenting
• *Some of my favorite thought shifts and mindset tricks to come back to what’s most important

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

Why are modern moms so burned out? What is the problem with modern motherhood that has us feeling overwhelmed, inadequate and guilty?

In this episode, I’m talking about the big picture and the expectations around motherhood to help you understand why you feel so overwhelmed. 

Because it's not just that your kid is spitting out their food or not cleaning up their room or didn't put their shoes on or got a bad grade or hit their friend or did something wrong at school. That's not actually why we're so overwhelmed. 

We have created a dynamic in our society where the expectations are too high on moms.

I’ve had a few conversations recently with moms about guilt. May is a crazy month when it comes to kids. There are extra activities and school events that parents are expected to be at. Some of these pop up last minute or happen in the middle of the workday.

Of course, you get to feel sad if you’re missing something, but there’s this other layer of guilt that seems to come along with it. 

And I think this is often where the burnout and overwhelm begin. Unrealistic expectations lead to sadness and guilt. Then, we criticize ourselves for feeling that way. And we don’t take the time to process any of those negative emotions, so they kinda hang around. 

Our society has created an ideal mother and a dream of motherhood that has been presented to us primarily through social media. And the standards just keep getting more and more intense. 

In modern society, as a mom, you're responsible for SO MUCH, and it wasn’t always this way. 

Education

Modern moms get the story that your child's education and academic achievement is on your plate. Parents have been told that there's an ideal standard that you should strive for. And if you don't strive for it, you aren't helping your kid reach their potential.

If you didn’t get them into the “right” school and you're not doing homework with them and reading with them every night and monitoring their schoolwork and checking their grades, then that means you're not a good mom.

Previous generations didn’t have access to most of this information. But now that we do have access, it becomes our responsibility to monitor it.

Most parents are not child development experts or teachers, but we’re expected to know and do all this stuff anyway.

Food

You know the story…feed your kids healthy foods, watch their sugar, have family dinners, but also only feed your kids things they like.

We feel bad because our kids like junk food, but they’re offered it all the time. And then if you don’t want them to have junk, you get labeled as “that mom”. 

It’s too much to manage. We can’t compete with our society all the time. 

Screens

The same thing happens with screens. Everyone is telling you not to let your kids do too much screen time, but no one is telling us what is too much and there are all these other “rules” we’re supposed to follow when they do use screens.

Our kids love screens because they’re fun and interesting and great. And you know what? So do we.

Setting limits and boundaries around screens is a challenge on its own, and then they bring tablets and Chromebooks home from school anyway.

All the activities

We’re already trying to balance academics, education, diet and screen time. But they shouldn’t just do school! Kids should also…

• Play sports to develop social skills and leadership and move their bodies.
• Do something creative, like art or music.
• Have some kind of religious education (if your family is religious).
• Learn another language, especially if you speak a language other than English in your family. 

But then your kids don’t have time to play and you find yourselves overscheduled and doing too much. 😭😭😭

But when the pressure to do things is so intense, how are you supposed to opt out?

Self Care

I want you to take excellent care of yourself, move your body and see your friends. 

But the message we often receive is that you should prioritize yourself, but also get everything else done - work, making appointments, tidy up, volunteer at school, drive your kids around, organize your house, feed your family healthy food and get them to bed. 

Work

There’s also the idea that working is helpful, so if you love work (or need to work), you should…

But don’t work too much or your kids will feel neglected. So you better do it right and find the right balance.

Gentle Parenting

This is a new one in the last 20 years or so, and I do teach gentle, connected parenting. 

But sometimes the message becomes that you are supposed to not just manage everything, but you’re never supposed to be unhappy about it. 

You’re being told to let your kids have all the temper tantrums and big feelings, but you don’t get to express any of yours. 

I teach you to manage your nervous system in the midst of misbehavior. Then, set limits so that you’re not permissive. Teach your kids how to express their feelings within a limit. 

We were not raised this way, and it is not easy.

You might be putting pressure on yourself to be the perfect gentle parent. None of us is going to be perfect. I’m a human being. You’re a human being. We lose our cool sometimes. 

We have a lot of models of different ways moms organize their homes and feed their families, and some of them are really beautiful. It looks like these moms have it all together - the perfect houses, perfect bodies, perfect kids, perfect everything. 

There’s a lot of pressure on you to achieve all of that. 

The message you’re getting as a mom is be super chill while you get all the shit done. If you don't get all the shit done, you're going to fuck up your kids, and it's going to be your fault. And if you're overwhelmed and frustrated, it's probably because you're doing it wrong.

What I want to help you see is that if you’re finding yourself feeling overwhelmed, guilty and burned out, it’s time to look at what you are trying to achieve. Is it that perfect (and unrealistic) Instagram version of motherhood?

There are a lot of expectations in modern motherhood, and those expectations are built around other people's goals.

The standards are simply too high, and all of this leads to burnout. 

Burnout is when you have a lot of stressors, expectations and demands in your life, and those demands are greater than the time you have to recover from them.

Reset

It's 100% okay to have stress and be busy. That's inevitable, right? But you want to make sure you're building in periods of time where you get your body, your mind, your heart, and your soul back to a new baseline.

At the end of an intense week, it’s okay to take Saturday and not do anything. Rest, do screen time and takeout. Be gracious with yourself without the guilt. 

Decide what is important to you

Over the years, I’ve had to decide what I care about the most and what my goals are. When I’m clear on what I want to focus on and why it’s important to me, I can weed through all those other expectations and decide if they fit the big picture vision and goal for my family. 

The three goals I prioritize for my family are:

• My kids’ emotional health and wellbeing
• My relationship with my children
• My personal mental and emotional wellbeing

When you prioritize your family and what you and your kids need at any given time, it will mean saying no to something else. 

You get to be in charge of your life. You get to say yes, and you get to say no. People are going to be annoyed. People are going to have opinions and feelings.

The way out of burnout and guilt is by defining what motherhood means for you and what you want from this experience. What matters the most to you? 

Your perceived failings in motherhood have nothing to do with you. 

You are great. You are an incredible person. You are an incredible mother. You measure up in 100,000 ways. I want you to enjoy your life, your kids and this experience of motherhood. 

1. Why we feel so overwhelmed as moms
2. My trick for deciding whether something is right for my family, my kids or myself
3. How parenting is like a Ferris wheel

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

As we move through the journey of motherhood, the way we experience Mother’s Day, and what we need from it, changes. Today, I’m reflecting on my own experience of how Mother’s Day changes over time and connecting to different stages of motherhood. 

Different stages of parenting are challenging in different ways. When they’re younger, what we want most might just be a break from our kids, but as they get older we might crave more time with them.

Very early on, I realized that I wanted to create a day that worked best for me, so I started to create an intentional Mother's Day. 

And I want to give you permission (and tools) to create whatever it is that you want for your Mother's Day experience.

My oldest son, Lincoln, is almost 19 years old. I’ve been reflecting a lot lately, including thinking back to the past 18 Mother’s Days I’ve experienced. 

My needs have changed over the period of time that I've been a mom. And what the caregiving to my kids looked like had a lot to do with what my emotional needs were at that time. 

And I can look back at the different Mother's Day choices that I've made and I can see how those different needs showed up. 

When I first became a mom, it was really important to me to create some sort of family dynamic. I wanted to have this idyllic version of our family. I wanted to create a cherished memory on Mother’s Day, and I was trying to create this Instagram-worthy Mother’s Day that I had in my mind (before the actual days of Instagram).

A few years in, I realized that this Mother’s Day thing wasn’t working for me. I wasn’t getting my needs met. So, I started to think about what I actually wanted and needed out of this day? How did I want to feel? 

In those early years, I just wanted to be alone. I wanted to shop, get a cup of coffee, lay in bed and be in my house by myself. 

And I know it might feel strange to you to have a Mother’s Day where you don’t spend time with your kids, but if they’re little, you might be spending a LOT of time with them every other day. 

Once the kids were in school, I started to notice that I was really craving time with my friends, with other mothers. So maybe we’d do something as a family in the morning, and I’d go have coffee or dinner with friends.

I also noticed that I wanted to be more active, doing things like going for hikes or to the beach. I wanted to get outside and move my body. There was also a season when I wanted to spend time with each kid alone on Mother’s Day.

And as my kids got into middle school, I started to notice that my experience of Mother’s Day, and motherhood in general, was a little bit less about my needs because my needs were already being met pretty well.

This year, I want to go on an adventure and do something totally different with my teenagers. We spend less time as a full family lately. Our kids have jobs and school and social lives. I want us all to be together just having fun.

I share all of this not because you need to do the same things that I did, but because sometimes as moms, we’re not even tuned in to what it is we want and need.

If you had a whole day to do whatever you wanted, what would that look like?

Your answer will give clues to what kinds of activities you’re craving or missing. 

Now I’m guessing you are not the only mother in your life. Maybe your own mother, mother-in-law or other women close to you are celebrating Mother’s Day, too, and they want you to be a part of it. 

This becomes a little complicated once you’re a mom yourself. It’s hard to satisfy your own needs AND you mom’s needs. 

My maybe unpopular opinion…The person who is currently raising children should have dibs on Mother’s Day. You can celebrate with your mom or mother-in-law on Saturday or next weekend. 

This might be hard. You might feel guilty. 

But I want you to feel like you have the right to take excellent care of yourself in whatever way you need and want. You’re not responsible for designing the perfect Mother’s Day for your mother. You can advocate for yourself and find a solution that will work for everyone.

What I don’t want is for you to make it work for everyone but you. I don't want you to spend Mother's Day celebrating and honoring everybody, all the other mothers, and then not and not honoring yourself. 

It is 100% okay for you to say, I'm tired and I have some needs here. I'm lonely and I have some needs here. I'm bored and I have some needs here. And use Mother's Day as a way to get those needs met.

I wish you the most precious Mother’s Day. I hope that you fill your cup and have a really wonderful, intentional day. Decide what you want, ask for it and make it happen.

• How our needs as moms change over time
• Questions to figure out what your ideal Mother’s Day looks like
• How to balance your wishes for Mother’s Day with celebrating your own mother (or the other mothers in your life)

Episode 14 - How To Enjoy Mother’s Day https://www.calmmamacoaching.com/blog/how-to-enjoy-mothers-day

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

Today I'm tackling the topic of screens, screen time limits, devices, all of it. And I am going to help you feel better about your kids’ device use. This is a master class on managing screens in your family. So grab a pen and paper and get ready.

Let’s be honest - we all love screens. 

I love lots of things, like nature, my friends, my kids, my dogs. And I really like being on my phone and watching TV. 

But the fact that our kids also love devices drives us crazy as parents. We know devices are fun for them, but we’re annoyed when they won’t put them down. We worry about them getting too much screen time, and we don’t like the way they act when it’s time to stop. 

I see a lot of parents that are really worried that their child is addicted to screens. They ask for device time frequently, and then they don’t want to stop. We use this as evidence that they’re addicted. 

Parents also have conflicting feelings around screen time, which can be really confusing. 

We feel compassion because they want to connect with their friends and have something to do. But then we feel guilty because we don’t know if we’re doing the right thing or how much screen time is too much.

When you’re feeling worried, frustrated, annoyed, guilty and confused, you aren’t going to make the clearest decisions. 

When it comes to our goal for parenting with screens, I’m guessing that you want your family to feel balanced and connected to each other. You want screen time to be a part of your life, but not completely consuming your life. You don't want it to be everything your kids do.

I bet you also want there to be less fighting when you say no to screen time or when it’s time to stop. 

And you also probably want to feel really clear about your rules around screens and to see that it is possible to implement them with more ease.

You judge your kid’s desire for the device

When they ask for screen time, you feel upset by their desire. 

The truth is, we all love our devices, and screens are an easy way for the brain to be entertained or distracted. It helps us get rid of that uncomfortable bored feeling. 

Their inability to put down the device on their own does not mean your kid is lazy, unmotivated or anything else. Video games and social media are designed to keep the viewer engaged and keep them coming back. 

The pull of the device is natural.

Thinking your kid is “addicted”

This is one that I hear a lot. Not only is it not true in the vast majority of families, but this thought creates fear in you and makes the situation more emotionally charged. 

If you are thinking that your kid is addicted, you're going to look for evidence of that being true. 

Evidence like:

• They ask for it all the time
• They don't like to get off
• They seem physically affected by screens
• They prefer screens over being with people
• They don't know how to stop

But instead, I want you to think that the desire for devices is normal. It doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong. 

Kids like things that are fun, and being on a device is fun. Wanting something doesn’t mean someone is addicted. 

Your kids not being okay with being bored

When you start setting limits around screens, your kid is going to have big feelings. If your child isn't okay with being bored, it's going to be a big issue for you at the beginning because their brain does not know quite yet how to shift into something new.

When kids are bored, they feel uncomfortable. I call this the Boredom Gap. 

The good news is that the more time they spend away from devices, the more comfortable they will become spending time away from devices. 

Confusion around what is the right amount of screen time

This is one that you need to figure out for yourself (but I’m here to help!) What do you want balance to look like in your family?

Think about all the things happening in a 24-hour period: sleep, school, meals, homework, chores, sports, play, family time, etc.

How much is left of open or discretionary time? Do screens fit into that time?

Another approach is thinking about if your kid seems off-balance at all. If so, you can set a limit to create more time and opportunity for the things you think are most important for them. 

You get to create any rule or limit that you want in your family. The more committed you are to the limit, the more you love your reasons and the more comfortable you are with your child’s big feelings, the easier it will be to set the boundaries that you want. 

Not having a plan

Parents often feel like they don’t have a lot of power over their kids’ screen use. They need it for schoolwork, all their friends are online, etc. It leads to a lack of parental leadership.

Ultimately, I think we’re worried that our kids are being left out or that our kids are going to get behind.

You are strong enough to set limits and handle the discomfort that comes with it.

Step into your role as the leader of your family and make a plan, write it out and create an ideal week for you and your kids’ screen use.

Until they’re through middle school, your kids are not going to be able to manage their screen use on their own. They just aren’t capable yet of setting their own boundaries and being accountable to them. 

There are three steps to setting a limit around screens.

Figure out what you want

Think about your family, your week and your days. 

When do you want your kids to use devices? How much time can they use it? Which devices or games can they use? 

Communicate the limit

Communicate to your kids the rules and limits around screen use, using the Limit Setting Formula.

For example, “You’re welcome to watch one show as long as your chores are done first.”

You’ll also need limits around when screen time is over. Something like, “You’re welcome to use screens as long as there are no problems when it’s time to get off.”

Hold the limit

Here's what's going to happen. You’re going to tell them the limit, and they are absolutely going to do all the shenanigans that they always do when it’s time to get off the device. There is definitely going to be a problem because until now, there's been no reason for them to change their behavior.

I want you to avoid rescuing them from the consequence by reminding and nagging them to turn it off. Stand patiently. 

Then, the next time it’s supposed to be device time, you say, “no screens because of what happened last time.”

They’ll promise to be good, they might blame a sibling (or you) or beg for their device.

Hold your ground. Let them respond and show compassion and connection. Let them know you understand they really want their device and that’s okay. Let them get through the Big Feeling Cycle and trust that their brain will find a solution. 

You get to make the rules in your family. Be confident in your reasons, but don't feel the need to explain them to your kids. You don't need to argue or explain or justify or lecture. 

It's okay if your kids don't like your limits. It's okay if they're mad at you. It's okay if they're disappointed. It's okay for your children to have negative emotion.

Stay committed to your limit. Be compassionate in that limit, and they will be able to overcome their discomfort.

• Why our kids are so drawn to screens (and it’s not because they’re addicted)
• Ways to reframe your thoughts around screen time
• Examples of screen time limits
• How to be the leader of your family

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

A conversation with Kristin Lafontaine about a time I almost died in the ocean, how Shrek is my life coach, and our messy kitchens

Are you struggling with picky eaters at your dinner table? Do you find yourself making separate meals for yourself and your kids? As a parent, mealtime can be stressful, especially if your kids refuse to eat the food you serve them.

Mealtime can be more enjoyable for everyone - including you. 

On this episode of Become A Calm Mama, we’ll explore why some kids are picky eaters, while others are not and common struggles and mistakes when it comes to feeding your kids. I’ll also share strategies for transitioning into dinnertime and for encouraging kids to try new foods and become healthy, well-rounded eaters.

Before we dive into specific situations and strategies, let’s get clear on your role. 

The fact is, you can’t make your child eat. This is the same idea with any sort of behavior. Our kids will make their own choices. So what part of this equation is under your control?

As the parent, you are responsible for providing food and deciding what food will be available, when and where. You provide access to food and the opportunity for them to eat. 

You are the leader. You can certainly be considerate of other family members’ likes and dislikes, but you ultimately decide what foods are available.

Your child is responsible for whether they eat and how much.

Having your kids constantly say things like, “I don’t like that”, “I don’t want to eat that”, “That’s not what I asked for” can wear you down. 

If you want to make one meal, sit down as a family and have everyone eat the same thing, start with the family table.

The Family Table

The family table is not just about getting fed; it's also about social, emotional, and cultural values regarding food. It’s about sharing, connecting with others and creating memories.

Serving food on platters instead of plating it can strengthen the family table. Think family-style rather than single-plate restaurant-style. This allows each person at the table to decide for themselves what they want to eat and how much. Your child feels a sense of control over what and how much they’re eating. 

As usual, your state of mind plays a huge role here, too. When your feelings about your child’s eating habits are more neutral, it creates more emotional freedom for your child. It becomes less charged and they will be able to follow their own cues and learn to eat for themselves more easily. 

Getting Kids to the Table

One of the biggest challenges parents face is the transition from playtime to mealtime. Kids may not want to stop playing and sit down to eat, which can lead to behavior issues at the table. 

I really like to involve children in setting the table, filling up water cups or other simple tasks to help them transition into the expectations of mealtime. 

This often works even better when you give kids a choice between setting the table now or in five minutes. It requires them to think and make a decision and gives the brain time to shift into the new activity.

Practicing Good Manners

No mom wants to hear that the dinner she prepared is “disgusting”, so we can set limits around how our kids express their preferences. 

For example, “It’s okay to not want to eat something. You can say ‘No, thank you’ and choose something else from the table.”

Sitting at the family table

This ties into a limit of when food is available. Maybe when they leave the table, that’s it for the night. Or maybe you include a small before-bed snack in your evening routine. 

You can also set a limit around how long they are expected to stay at the table. I love using a candle to signify the beginning and end of family dinnertime. 

I want you to know that it’s okay for your child to feel a little hungry sometimes. This is a big way to learn that it’s good to eat when food is available. 

Behavior

You can set limits or rules around behaviors or other things that might be disruptive during dinner. No toys at the table was one of my rules when the boys were younger. 

Other limits might look like, You are welcome to sit at the table, as long as…

• Your bottom is on the chair
• You’re using your fork
• There is no fighting at the table
• There are no problems at dinner

Here’s what I know: If you always serve a separate meal to the picky eater, they won’t have the opportunity to grow and become a more adventurous eater. 

I think of this as consider, don’t cater. You can always have something on the table that your picky eater will like, while still making them a part of what is available to everybody.

Children will learn to like new food by seeing it on the table again and again. Kids are naturally inquisitive, and when they are exposed to a lot of different foods, they tend to become less picky.

You can even start with a single food that you want them to grow into eating. Plan to have this food on the table consistently and serve it up on a family-style platter.

Encourage them to explore it. They don’t have to eat it, but maybe they can put it on their plate, pick it up, touch it to their mouth, etc. They’re getting used to it little by little.

Another strategy is to have your child create a “never ever” list. What foods would they never ever want to try?

The idea is to give them a sense of control over what they eat, while continuing to expose them to new foods and giving them the opportunity to try them. 

Some picky eaters have a genuine food aversion. Struggling with the texture, smell or sight of food is a good clue that sensory issues are at play. You can also look at whether they have sensitivities to things away from the dinner table, like tags, socks, wind, or sound. 

If you suspect that your child is struggling with sensory issues, it's important to speak to a doctor and explore this further. Similarly, physical limitations such as difficulty chewing and swallowing (it takes 26 muscles to swallow!) may also be a barrier to trying new foods. Seeking help from a doctor or occupational therapist can be beneficial in addressing these issues.

You’ll also want to check with your pediatrician if your child’s eating habits are affecting their social development, they aren’t gaining weight or they are experiencing gastrointestinal problems. 

One of my sons was a very picky eater. I tried a lot of approaches that didn’t work, and I felt like a failure. There was so much anxiety around this issue for me, and I often felt mad, frustrated or afraid that he would be unhealthy, underweight and not socially accepted. 

Ultimately, I decided that our relationship was more important than his diet. I decided that my goal was just to get enough calories in him. I redefined what success looked like for me in that situation. 

If you have a really picky eater, I challenge you to become more neutral about it and find a little more trust that it will work out. Eventually, your kid is going to figure out how to eat. 

You can decide that your job is to give access and opportunity and the rest is up to your kid. 

You’ll Learn:

• What you are and aren’t responsible for when it comes to feeding your kid
• How to create a more peaceful and pleasant mealtime experience
• Tips for getting your picky eater to try new foods 
• When to seek help for your child’s picky eating
• My story of raising a picky eater

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

Getting your child to bed (and asleep for the night) is often easier said than done. And while it can be super frustrating for us as parents, it’s pretty hard for our kids, too. One of the best ways to overcome common sleep struggles is by helping our kids master self-soothing skills. 

Today, you’ll learn why getting to sleep and staying asleep is so challenging for kids at different ages and stages and strategies to help make bedtime a little smoother.

Our goal is to help them fall asleep on their own, stay asleep, and then put themselves back to sleep if they wake up. There are a lot of ways to do it, and there is no timeline.

You may not be surprised to hear me say that kids’ ability to self-soothe and fall asleep on their own at bedtime has a lot to do with regulating their emotions. 

There are a few common emotional situations that come up at bedtime.

For many kids, it’s as simple as this: Bedtime means the end of everything good. It’s the end of playtime, time with you and all the fun things.

They might also experience fear, disconnection and loneliness being on their own in the dark and quiet.

Sometimes, our kids have too much energy. Maybe they didn’t get enough movement during the day or spent a lot of time on screens. They’re just not feeling tired.

And even though it sounds counterintuitive, kids who are overtired also have a hard time at bedtime. When they’re overtired but still awake, the brain kicks into a state of alertness, and it can be really difficult to settle the nervous system.

When your child is feeling lonely, sad or afraid (or just disappointed the fun had to end), those feelings come out in all kinds of behaviors.

Not wanting you to leave, jack in the box, calling out, taking a long time to fall asleep, night, waking and being afraid of monsters are all really common challenges between the ages of 2 and 5 years old. 

Then maybe you get to a point around age 4 or 5 where your kid is sleeping great…but then something changes. They start waking up again in the night. What happened?!

Between ages 5 and 7, dreams start showing up, and kids can remember their dreams after they wake up. So not only do they have the fear from the dream they just had, they are afraid that they will have those nightmares again if they go back to sleep. 

This is also the age where kids start to be more aware of the world around them and understand that there are things out in the world that can hurt them and that you can’t always be watching them (including when they’re sleeping).

The first thing I encourage you to do when your kid is struggling to fall asleep on their own is to validate that this is hard for them. 

Learning to fall asleep is hard. Being separated from your parents is hard. It’s dark, they’re alone, they don’t get to play or be with you. Bedtime is hard. 

You don’t have to change this circumstance. You can just acknowledge it and validate how they are feeling.

Then, you can set limits. This looks like saying, “Your feelings make sense, but what are you going to do about it? You have to stay in your bed, so what can you do to help yourself feel safe? What can you do to help yourself feel less scared?”

Maybe it’s a simple fix like a night light or a noise machine, or leaving something of yours with them for comfort. 

I love the option of inviting your child to sleep in a little bed made of blankets in your room as long as they don’t wake you up.

With kids that are a little older, especially around ages 5-7, remember that they might be experiencing fear of things like robbers, a house fire, etc. 

In this case, talk to them about those fears and share the ways that you are keeping them safe. Remind them that their bad dreams aren’t real. You can use a worry jar or some visualization to help them calm their minds for sleep.

Regulate your own emotions

You know what doesn’t  help your kids fall asleep? Guilt trips, lectures, yelling and threats. 

Rather than teaching your kid to self-soothe, these strategies actually activate their stress response and make it even harder to fall asleep.

Kids who are feeling afraid, worried or stressed need calm parents. So working on your own emotional regulation is going to be really helpful.

Routines

Your family’s bedtime routine can be whatever you want it to be. Keeping that routine the same as often as you can signals to the brain that we're going to sleep soon.

If your child has had a good sleep routine, and suddenly they start to get up a lot or resist going to sleep, it’s probably temporary. 

These disruptions can happen for lots of reasons, like a developmental leap, changes in the family (e.g. new baby, moving, divorce, etc.) or at school.

Look for clues of what else could be going on when they are having sleep trouble and having a curious conversation with them about it. 

Consider what they’ve been watching. Is there a new storyline in their favorite show that might be bringing up fear or other big feelings? When possible, set a limit of no screens in the hour leading up to bedtime. 

Try big body movement before bed. As a mom of two rambunctious boys, this one saved me! They needed to get those wiggles out.

Remember, sleep is complicated. Don’t judge yourself when new struggles pop up. Try some different approaches and get curious about what will work for your family and your child at their current stage of development. 

• Why kids resist bedtime at different ages
• Why you might see disruptions in sleep after things have been going well
• Examples of what to say to your child when they struggle to fall asleep
• Ideas for limit-setting at bedtime
• Lots of ideas for how to calm your child’s fears and teach them to self-soothe

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

I recently got back from traveling across the country to visit New York City with my two teenage sons. There was one moment in particular on this most recent trip that sums up the experience of discontentment and motherhood and how I’ve been able to start moving toward more contentment. 

I hope that this story and the tools I share today will help you move toward more satisfaction with your own experience of parenthood, as well.

Before we jump into the story, there’s something about my past self that you need to understand.

I have this old belief hanging around that things are never good enough. I always thought that things should be better. That I should do more to make our moments better. I have a general dissatisfaction with things and it shows up in parenting, as well as in the rest of my life.

This constant feeling of being a little bit dissatisfied with so many things in my life is one of the big reasons I got into life coaching for myself. 

This is an ongoing struggle for me, and one of my 2023 goals is to cultivate more contentment.

My sons and I recently flew across the country from L.A. to New York, checked into our hotel and went to get some dinner. 

While I was sitting there, I noticed that I felt unhappy, disconnected from my kids and disappointed. 

So I got curious and started to coach myself through what I was feeling and thinking.

I noticed some negative thoughts coming up about my kids, so I made a shift.

I looked at them and thought to myself, “These are my kids. These are the people I raised.”

And I felt satisfied and content. 

They’re not perfect. They’re humans. They’re just regular people, but they’re MY people. I’m their mom.

I have big dreams, big plans and big desires for my life. And they've happened.

But there’s still this tug of, “but it's not good enough”. It’s the thought that I don't have the right to feel settled. If I do, I’ll never achieve anything.

But in that moment at the ramen restaurant with my boys, those weren’t the first thoughts that came through. It was, “These are the people you raised. You did it.”

My parenting journey is in a transitional period with one kid going to college and another learning to drive and going into his senior year. 

These teen years are tricky. 

On one hand, you need to let them go. To give them more freedom and responsibility. You’re handing them their life so they can go out into the world and be whoever they're supposed to be. 

And on the other hand, you're scared that if you let go, they'll get hurt, they'll get in trouble, they'll fuck up. 

You're also afraid that if you let go, they'll leave and not come back, and you won't have a relationship. 

My goal has always been for them to have the emotional tools and skills to manage their own feelings and thoughts, to move through negative emotion, to be resilient in the midst of hard things and to take personal responsibility.

When I look at my kids I see those goals and values I’ve held around being a mom, and I see that they’re on their way. 

I feel that I've moved from being the leader of their lives. They're making most of their decisions. I am now the guide while they become the leader. 

Watching us go through this transition has been hard, painful and difficult. But I can look at our relationships and see that I did it. We stayed close. We stayed connected. I have a really genuine relationship with each of the kids, and I am so grateful for that.

I’m thankful that I am not looking at my life now, or my children with regret or dissatisfaction.

And I’m glad that I’ve done the personal work I’ve done so that I could enjoy it. 

There was a moment at that table when it felt like my old habit could easily have slipped in. I could have been dissatisfied. I could have criticized or lectured them. But instead, I just slipped into contentment. And the rest of the trip, I was so delighted. 

This trip was the end of an era of traveling with my children, because now I'm going to be traveling with my adult children. 

So if you have little kids and you’re listening to this, here’s what I want you to know: Enjoy the ride. 

It happens in the small moments. If there’s any part of you that can pause and just say, “yeah, these are the people I’m raising. I’m doing it.” Be in the moment as much as you can, even if it’s hard. 

The feeling I’m chasing right now is contentment, satisfaction, gratitude.

What do you want to think and feel about what’s happening right now? How do you want to remember this time? What feeling are you chasing? 

You’ll Learn:

• The tricky thought that keeps sneaking up on me
• A simple thought shift to find more contentment in parenting
• How to see the moments of today in a way that you’ll want to remember them in the future

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

In today’s episode, I’m walking you through all of the developmental stages of your child’s life, all the way from birth through adolescence to 18 or 19 years old. This is going to help you really understand what's normal at different stages or ages, what kids are struggling with and how you can support your child's development.

The information I’m sharing today is based on the work of psychologist Erik Erikson, who outlined eight psychosocial stages of development. 

During the first year and a half of life, your child is trying to figure out if they can trust the people around them. Am I safe? Are the people around me safe? Are they taking care of me?

This is where trust is built with the primary caregiver. It’s also the time when they are struggling and learning to self-soothe. 

As you can probably guess, the child needs a lot of support in this stage. As a parent, your role is to meet their basic needs in a loving environment. Showing that you are trustworthy and helping them to sleep, stay warm, stay clean, feed them and help them self-soothe.

When you can show your child that they can count on you, they will form a secure attachment and feel safe in the world. 

From about 18 months to 3 years, the question becomes something more like, “Can I do things myself?”

They are working to develop control over their body. This shows up in areas like toilet training, picking out their own clothes, deciding what they want to eat, what cup they drink out of, etc. 

It can sometimes seem like they’re being difficult, but they’re really just trying to assert control over their body and their choices. They also tend to move very slowly at this stage - struggling with getting dressed, putting on their socks and shoes, buckling their seat belt, etc.

As the parent, you want to help them get to the answer of, “Yes, I can do things myself.” This helps them build self-confidence. The challenge for you is to slow down and let them do it.

During the preschool years, from about three to five years old, kids start to ask themselves, “Am I good or bad?”

They use play as a way to experiment with this in different environments. And it’s an interesting balance because they want to feel like they have some power over their environment but also want boundaries to help them learn what is and isn’t okay.

They might act very bossy and powerful, but they also feel very sensitive to our feedback. They can’t really tell the difference between their identity and their behavior. So when we say, “I don’t like when you do that,” they hear, “I don’t like you.”

The goal in this stage is avoid excessive criticism and to speak the identity we want for them: You are a good listener, you follow directions well, you are a good kid, etc. 

It can be challenging to give them power over their environment while still keeping them safe, so we can give them lots of choices. This way, you can limit the options they have while giving them the power to choose.

As a parent, you don’t have to change the environment for them. You don’t have to fix their problems. You’re giving them power and choice, so they learn how to live within their environment.

Once kids get into elementary school, they start to ask, “Am I good at things?”

Of course, we want them to answer “yes”. At this stage, they start to figure more things out outside of the home - in school, sports, enrichment activities, church, etc. They also start being evaluated on their performance through grades and scores.

Their goal is to develop a sense of competency in learning and doing things. They’re trying a lot of new things and figuring out all the rules.

So it makes sense that kids this age struggle with self-doubt. They might start to compare themselves to their peers and where they fall in the levels of competency and achievement. 

You might also see them not working as hard, saying they can’t do it or wanting to give up. This can be hard to witness. But it doesn’t mean they’re lazy or that they won’t be successful at something. Don’t make their struggle mean anything except that they’re learning.

As a parent, adopting a growth mindset for your kid is one of the best things you can do. This looks like letting them be beginners and work up to higher skills, normalizing that they won’t be good at everything and that’s okay. 

The primary question as our kids move into middle school and high school becomes, “Who am I?” This is much more open-ended than the big questions they’ve worked through in previous stages. It is not a yes or no, and there are a lot of different factors that go into developing that identity.

Identity is a complex concept that includes all of the beliefs, ideals, and values that help shape and guide a person's behavior. It’s our personal identity that exists within the social framework of society. 

Your child largely answers this question through their social relationships. They might “try on” different identities and explore different friends and activities to see what fits them best. 

They’re trying to figure out how to both express their individual self and where they belong in society. 

A powerful thing you can do as a parent in the teen years is to start talking about what they’re good at and point out their strengths. This can be really challenging, but it also helps them to build a positive image of themselves.

Ask them about their interests and what they’re drawn to. So much of adolescence is spent on school, but their identity is so much more than that.

Teens also need plenty of time to spend alone as they try new things and new identities. This feels really scary for us as parents, but it is really good for them from a developmental standpoint.

Giving more independence and responsibility and practicing trusting your teen are other important pieces of them building their identity.

Our kids struggle in every stage. And that’s okay. You are there to guide them, and I am here to help you through it every step of the way.

• The questions that define each stage of your child’s development
• Common struggles at each stage and how you can support your child
• Extra tips and strategies for navigating the teen years

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

Today’s episode is part three of a three-part series all about parenting stress cycles. If you haven’t listened to parts one and two, be sure to go back and check them out.

In this episode, I’m teaching you how to reframe the way you view your child’s behavior so that you don’t get as stressed in the first place.

It’s very common in our society to judge kids and their parents based on behavior. But when we do this, looking only at the external, it actually creates more stress for us.

It is a normal human response to take a completely neutral situation and attach greater meaning to it. And we do the same thing with our kids’ behavior. 

You might make the behavior mean something about you…

I’m such a bad mom because my kid has bad grades.

I’m such a bad mom because my kid is sad.

Or you make it mean something about your kid…

My kid hit another kid at preschool. If they keep this up, they’re going to end up not having any friends and be a jerk.

My kid loves screens so much they’re going to be addicted. Then, they’ll probably end up addicted to drugs and drop out of school and no longer achieve anything in their life.

These interpretations leave you feeling insecure, doubtful, angry, disappointed or fearful.

When we take a behavior way far into the future and make it mean something negative, it is going to create stress in us. And your brain is quick to jump in and send you all the stress hormones so that you can deal with the threat. 

The more often this happens, the more often you have to deal with the stress juice, reset and work on calming yourself. It’s exhausting.

But you can help yourself to not get activated in the first place by learning to reframe your kid’s behavior.

For all humans (not just kids), behavior is a way to communicate our thoughts and feelings. 

Your kids misbehave because…

They are communicating their feelings to you through their actions.

They are trying to cope with a circumstance they don’t like.

They are working to change the situation to make it work for them.

They don’t like to stop having fun because having fun is the best.

Behavior becomes misbehavior when your child acts out their feelings in a way that causes a problem for someone else (this includes you).

I want you to be able to see that behavior differently, reframe it and view it from a different lens. So that rather than being activated by your kid’s behavior you can either remain neutral or even show up in compassion.

You have to understand that your kid’s behavior is not about you.

It is 100% about their own thoughts, their own feelings, and how they are processing those thoughts and feelings and communicating them. It is about what is happening for them in this moment, right now. 

It doesn’t mean anything about you as a parent or what their future will look like.

You can look at their behavior as an opportunity to see their thoughts and feelings in action.

First, take a Pause Break. In order to show up the way you want, you need to calm your stress response first.

Then, get curious. This is where we find the neutral situation and can move through curiosity to connection and compassion. 

Ask yourself, “Why does this behavior bother me? What am I making it mean?”

Really what you want to know is…

What does this behavior say about my kid right now? 

What are the thoughts and feelings that are driving this behavior?

As you practice this curiosity, it will help you get out of the stress cycle. And getting to the root of what is driving their actions is where you find connection.

The beautiful thing about this is that you’ll feel more compassion towards other people in your life, too. And you’re modeling it for your kids. They will learn to be compassionate through your example.

You’ll Learn:

• Clues that you’re parenting from stress
• What misbehavior really means
• How to see your behavior from a different perspective
• Why learning to reframe your kid’s behavior can make you more compassionate toward others, too

Listen to Part 1 of this 3-part series: www.calmmamacoaching.com/blog/parenting-stress-cycles-1 

Part 2: Ending a Stress Cycle: https://www.calmmamacoaching.com/blog/parenting-stress-cycles-2 

Episode2: Getting to Calm with the Pause Break: https://www.calmmamacoaching.com/blog/getting-to-calm-with-the-pause-break 

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

Today’s episode is part two in a three-part series. Last week, I talked about what a stress cycle is and how it shows up in your parenting. If you missed it, you can listen here. 

Today, we’re taking it to the next step: When you’re in a parenting stress cycle, how do you get out of it?

The first step is to deal with the stressor, and this is the one that most of us are already pretty good at. We deal with the situation. But that isn’t the end.

To complete the stress cycle, you also need to deal with the stress juice - that cocktail of hormones and chemicals flowing through your body. 

Sometimes, this happens naturally, but sometimes you need to take intentional actions to move through the stress and release it.

One example of completing a stress cycle naturally is when you drop your kids off somewhere where you feel that they are safe. It’s that “ahhh” feeling. You can exhale, you feel your shoulders relax and your body lighten. You can breathe deeply.

For me, these are all signs that I’ve completed my stress cycle. It feels like relief.

Bedtime might be another one. That moment when things are finally quiet, you slip into your pajamas and get your Netflix on. You’re off duty.

The moments when this happens for you might be different, but it comes down to the feeling of relief and relaxation.

Often, we take internal stressors with us. So while the situation may have calmed down, our minds have not. Worries, fears and criticisms continue swimming around in your head, creating even more stress juice in your body.

If you’re living in a chronic state of stress, you may not even know how to give your body the signal to relax. 

Your stress juice may have been building up for days, weeks, months or even years of a stress cycle. I think of this as a mama stress spiral, because it feels like there is no end. And this makes it really difficult to be calm and think clearly.

Here are a few signs that you might be stuck in a stress spiral:

• You find yourself in stress-activating situations that OUTPACE your ability to process them. There is so much coming at you that you don’t have a chance to reset.
• Simple tasks or requests feel overwhelming.
• You suffer from 'Mad Mom' syndrome.
• You engage in self-destructive behaviors on a consistent basis (overdrinking, drug abuse, binge watching, excessive news checking, scrolling social media, overeating, over-exercising, restrictive dieting, obsessive thinking, picking at things or your body).
• Avoidance & checking out; aka ‘hiding from your life’. Not returning texts or phone calls. Declining invitations. Not working on projects.
• Your body is out of whack. You feel sick all the time. You have chronic pain, injuries that won’t heal or recurring infections.
• Sadness that won’t go away, rage that feels out of control or negative or anxious thoughts that you can’t shake.

Sometimes, you have to work a little bit to move through the stress cycle and release the stress juice. 

The cool thing is that just being aware of your stress cycles is enough to help your brain start paying more attention. 

Getting out of a stress cycle is similar to digesting or metabolizing food that comes into your body. Your body has to process the stress juice, just like it has to process the food that you eat.

And if you have to do this more than once a day, that’s ok. When you have more coming at you, you’ll need to reset more often.

The most effective way to complete a stress cycle is with movement. Moving your body for 20-30 minutes a day is going to reset your stress cycle and give that stress juice a place to move. 

This doesn’t have to look a certain way. Any kind of movement, including with your kids, will help. 

Some other strategies are:

• Connect with an adult who cares about you
• Do something that delights you
• Do a thought dump
• Sleep or rest

This can happen in the evenings, in small chunks throughout the day or whatever works for you.

Ideally, we’re resetting our stress cycles every day. We deal with stress a little at a time so that it doesn’t build up. 

But sometimes, we need a little more - a bigger chunk of time where you’re not on kid duty. I call this a Calm Mama Break.

No matter where you are on the spectrum of stress, I encourage you to plan one of these breaks. 

First, decide when it will be and for how long. Who will take care of the kids while you’re taking a break to rest and reset? Ask them for help in advance and get it on the calendar.

Next, what do you want to do? What recharges you? What did you enjoy doing before you had kids? Will you go alone or with someone? 

Remember, mama, when you are in a stress cycle, there is nothing wrong with you. Being a mom is HARD, and feeling stressed is normal. 

It’s good for you and for your family to take breaks to rest and reset so you don’t lose your shit.

Next week, we’ll wrap up this series with ways you can deal with stressors - the stressful circumstances in your life.

• Signs that you’ve completed a stress cycle
• The difference between a stress cycle and a stress spiral
• Strategies to release stress juice
• How to plan a Calm Mama Break

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

I want to let you in on a little secret. You don’t yell because there’s something wrong with you (or your kids). You yell as a response to stress and what your brain perceives as a threatening situation. 

In this episode, I’m talking about the stress cycle - what it looks like, why it happens and how it shows up in your parenting. 

Before we get into the details, I want you to first imagine walking your dog at night and seeing a pack of coyotes. They start chasing you. Your brain activates the stress response, quickly assesses the threat and decides that you should RUN.

You get back home, come in and close the door. You are technically safe, but your body doesn’t know that yet. It still has all of the stress juice running through your system.

Once you are inside and safe, it’s time to deal with the stress that has accumulated in your body. You do that by getting your breath back, telling someone what happened, getting a hug, shaking, crying. Stress cycle complete. YAY!

Now imagine that instead you come inside, but before you get a chance to deal with the stress juice, there is a new stressor. You walk into the house and your kids are arguing and your husband is yelling at them. Then you head to the kitchen and notice the dishes piled in the sink and there isn’t any meat thawed for dinner. Stressful situations keep popping up and the stress juice continues building up inside you.

Notice that there are two parts of the story above: the actual threat of the coyotes and what happens after. 

The stressor.

The stressor is the external situation that is happening around you. This can look like your child screaming, crying, being aggressive, arguing with you, peppering you with questions, blaming you for things, etc.

The stress response.

This is the stress juice. It’s a sort of chemical cocktail of hormones and neurochemicals that course through your body and create your stress response. 

And it’s not a bad thing. It helps us respond to our environment and keep ourselves safe. 

But it’s not healthy for us to live in a state of chronic stress. When stress juice builds up in you and isn’t released, it can make you more reactive, less effective and clouds your thinking.

The problem many parents face is that we are constantly surrounded by stressors, but we don't give ourselves a chance to release the stress juice and reset.

Sometimes, we don’t even realize that stress is building up inside of us. We think we’re handling things well until something unexpectedly sends us over the edge.

Think about some of the stressors above. If you were out in the world and another adult was screaming at you or being aggressive toward you, it would likely mean that you are in a threatening situation and that you need to do something to protect yourself.

So when your kid is screaming, crying or complaining, your brain can’t tell the difference. It thinks you’re being attacked, and your stress response is activated.

Aggressive behavior isn’t the only thing that triggers us, though. You might also notice yourself reacting to things like dilly dallying, rudeness, bad grades or your kid just being grumpy. 

These behaviors activate us because we feel we’re being threatened not physically, but socially. As a community-based species, we fear rejection from others. 

The type of threat might be different, but your stress response works the same way. 

The cycle usually looks something like this:

Behavior → Reaction → Guilt → Nothing Changes → Same Behavior → Reaction → Guilt

There are a couple of places where we can interrupt the parenting stress cycle.

#1: Decrease the stressors

One of the best ways to create less misbehavior (and therefore fewer stressors) is to teach your kids better ways to deal with their feelings. To give them the tools to know what they’re feeling, how to talk about those feelings and what to do with their feelings in ways that don’t cause problems.

Creating routines and setting better limits also decrease stressors by removing some of the friction around regular, everyday things.

#2: Deal with your stress juice

The more frequently you reset your stress juice, the less it builds up over time. This is where the Pause Break and Calm Mama Break come in. Think of it as stress hygiene.

#3: Reframing behavior

Often we add meaning to a behavior, and this creates even more stress. We regret not doing things differently, feel fear around what the behavior means for our kid’s future or look for someone to blame. 

If you can think about the behavior differently, you will feel less stressed about it.

This week, I want you to practice noticing when you are in a stress cycle. And instead of judging yourself for it, get curious about why you got so stressed in the first place. Noticing is step 1. Next week, we’ll get into more tools on how to break out of your stress cycle.

You’ll Learn:

• How stress shows up and why we feel activated even if we’re not actually in danger
• What the parenting stress cycle is and how to know if you’re in one
• 3 ways to get out of the stress cycle

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

Did you know that gentle parenting is one of the most popular hashtags on TikTok? It’s a philosophy that many parents are attracted to, and I’m excited to talk more about it today - what it is, my experience with it and the common challenges to gentle parenting that you might have experienced.

Gentle parenting is an approach to parenting where you validate your child's emotion while also setting appropriate boundaries for their behavior. The foundation is that feelings drive behavior.

I like to think of it as - Your feelings make sense. And you have to express those feelings in ways that work for everybody. 

You may have heard me talk about this as connection (validating the emotion) and limits (the appropriate ways to express the emotion).

And when your children don't stay within those boundaries, then we want to help them learn through correction. This is a form of discipline that uses shame-free and pain-free consequences, where the focus is on your child fixing the problem that their behavior caused.

When we fix that mistake, it actually feels good, and we learn from it. 

I also like to call this connected parenting because the way we approach our child is based on our connection with them, and we help them to build a better connection with themselves.

Practicing gentle parenting helps us feel more connected to our kids and helps them feel more connected to us. 

They learn to regulate their own emotions and have self compassion. They have a healthier self-esteem.

And when you teach your kids appropriate boundaries, they develop communication and social skills which help them build better connections to others. 

The ultimate result we’re after is for your child to grow into an emotionally healthy adult. One who will be responsible for their emotions and know what to do with their feelings; who can overcome challenging circumstances and speak kindly to themselves and others; who has healthy, collaborative relationships.

Unfortunately, parenting this way is not easy, especially in the beginning.

You might quickly go from being calm to absolutely losing your shit and screaming at your kid.

Or you might go the other direction and figure they’re not going to listen to you anyway, so the consequences go out the window.

Maybe you’ve tried all the sticker charts and broad strategies, but they just haven’t worked.

Here are the 3 hurdles most parents encounter when they first try to do gentle parenting:

#1 Staying calm in the midst of misbehavior. 

It’s really hard to regulate your own emotions while your child is screaming, hitting, out-right refusing to listen, and totally melting down. 

It’s easy to be compassionate if you see that your child is sad and crying. It’s much harder when their feelings come out as aggression.

Your stress response kicks in, and you can’t even think clearly enough to use the parenting tools you know. To show up as a compassionate, connected parent, you have to deal with your own emotions first.

This is why the first step in the Calm Mama Process is to PAUSE. You take a break to calm your own nervous system and process the negative emotion that you are feeling before you go back to your child.

#2 Knowing how to help kids express their feelings in appropriate ways. 

Most parents don’t know what to do after they ask their child “Are you feeling mad?” and the kid screams “YES!”. 

Teaching kids how to manage their big feelings is hard to do when you don’t know what to teach them. 

Sometimes, it might feel like you’re indulging in the feelings without actually teaching your kids any skills. Or you might jump in to rescue them because their feelings make you really uncomfortable. 

In The Emotionally Healthy Kids course, I give you about 100 different ideas for what your child can do with their big feelings. This way, you can actively teach them what to do instead and how to regulate their own emotions.

#3 Setting firm boundaries without yelling or repeating. 

When you don’t use fear or manipulation to get kids to listen, it can be really confusing to know what to say instead. 

Getting kids to listen in the gentle parenting approach requires that you set limits in a way that makes the consequences logical. These types of limits make your kid actually think about what they’re doing. 

Then, you follow through in a shame-free, punishment-free environment. When the consequence is a more natural result of the behavior, it isn’t about making your child feel like they’re bad. 

These three challenges are the same hurdles I struggled with when I started to practice gentle parenting 15 years ago. And they’re the ones I see my clients struggle with in the beginning, too.

And to overcome them, you just need a new set of skills. You can learn how to be the gentle parent that you want to be.

You’ll Learn:

• What gentle parenting is
• Why I choose to teach the approach and use it with my own kids
• 3 common hurdles you might encounter and how to overcome them

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

What are the differences between traditional parenting and connected parenting, and how can you become more compassionate with your kid? 

I’ve been thinking about the goals and outcomes of different parenting styles lately, and here’s how I think of it.

Traditional parenting is focused more on the external - the way somebody looks, presents themselves to the world and the way the world views them. 

The goal is for your child to be socially accepted and fit into the world we live in. This is driven by values like compliance, obedience, conforming, productivity, perfectionism and people-pleasing.

But often, this approach leaves the individual feeling disconnected from themselves. 

Connected parenting puts more focus on the internal world of the individual. 

Most people were raised in a traditional parenting environment. This is largely the norm in our society. 

The goal is to look good, behave well, be accepted. And the tools often include fear, shame and comparison; the threat that if you don’t perform or conform, you won’t be accepted in the world.

When you learn to look for external validation, you stop listening to yourself. You don't have trust in your own ability to make decisions, and you can end up disconnected from your internal guide. 

But the truth is that when you feel terrible on the inside, it doesn't really matter what other people think because you don't feel good about yourself. 

Feeling disconnected from ourselves can lead to anxiety, depression and causes challenges in our relationships with others.

Connected parenting (the method I teach) goes by a lot of names. Gentle parenting, conscious parenting, feelings-first, compassionate or non-violent parenting. But the underlying goal is the same. We, as parents, want to create an environment that helps our kids grow up to be emotionally healthy.

We want our kids to have good relationships with themselves, with us and with others. We want them to trust themselves and know that their worth as a human is not based on performance.

The goal is to help our kids understand what they are feeling and why they’re behaving the way they are. Because their thoughts and feelings are what drives behavior.

We use the tools of compassion, emotional regulation, clear boundaries and limits and personal responsibility.

I’ve been parenting this way for 14 years and teaching connected parenting for 10 years, and I’ve seen a few common obstacles that parents face.

Lack of knowledge

Simply put, you don’t have a model or map for parenting this way. If your parents used a traditional parenting style, that is the style you know.

Maybe you know you don’t want to raise your kids the same way, but you don’t know what to do instead.

This is a revolutionary parenting style. Most of us didn't grow up with anybody helping us with our feelings. We don't know how to do it. 

That’s why I created the Calm Mama Process and the tools I teach - to give you a framework that outlines exactly what to say and do so that you can show up as a compassionate parent and give your kids the tools to manage their emotions. 

Inability to manage your own emotions

Based on the first obstacle, this makes perfect sense, right?

If you weren’t taught to manage your emotions when you were younger, you’re learning to do it now. 

It’s almost a process of re-parenting yourself so that you can teach your child the same thing. 

I think of this as healing the next generation in advance. And it’s why CALM is the foundation of everything I teach. This is where you practice soothing yourself, processing negative emotions, dealing with disappointment, overwhelm and stress in a healthy way.

You may not have grown up learning this, but you can learn it now.

Societal pressure

The third main obstacle I see is the societal pressure for kids to be obedient. There’s a judgment that if your kid is misbehaving, it must be because you are a bad parent (which is totally not true, btw). 

This can show up in a lot of different communities and contexts, but the message is that “we don’t want to see your kids melt down or make mistakes.”

Kids start out not knowing how to manage their big feelings. They don't know how to process anger, sadness or frustration in ways that don't create problems. They’re going to hit, kick, punch. spit, throw, yell, disagree, argue, negotiate, protest and complain.

None of these behaviors are because they’re bad kids or you’re a bad parent. They are all because of their feelings. 

They have to figure out what works and what doesn’t, and they’re going to make mistakes as they learn these new skills. That’s how learning happens. 

But when they're in the middle of misbehaving and making mistakes, and you can feel everyone around you judging your kid and your parenting, it can stand in the way of you connecting with and helping your kids.

In that moment, you have a choice. You can default to traditional parenting methods of fear, control, threats and bribes, or you can use compassion, clear boundaries and allow your kid to make mistakes

Connection takes more time. It's going to be messier. It’s also how you reach the long-term goal of emotional health and your child learning how to deal with whatever feelings come up.

It is impossible to practice connected parenting at all times. We're human beings, and we have our own emotional experience and our own feelings, thoughts, overwhelm and stress. 

The goal is not 100%. The goal is to do it as often as you can. When you find yourself yelling, threatening or showing up in a way that you don’t want, catch yourself and pause. Reset and try again. Get curious and connect with your child. 

The more you do it, the closer you move toward making compassion your new default.

You’ll Learn:

• The differences between traditional parenting and connected parenting
• What connected parenting looks like
• 3 common challenges in connected parenting
• How to start making the shift to connected parenting

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

Delaying your response, the conversation, the consequences when it comes to misbehavior is a valuable tool. In this episode, you’ll learn why delaying helps you stay calm and how to use this tool in your parenting.

Misbehavior is rarely an emergency. This is a concept I come back to with my clients again and again. 

When you think that misbehavior is an emergency, your stress response is activated and you want to deal with it right away. Your brain tells you that you are not safe until you get rid of this behavior.

When you’re in your stress response, your reaction might look like:

• Anger, frustration or disconnection
• Yelling, shaming or criticizing
• Struggling to think clearly or set appropriate limits
• Threatening or bribing

My goal is for you to get to a place where you are not activated by your child’s misbehavior. A place where you can be calm even when they are not.

By delaying consequences, you give yourself time to reset your stress response so that you can show compassion for your kid and teach them new strategies for dealing with their feelings…which ultimately leads to less misbehavior.

Delaying can feel really hard to do sometimes. During the delay, your kid might still be misbehaving. Your mind tells you that they’re getting away with it, and this can feel pretty terrible. 

You might think that they’re not going to learn from their mistakes, they’ve got to experience the impact now or it won’t matter.

On top of that, you’re trying to put the brakes on your reaction after it’s already started.

And, we feel social pressure to parent in a certain way.

Many of us have been taught that our kids have to have an immediate consequence for it to work. In fact, the opposite is often true. Our kids can’t learn something new when they are in their big feelings or when they’re just so caught up in what they’re doing that they aren’t hearing you or thinking clearly.

In the full episode, I share what I call “the popcorn story” which demonstrates how reacting to behavior right away can actually undermine our goals and what we are trying to create within our families.

You have a choice about when and how you will respond to a behavior. 

Just because you are not delivering a consequence right away doesn’t mean you have to ignore it completely. 

You can delay simply by saying something like, “Hmm, I notice you are _____. I’m gonna have to do something about that later.”

You’re letting your kid know that you noticed the misbehavior and that you’re doing something else right now, but they’re not off the hook.

This gives you the time you need to calm yourself down and think about what the lesson is you want to teach. What skill is missing, and how are you going to help them practice it?

Here are few questions to help you decide if you need to delay:

• Do I have the capacity to manage a consequence right now? Am I calm enough?
• Have I done connection yet?
• Do I have time to deal with the big feelings cycle that is going to come along with the consequence?

Telling yourself “I’m going to deal with this, just not right now,” reminds your brain that you’ve got this and you’ll figure it out. It’s not an emergency.

Your child is not getting away with misbehavior when you delay, because you actually go back and revisit the incident and follow through with the correction conversation.

When we avoid consequences, we don’t follow up. We make a command or threaten a consequence to get our kid to comply. If you keep doing this and don’t follow through, your kid is not going to listen to you. 

And I get it. Parenting is exhausting. Revisiting all these misbehaviors takes a lot of energy. 

Find a way that works for you so that you can commit to following through on consequences. One way is to note the behaviors you want to follow up on, then choose a time to review the week and share with your kids how they can make it up to you (i.e. consequences). I call this Restitution Saturday (or whatever day you want it to be).

The takeaway from this episode is that it’s okay for your kids to “get away with it” for a short time. You don’t have to respond to most behaviors right away. As you learn to pause and delay, you're going to be able to handle all the situations that come up with way more calm. 

You have a lot of power over how things go, and delaying consequences can bring so much peace to your family. 

You’ll Learn:

How delaying helps you stay in the present

• “The popcorn story” and what it teaches us about getting what we really want
• My favorite phrase for delaying consequences
• How to use the “hard no” when the misbehavior is hurting someone else

Previous Episodes:

Episode 3: Connection is Key to Improving Behavior 

Episode 12: When Your Child is Aggressive

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

Today’s episode is the start of the How To Heal series here on the podcast. We’re starting with the foundation of it all - radical self love. A person who experiences self love and demonstrates self compassion has less depression, less anxiety, less stress, and less shame. Isn’t that what we all want?

You’ll Learn:

• A mantra to help you practice radical self love
• How insecurity shows up for me and how I return to my core self
• 4 tools to deepen your self love

Radical self love is the foundation of healing. It is vital. It is a gift that you give to yourself. You are entitled to loving yourself and feeling good about yourself, and I want that for you so much. 

------------------------------------------

This is such an important topic that I’ve had a lot of feelings come up as I get ready to share this with you - tenderness, insecurity, and impostor syndrome (just to name a few). 

But the truth is, I’m not trying to solve all of the world’s emotional pain problems. I’m creating this series to share with you my own journey of healing from trauma, uncertainty, and difficult experiences and the things that have been fundamental to me on that journey. 

Over the course of this series, I’ll help you to:

• Become kinder to yourself
• Make friends with your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
• Notice the patterns or strategies that don’t work for you anymore
• Make small changes that influence those patterns

This isn’t about making a huge overhaul of your life. It’s about picking one or two patterns in your life that you want to get curious about and explore…and loving yourself all along the way.

Radical self love is the foundation of healing. It is vital. It is a gift that you give to yourself. You are entitled to loving yourself and feeling good about yourself, and I want that for you so much. 

Repeat after me: I unconditionally love and accept all the parts of me, no matter how I think, feel, or act.

Write this statement down, put it somewhere you’ll see it often, and practice saying it to yourself throughout the week. Then, I challenge you to practice self love through connection and compassion (sound familiar?).

At your core - your essence, your soul, the divinity that lives within you - you are good. You are worthy of love. You are lovable, and you are good enough exactly as you are.

Think of a newborn baby. Think of how deserving it is of love and care. There are no expectations of the baby. It doesn't have to prove anything. It doesn't owe anybody anything. It's just this love being. 

You have that same pure soul inside of you. There is an essence to you that is pure and loving and good. It is worthy of love. It is worthy of being cared for and treated kindly.

Unfortunately, we don’t always live in connection to our core self. We have subconscious thoughts and behaviors. Our environment influences how we think, feel, and act (e.g. parents, teachers, peers, religion, childhood experiences, etc.). 

Sometimes we lose our connection to that core self, and we start using strategies that we think will either help us get better or help protect us. And these strategies aren’t always very loving to ourselves or others.

Our thoughts become ruled by our inner critic. Feelings come up that we don’t know what to do with - like anger, hurt, or resentment. We use strategies to soothe, protect, or punish ourselves. 

You might recognize these as people pleasing, yelling at your kids, overthinking, drinking too much, overworking, buying new things, pushing away love, not accepting help, focusing on your external appearance, complaining a lot, being greedy or selfish.

I don’t want you to see these as horrible things. All of your behaviors make perfect sense. 

They are actually a form of love that you think you need to protect your core self. These thoughts, feelings, and behaviors give you valuable information.

But you don’t need to do those things when you can connect to the pure love that is already within you - that thing you can trust and hold on to and rely on. Healing requires you to grow a relationship between your core self and all those other parts of you.

Self compassion means that not only do you unconditionally love and accept all the parts of you, you also know that you are not your behavior. 

If self love is the decision to love yourself, no matter what, then self compassion is the tool you use to get there.

Self compassion is a practice in which we learn to be a good friend to ourselves when we need it most. To become an inner ally rather than an inner enemy. To quiet that inner critic, and even make friends with her.

You cannot push away negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. You have to explore them with love, curiosity, and compassion, or you’ll end up swapping one not-so-great strategy for another. 

For example, you can say to yourself, “Hey girl, Why are you being so mean? We’re filled with love. You have nothing to prove, but here you are being mean? What’s going on?

Self love is like having a relationship with the divine within yourself. You have divinity within you, and it’s an invitation to fall in love with yourself. 

Check in with your inner child. When you catch yourself in self hatred, or just generally being shitty to yourself, imagine yourself as a child. I envision a little girl who didn’t get what she needed from her mom or her dad or her peers. She’s wounded. This little girl isn’t my core self, but she is part of what happened to me. 

Give a lot of attention to this sweet, beautiful, perfect child inside of you. Ask, “What do you need to hear today? What are you wishing you could get?”

As you do this, your core self - in all of its beauty and wholeness and worth - develops a stronger and stronger voice. The more trust and love you give to your core self, the more room you give her to be. 

The best friend strategy. Channel your best friend, your biggest cheerleader, the ultimate hype woman. What would she say to you right now? Give yourself the pep talk that you wish somebody would give to you. 

You don’t have to wait for somebody else to cheer you on. You can be that hype woman for yourself anytime you need it.

Make a delight list. I often teach my clients to use this tool when they want to feel better about their kids or their partner. But what about making a delight list for YOU? Grab a pen and paper and write down a list of 30 things that you like about yourself. 30 things about yourself that delight you.

Do a lovingkindess meditation. In this simple meditation, you repeat 4 sentences that will help you get in touch with deeper levels of self love.

May I be happy.

May I be peaceful.

May I be healthy.

May I live with ease.

My wish for you this week is that you grow into greater levels of self love and self compassion, that you fall deeper and deeper in love with you - the perfect, lovable, worthy, and good person that you are.

• Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzberg
• Episode 100: How Trauma Informed My Parenting
• Episode 160: A Love Letter from Your Coach

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
• Learn about the different parenting programs at www.calmmamacoaching.com
• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress for daily...

One of the reasons that being a mom is so hard is because of the pressure we put on ourselves to do everything right. We believe that if we can just be a “good” mom, we’ll prevent pain for our kids and ourselves. 

There's a belief that if we do everything right and we plan it all out, we can prevent our kids from having hard things happen to them. This is everywhere in our society. We’ve all bought into this idea that if a kid is struggling, it must be the parent’s fault.

In this episode, you’ll learn why you can’t prevent pain for your kids (and you shouldn’t anyway) and what you can do instead to support them through hard times.

We have this belief that there is a right way to parent and that we should do it that right way: naptime schedules, feeding habits, routines, school environments, activities, friend groups…the list goes on and on. 

There is so much pressure to have it all figured out and to do it all correctly.

The thought underneath it all is that if we do everything “right”, then our children will not experience pain or discomfort.

But a lot of life is outside our control, and bad things sometimes happen to all of us.

When we’re in this trap of trying to do it “right” and bad things happen, we feel GUILTY. We judge ourselves. We think that when hard things happen to our kids it must be our fault. We think that if our kid is struggling, that means we haven't done something right. 

That’s just not true. 

All the social engineering, micro-managing, hyper-planning, and bulldozing a smooth path for your kids, means you’re working super hard to prevent something you can’t stop.  It’s exhausting and will lead to burnout. 

As parents, we naturally want to protect our kids and make sure they’re okay, but we can’t control every aspect of their lives. 

Preventing shitty circumstances from happening to our kids is not possible, because life is full of hard things despite our best efforts. 

Our kids are human beings, and they are going to experience all the emotions of being human. They’re going to have conflicts, failures and mistakes.

None of us has a pain-free life.

The good news here is that we shouldn’t even try to prevent it. Through these challenges, our kids will learn how to go through pain and hardship.

And as a connected parent, your relationship with your child will even be strengthened by these hard things. 

When we blame ourselves for our kids’ pain and decide that we must be doing something wrong, panic and mom guilt set in and make it really hard to show up for your kids in the way that you want to.

You feel even MORE pressure to work harder, work more, be a better mom. 

That pressure is suffocating and can be brutal on your identity as a mom and as a woman.  

Berating yourself (even a little) doesn't actually help your kids. Because then you are making the hard thing about YOU and not helping THEM with the hard thing. You’re stuck in how this thing impacts you and your identity as a mom, more than how this hard thing is impacting your kid. 

Often, when we find ourselves micromanaging, worrying and feeling anxious about our kids’ circumstances or choices, it is because we are uncomfortable with their discomfort.

It’s hard to watch your child struggle or suffer, so we try to prevent their pain to avoid our own discomfort.

Instead, you can learn to be a compassionate witness to their pain. Rather than trying to prevent and solve all the emotional problems, you can acknowledge that the pain is there and help them through it. 

You can narrate what is happening and offer strategies to help them get their big feelings out and cope with the emotion. 

This way, you make it about your child and what they are going through.

What I want you to take away from this episode is this: No matter what is going on with your kid, you might not have done anything wrong.

My hope is that when you understand that the hard things in life are often outside your control, you feel a little bit more free to be in the present moment, rather than looking back at what you did or didn’t do. You can relax a little. You can back off a bit. 

Hard things happen. No matter what you do or don’t do as a parent. Trust that you and your kids can do hard things. It’ll be okay. 

You’ll Learn:

• Why we shouldn’t even try to prevent pain for our kids
• How to use curiosity as a tool if you are concerned about a behavior
• Examples of common painful situations and ways to address them

Next Steps

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

In motherhood, it’s normal to sometimes look at our kids’ behavior and imagine the worst case scenario. 

We’re afraid that if we don’t stop a certain behavior, our kids will struggle with it forever. For example, when my son was hitting a lot at age 4 or 5, I thought if I didn’t change that behavior he would grow up to be violent. 

In this episode I’ll walk you through how to play out that worst case scenario to figure out what you’re actually afraid of and teach you a tool to move out of that scenario.

When we are super worried about our kids, we tend to go one of two directions with our parenting. 

We either over-parent, which looks like being too strict, harsh or controlling. 

Or we under-parent, where we rescue, bribe, don’t hold limits and we don't hold our kids accountable. 

These responses are because of our own fear and anxiety, and neither of them serve our kids. 

When we try to control their decision, behaviors and outcomes, they end up not learning the thing we want them to learn.

In some ways, we create our own worst case scenario because we're not actually giving the kid the skills they need in order to change and grow and become the person that we want them to become.  

When you’re afraid that the behavior in this moment means that your child is going to have a terrible outcome in the long term, it’s pretty hard to be calm.

Sometimes, our minds spiral into fear and anxiety, and we aren’t even really sure what it is we’re so afraid of. 

This exercise is for when you’re spiraling and you want to uncover the deeper root of the fear.

Is it that…?

Step 1: What are you worried about? 

What is the behavior or situation that is making you scared?

Step 2: If this happens, what will happen next?

What are all the bad things I think will happen if I don’t solve this problem? Be specific and go deep. Keep playing it out step by step until you get to the end of the line - your actual fear.

Note: Stop before you get all the way to “they would die.” This is not a scenario we can solve for, and it is just further than we need to go.

The goal here is to fill in the blank: The thing I’m actually afraid of is ____________.

Once you’ve identified the fear, it’s time to move into the next stage and start solving for it in advance.

Step 3: Solve for your fear. 

If one of the bad things you listed above happens, then what? How would you handle it? How would you solve for it? What can you do between now and then to make sure this doesn’t happen? What skill is your child missing?

Another approach is to ask yourself, “what would I do if my worst thing happened?” In this exercise, you go all the way to the end and think about how you could solve it. 

This process allows you to put some space between what’s happening right now and your fear. It shows you that your worst case is probably unlikely, and that you still have time to do something about it. 

What you’ll start to realize is that you have plenty of time until the worst case happens, you have the ability to take action in the present moment, and you also know that in the future you'll still be an amazing human who can solve stuff. 

Some thoughts that often come up for me as I work through this are:

• The likelihood of this worst case scenario actually happening is not very big
• No matter what happens, I will always be there for my kid. My relationship with my child is stronger than this worst case.
• I can trust myself. I have solutions in my mind and I can problem-solve for this scenario. 
• The worst case is pretty far away. There is no imminent danger, and there is a lot of time between this moment and the worst case. 

My hope for you is that you walk away from this exercise feeling a little lighter, more confident, relaxed and hopeful. 

And from these new feelings, you’ll show up in the present moment differently. 

You’ll Learn:

• How worry shows up in your parenting
• My 3-step process for working through your worst case scenario
• Examples of how to solve for your fears

Past Episodes:

Episode 42: Perfectionism, Motherhood and Me

Episode 40: Codependency in Parenting

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

Robyn Reynolds is a certified professional organizer.  If organization skills are a genetic trait, it is a dominant gene for Robyn who was found organizing stuffed animals by size, shape and color before she could walk . Robyn has been quoted in the Huffington Post, Real Simple magazine, Yahoo.com, Woman’s Day magazine and numerous other publications. She has also worked on the television show “Hoarders.”

Her book, “A to Zen: 26 tips to inspire organization” offers easy-to-follow tips for homeowners to build a life based on organization, routine and simplicity all leading to greater personal fulfillment. When Robyn is not organizing and harmonizing her clients, she is spending time with her teen daughter, whom she treasures.

FB - Organize2Harmonize

Instagram - @Organize2Harmonize

https://organize2harmonize.com/

https://organize2harmonize.com/organizing-courses

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

Struggling with budgeting, saving or paying off debt? Ready to reach your money goals? This episode is for you! I’m talking with financial coach Erin Harmon all about your money and how you can use it effectively to create the life you want. 

Erin is the founder of Tranquil Finance. She helps individuals and couples get ahold of their finances and manage their brain so they can create the life and money of their dreams! 

When Erin became a mom in 2013, she started to feel a lot of pressure to provide all the things her child would need. They had student loan debt, car payments and wanted to save for emergencies and her kid’s college fund. 

It all felt overwhelming and confusing, and it created a lot of stress. On top of it all, she and her husband had very differing views on how to manage their money.

She convinced her husband to take a financial course at a local church. It helped them get on the same page, pay off debt and create an emergency fund. 

A couple more kids later, Erin discovered coaching. Her experience working with a weight loss coach combined with her friends’ interest in her own financial journey led her to start her own financial coaching business.

Erin says many people dislike the term budget because it feels restrictive, when it is really just a spending plan.

She teaches zero-based budgeting, which means that your income and expenses should equal out each month. You give every dollar you have a job. Because if we aren’t intentional with our money, it tends to disappear.

Maybe you’re overspending or living on your credit card. Or maybe you just want to know where your money is going or have goals to save up for something big. No matter what your situation, a clear budget is essential.

A budget not only helps you reach your goals, but it also removes the stress of not knowing what you can spend money on. It is a decision-making tool. It can even turn emergencies into mere inconveniences.

Start with your highest priorities and basic needs, like housing, utilities, transportation, food and clothing. The order of these priorities will be different for different families. There’s no one right way. 

Erin and her husband each get their own “fun money” every month that they can use on whatever they want, which brings a sense of freedom to their budget. 

The first conversation you need to have when it comes to your spending plan is with yourself. What is important to you when it comes to spending and saving? 

So much of our view on money is related to our values and priorities, the things or experiences we find valuable. And your values may be different from your partner’s.

Erin says that it’s actually very common to have one person in a relationship who is all about the numbers and practicality, while the other is a little more free-spirited. 

It can be hard to get on the same page. In these situations, it can be helpful to have a neutral person (like a financial coach) mediate the conversation. 

Some common conflicting values are:

Material things vs. experiences

Quality vs. quantity

Status or wanting to “match” up with others in your neighborhood or circle (e.g. cars, clothing, etc.)

None of these values or priorities is wrong, but understanding where you fall will help you plan for what you value most.

We all know that unexpected things (and lots of thoughts and feelings) come up around money. 

Money can be a major source of stress, for individuals and in relationships, especially when you feel there isn’t enough to meet your needs and goals. 

Having a money plan removes so much of the stress and anxiety because it gives you more control. 

When you have the data you need, you are empowered to make decisions that line up with your goals.

And if you feel guilty about spending on something you want, you can remind yourself that you already decided and made a plan for it. 

You can bring a sense of calm to your finances, and getting clear on your priorities, goals and budget is the first step.

Erin says you can get intentional about your finances in less than an hour a week, and start to see clear patterns in your spending after about 3 months. 

You’ll Learn:

• Why you need more than just strategies and tools to manage your money well
• How to budget without feeling restricted
• Why it is important to have a goal for your money
• Fun ways to involve your kids in the process

Connect with Erin:

Learn more about Erin and how you can work with her 1:1 at www.tranquilfinancecoaching.com

Follow Erin on Facebook and Instagram

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

Today on the podcast, I’m continuing the series of conversations with experts in all areas of life. This week, Dr. Chavonne Perotte is here and we’re talking all about your marriage.

Dr. Chavonne is a life and marriage coach who helps couples develop the mindset and skills they need to create happy marriages and partnerships. She also has a doctorate from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she focused her research on communication and intimate partnerships. 

In 25 years of marriage, I’ve been through a lot of different stages - no kids, babies, young kids and now the teen years. We’re diving into it all.

If you’ve experienced a moment in your marriage where you thought, “I really don’t know if we’re going to make it,” you are not alone. Dr. Chavonne calls this the secret thought that everyone sometimes has but is afraid to say out loud. 

She teaches her clients that there will be seasons and stages to marriage where you might question things. But that doesn’t have to be a problem. It’s what you do with those thoughts that matters.

In a relationship, both people are likely operating from models that they had growing up. Often, in couples with young or school-aged children, this looks like a dynamic of over-functioning and under-functioning. 

One person is doing more and (intentionally or not) creating a situation where the other person then does less. 

As women, we often feel uncomfortable asking for and getting exactly what we want. When it comes to asking for help from our partner, we might make it mean that we aren’t good enough as a wife or mom. We might feel guilty for accepting help. 

Somewhere along the line, we learned that it’s not ok for us to have the things that we need.

To have the dynamic and support you want, you first need to define what you really want and what partnership looks like to you. Then, make requests and advocate for what you want.

As a mom, when you’re feeling overwhelmed with all the things - parenting, home, work - it can be hard to define exactly what it is you want and need from your partner.

A request and a complaint are not the same thing, but sometimes we complain to our partner and want them to just fix it without us ever asking for what we really need.

The first step is figuring out what it is you want. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and it doesn’t have to be the one thing that solves everything. 

Start by looking for your trigger moments. These will be good clues to where you need some support.

• What are the things that constantly trigger me? Where am I feeling agitated?
• What would I need in this moment? 
• What feels off in this partnership? 
• What's a reasonable request that is honoring for both of us? 

Dr. Chavonne teaches her clients a simple formula for making a request. Share what you’re feeling, state what you would like instead and make a request.

Sometimes, your partner will say no to your request. And that’s ok. It’s a conversation between the two of you to figure out what works for you both.

Don’t make assumptions about why they said no or didn’t follow through in a certain way. Get curious and continue the conversation. 

Try to assume the best about your partner. Assume that they’re in it with you, that they want to support you and for you both to be happy.

Go back to what you want out of it. What is the need that you’re trying to get met? 

Maybe your request doesn’t need to be executed in a certain way to get the benefit you’re looking for. 

Are there other solutions that will still give you what you need and that your partner is willing to do? 

Dr. Chavonne and I could have talked for hours. There are so many amazing tips in this episode, I want you to hear them all!

You’ll Learn:

• Where many couples get stuck in their relationships
• Three reasons why one person in the relationship often ends up doing more than the other
• How to make requests of your partner that allow you both to have your needs met
• A foundational belief that changes relationships
• Why everything doesn’t have to be perfect 50/50 split

Connect with Dr. Chavonne:

Podcast: Love Marriage Again with Dr. Chavonne

Website: https://drchavonne.com/ 

Email: chavonne@berelateable.com

Book: Voices in Your Ear: New Conversations to Transform Your Mind and Renew Your Marriage.

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

This week on the podcast, I’m talking with certified intuitive eating and body image coach, Victoria Yates. We’re diving into diet, body, what we eat, how we take care of our bodies and how we think about our bodies.

As a coach for moms, my focus is on helping you become calm and care for your children the way that you want to. But I also see a lot of the other issues that affect women’s daily lives - and body image and diet are big ones!

Body image is simply how you think about your body. It has nothing to do with the physical reflection in the mirror. It is all about your thoughts.

We live in a society where “skinnier is better” and those messages can be hard to ignore.

For moms who have experienced pregnancy and postpartum, you find yourself in a whole new body after your baby is born. There’s a feeling of unfamiliarity in your own body, on top of societal pressure to get your pre-baby body back.

We’ve also been conditioned to believe that we have to take care of our kids all day and prioritize their needs over our own, so many moms just aren’t taking good care of themselves. 

But many of our body image and eating issues go back much farther than that - to the teenage years or even younger. 

Experiencing changes in our bodies is totally normal, throughout many different stages of life. It may be uncomfortable at first, but accepting those changes and developing a respectful relationship with your body leads you to care for it well.

When you’re coming from a place of self-criticism and even hatred, you might believe that if you can just lose weight, you’ll feel better about yourself. But this is backwards.

Being at war with your body is a choice. Restrictive diets may feel like a way to regain control (especially if you feel out of control in other areas of your life), but these approaches are often unsustainable and even harmful to our bodies.

We can choose instead to work on our relationships with ourselves. To respect and love ourselves so that we take action to care for our bodies in a healthier way.

The intuitive eating framework was created in the 1990s by two dietitians. Victoria explains it as a “non-diet approach” that involves building trust with your own body’s cues to hunger or fullness. 

Traditional dieting typically includes a set of external rules to follow about what, when or how much you eat. Someone else is telling you how to feed your body. 

Intuitive eating is about relearning how to listen to what your body truly needs.

It’s based on a few simple concepts. Eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full, eat foods that are satisfying, and just pay attention to how food makes you feel.

It allows for more intention and connection with your physical body.

Intuitive eating also goes deeper into healing the root of the problem when it comes to unhealthy eating habits like overeating, emotional eating or mindless eating.

Victoria says, “It’s never actually about the food. It’s always about something more, like that need of control…or perfectionism or a lack of trust in yourself.”

Victoria encourages her clients to focus on how they want to feel more than the number on the scale. To focus on what will bring more joy into their lives and make them feel more confident and energized.

Here’s a quick exercise to try. Pick a word that describes how you want to feel. Then, think about the actions you can take that will help you to feel that way. 

In the full episode, I share my own experiences with body image and intuitive eating, and Victoria answers common questions about intuitive eating and how it works and addresses common obstacles. 

• Why traditional dieting may not have worked for you in the past
• Why we still  feel drawn to restrictive diets anyway
• What intuitive eating is
• How your thoughts affect your body image

Visit Victoria’s website: victoria-yates.com

Follow on Instagram: instagram.com/nondiet_rn

Get the Free Intuitive Eating Journaling Guide: (bit.ly/starteatingintuitively)

Listen to the Redefining Health Podcast - available on all podcast platforms

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

One of my life missions is to heal the next generation in advance. So today, I’m sharing the 5 things every kid needs for emotional health.

I want to give a whole generation of moms the tools that they need in order to raise emotionally healthy kids. 

I imagine a generation of kids who grow up and already know what to do with their feelings. A generation of young adults who feel like their parents get them and who find support in their family instead of finding pain. And eventually a generation of adults who know how to communicate and be in healthy relationships.

We’re starting this process today.

This episode is an invitation to gently open your mind and think about where your family is, where you want to be and which gaps you want to work on this year.

Simply put, emotional health means that I feel good inside, I feel good in my relationships and I feel good in the world.

Of course, we can’t feel good or happy all the time, but an emotionally healthy person can feel their way and move through the hard things that come up in life.

An emotionally healthy person doesn’t need to DO things to feel better, like overeat, overdrink, overwork, overshop, etc.

It means that we know what to do with our feelings.

Raising a healthy adult starts with creating an environment where your child can grow and learn the tools they need to cope with their emotions.

Here are five things they need.

A parent who is committed to their own emotional health. This is why my program begins with CALM. It’s about how we, as the adults, regulate and process our negative emotions.

Because the truth is that most of us didn't grow up learning how to feel our feelings. 

Learning tools and strategies that help you cope with your emotions in a healthy way then allows you to be compassionate, patient and present toward your kids (and others in your life). 

Emotional literacy. The four pieces of emotional literacy are:

I know what I am feeling.

I know how to talk about or communicate that feeling.

I know what to do with that feeling.

I can do that for someone else. I can recognize feelings in someone else and help them cope (aka empathy).

A set of skills and tools to cope with their emotions in healthy ways. This is all about teaching your kid what to do with their feelings. How to process it, move through the feeling and and feel a new feeling.

This one involves a little trial and error. There are a ton of ways people can move through a feeling, and you can problem solve for which ones work best for your particular kid.

Limits and boundaries that are clearly communicated to your child and held. It is common for parents to threaten consequences to change a kid’s behavior (I’m even guilty of it myself sometimes).

Limits flip it so that you tell your kid what they can do, or what you’re willing to do, and under what conditions. 

When you communicate and follow through on these limits, your child learns what behaviors work in a community (like your family) and what behaviors don’t. 

A shame-free environment where it’s okay to make mistakes and learn from them. In order for your kids to learn, grow and become healthy, they have to act out. They have to make mistakes and show up in ways that don’t work. 

Yes, you will enforce your limits. There will be consequences for misbehavior. 

Shame-free simply means that your kid isn’t made to feel that they are a bad person for making those mistakes. Shame says there’s something inherently wrong with you or bad about you.

We don't need to attack their character or their personality. Instead, we can validate the emotion that drove their behavior, and then say, “Well, that behavior has impacts and here are the impacts. You made a mistake. How do you think you can fix it?”

The most important thing I hope you take away from this episode is that you get to focus on your emotional health. 

Because every time I watch a mom heal or grow in her own emotional well being, it has a huge impact on her kids and the whole dynamic of her family. 

• Why emotional health is such a valuable goal for your kids, your family and yourself
• My journey to emotional health
• What emotional literacy looks like in everyday life
• Examples of healthy and unhealthy coping strategies
• The difference between a threat and a limit
• How to enforce limits without shame

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

It’s the last episode of 2022! And the New Year is a time when many of us think about goals for the coming year. But have you ever set parenting goals?

Learn what parenting goals are and how to use them to pivot behavior and teach your kids new skills and values.

A parenting goal is a goal that you set for your kids based on something that you see as a gap that they need to learn. 

There are a LOT of things that kids need to learn between the time they're little all the way until the time that they're grown. 

Kids need to have skills like time management, social competency, conflict resolution, personal hygiene, understanding money, how to cook clean, how to pack for a trip and (eventually) how to drive. 

You also have values that are important to you as a parent. You might want your child to learn values like kindness, generosity, gratitude, self reliance or work ethic. 

It can be overwhelming when you look at all these different areas and see where your kid isn't meeting the standards you envision in the long term.

Rather than judge yourself or your kids for these gaps in knowledge, you can think about where your kid is now in a certain area, where you want them to be and set a goal to help them get there. 

And we can’t tackle them all at once. The goal setting process allows you to identify what is most important to you that your child learns now.

Selecting one or two parenting goals at a time will help you be intentional and strategic. 

And the more intentional we are about our children and what they need to learn, the more likely we'll reach each parenting goal.

Step 1: Name your parenting goal

When you look at your child right now, what specific skill or value would you like to help them learn?

Think about where their behavior seems off-track or problematic. Then fill in the blank: If my child had _______ skill/value, they wouldn’t act like this. 

Often when I talk about limits, I say that when a behavior is driving you crazy, it’s time for a limit. This is also a great clue to your parenting goals. It probably means your child is missing a skill or hasn't had enough practice with a value that is important to you.

Step 2: Create a plan

What limits do you need to put into place to reach the specific goal that you have in mind?

What will happen if they don’t follow through on their part of the plan or hold your limit?

Step 3: Follow through

We set limits in order to create a container for our kids to pivot a behavior or learn a new skill. And they have to be allowed to fail until they realize they don’t want to mess up anymore.

Remember, when your kid experiences the impact of their behavior, they learn from it and the behavior will change faster. Sometimes, we need to bring those impacts into our family because we can’t always wait for natural consequences to take place. 

Doing this isn’t mean. And we can do it without criticizing, lecturing or comparing them to others. 

You’ll Learn:

• What to do when the goal you set isn’t having the result you wanted
• How to use parenting goals to help your kids learn the skills and values that will serve them (and your whole family)  long term
• Which goals you should focus on first
• How to create a goal plan - with super detailed examples

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

MAMA DAY HOLIDAY is December 26!

About a decade ago, I declared the day after Christmas to be Mama Day Holiday. It was my official day off.

On Mama Day Holiday, I do NOTHING. I don't cook, clean, play with kids, or do anything I don't want to do. It's mama's day off.

Kids eat cereal for several meals, watch a lot of TV, and hopefully, happily play with all of their new toys.

I made this up because the holiday season is a LONG HAUL. It's exhausting. All of the brain-work required to plan gifts, food, photos, cards, is super draining. Plus the extra housework, gift wrapping, errand running, and cooking-cooking-cooking, is tiring!

Mamas - you deserve a day off. And no one is going to give it to you. So you have to CLAIM it.

So I hereby officially announce MAMA DAY HOLIDAY is December 26th.

Enjoy your day off!

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

In this episode, I’m talking about two of your favorite topics - meltdowns (or what I call Big Feeling Cycles) and siblings. 

In more than 10 years as a parenting coach, these come up again and again as things that are the hardest for moms. 

They are the core issues that lead moms to yell, then feel guilty and wind up stuck in a cycle of guilt, resentment, overwhelm and confusion. We want to get out of that cycle and make real improvements in the way our kids behave, manage their emotions and take personal responsibility for their actions. 

Think of the episode as some basic tools for managing meltdowns and sibling fights that you can come back when things feel tough and you need a little reminder. 

You might call this a meltdown or a temper tantrum. I like to think of it as a big feeling cycle. And I especially like to call it a cycle because this reminds us that it will end.

It all starts in a moment when your child feels completely overwhelmed. And that overwhelm, whether it’s physical, mental or emotional, shows up in an extreme way like screaming, hitting, throwing, running away, etc. 

They happen when your child doesn't know how to express their feelings in ways that work.

Your role as a parent is to become the observer. When you can see your child’s behavior from a different perspective and understand that it is pain or discomfort that they don’t know how to deal with, you will feel less panicked and it will be easier for you to help them through it.

When you soften your heart, your child will sense that softening and feel more calm.

So, how do we do that? By using the Connection Tool.

Narrate what you are seeing (one simple sentence - just the facts)

Name the emotion that might be driving the behavior (I wonder if you’re feeling…)

Validate their feelings (That makes sense)

What are we going to do next? (This where you can address the behavior and make a plan or set a limit with your kid)

First, we let our kids feel heard and seen. Then, we help them express their big feelings in ways that work. 

This tool can only work when you are calm, but the cool thing is that thinking through the steps will help to calm you down, too. 

If you have more than one child, I’m sure you’ve experienced times where multiple kids are in a big feeling cycle. Or one kid is having big feelings and another is trying to show how much better they are in that moment. Sometimes you are also having big feelings yourself. 

It’s a lot to handle.

The most important thing for you to do in this situation is to get calm. 

Take a pause break.

Stop - stop talking, stop interacting, stop doing anything for a second

Delay your reaction - don’t talk to anybody or take any action

Reset - soothe yourself and calm your nervous system

There are a few different reasons that siblings fight. They might be having big feelings about something (that may or may not have anything to do with their sibling). They might be competing over something like space, possessions or attention. They might just be bored and looking for some quick entertainment (so fun, right?).

I often encourage parents to start by letting the sibling conflict go a little bit longer and see if they can solve the problem themselves. 

Then, if you do need to step in, your role is to guide them through the conflict. You are not the judge, and it is not your job to solve their problems for them. 

Your focus is not on the back story and all the details. It's on the future - you are looking for the path forward.

You can use a combination of the connection tool and limit setting to help the figure out what is next.

There will be sibling conflict in your home. There will be moments when your kids don't listen. And I want you to know that it's okay. It doesn't mean you're a bad mom. It doesn't mean your kids are on a bad track. 

Just get yourself back to that calm place, smile, look at them as a loving observer and find lightness where you can so that you can enjoy yourself and enjoy your kids this holiday season.

You’ll Learn:

• My favorite tool to decrease the intensity and duration of meltdowns
• How to take a pause break when you need to calm down
• Scripts to help guide your kids through conflict

Next Steps

Using the Connection Tool may feel a little clunky or awkward at the beginning. It doesn’t come naturally, but it does get easier with practice. 

And it will help your kid’s big feeling cycles to be shorter and less intense (who doesn’t want that?).

If you want to learn more about the Connection Tool, how to set limits, what to do with big feelings (yours and your kid’s) and just want to stop yelling and being so reactive, you really should be in The Emotionally Healthy Kids parenting program.

It’s 6 week parenting course, taught live on zoom in a small group. You learn every single tool and concept in my Calm Mama framework - in bite-sized chunks with time for you to ask specific questions about your family. 

The first step is to book a call with me and find out if it’s a great fit for you and your family. Schedule your free call here. 

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

As we approach Valentine's Day and my upcoming series on radical self-love, you are getting a love letter from two life coaches that I recently recorded on accident. What you’ll hear today is a conversation between me and my coach and friend, Kristin Lafontaine, as we talked about what it means to heal yourself from pain, how to regulate your emotions and process hard things. 

We are two life coaches, two mamas who have been through the ringer…and two people who love you. ❤️

Even if I don't know you, I care about you. I think about you. You are important to me. I want to be a voice of hope and support for you on your journey towards deeper well-being.

The upcoming “radical self-love” series is meant to help you:

• Be kinder to yourself
• Make friends with your thoughts and feelings
• Notice patterns and strategies that are no longer serving you
• Make small decisions to change those patterns

Get a sneak peek in today’s episode, and come back next week as the series kicks off.

• How loving yourself and deciding to change can happen at the same time
• A new way to think about “past you”
• Why trusting all stages of yourself is so important
• The 3 words I love to add onto difficult feelings or circumstances

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
• Learn about the different parenting programs at www.calmmamacoaching.com
• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress for daily tips 
• Rate and review the podcast on Itunes

Around the holidays, everything sort of gets unstructured and chaotic. We get really busy. We get overwhelmed. Our kids lose the sense of routine that we've been establishing. And it stresses us out!

As parents, it's good for us to stop and think about how we want our winter break to go and how we want this holiday season to feel. 

And a big part of creating the break you want is getting clear on some of the things that you want to set limits around over the next few weeks. 

When you pre-decide how you want things to go and set routines and limits around them, you’ll be less confused (and so will your kids). You’ll also have less overwhelm, conflict and yelling. 

In this episode, we’re talking all about holiday limits for kids - with lots of examples and ideas you can make your own.

Limits are good for our kids and good for us. They help our kids learn to think for themselves, take personal responsibility and believe that we're going to follow through. 

Limits also help us as parents to feel really calm about communicating our expectations and confident that we know how to handle misbehavior when it happens. 

In the beginning, this might feel pretty hard. Your kids aren’t going to suddenly start complying all the time because you’ve laid out a limit. 

This is because up until now, your kids may have been trained to believe they don’t have to comply. 

It’s totally normal for your kid not to do what you ask right away when they have their own plans and no motivation to change their behavior. 

The “traditional” command-threat model often plays out like this…Request. Repeat. Command. Threat. Yell. Guilt.

This is really a fear-based model. And it may get compliance in the short-term, but our goal is to stop yelling and to help our kids learn the social and emotional skills to manage themselves in the long-term.

This is where limits come in. A limit outlines both what your child can do or have and under what conditions. The consequence is built in without making it sound like a threat.

For example, you’re welcome to stay sitting here and watching the play as long as you are quiet. So, the implied consequence is that if your child is not quiet, you will leave the play.

With limits, we’re activating desire, rather than fear. We’re motivating them to get something instead of trying to get them to stop something (which is much harder).

The cool thing about limits is that regardless of the choice your child makes, they are going to learn from it. They’ll learn what they need to do to get the things they want and that it’s really in their best interest to listen to you because it benefits them. 

Just because we aren’t yelling and threatening doesn’t mean there are no consequences for misbehavior. Remember, it’s built right into the limit. 

But if you want limits to work, you have to be willing to follow through. 

Often, a parent avoids following through on a consequence because they don’t want to deal with the meltdown. You want to avoid those big feelings because they are uncomfortable for your child and for you.

But I see these big feeling cycles as a GOOD thing, because it allows you to teach your kid how to deal with their emotions in better ways. So they can handle disappointment, hurt, anger and sadness. 

As the leader of your family, you have a lot of control and power over the dynamic in your household. 

Getting clear on what is important to you and what you are willing to commit to following through on is the first step.

If you’ve struggled with following through in the past, it may be in part because that limit - whether it’s sweets, screentime or whatever - just wasn’t actually that important to you. And that’s ok.

My favorite way to figure out what limits to set is to think about what behaviors you are annoyed or angry about. This is a great clue that you need a limit. 

Then, decide what you want to happen and use the limit setting formula to put it into words.

In the full episode, you’ll hear a ton of examples related to sweets, screens, sleep, hygiene, cleaning and more that you can borrow or adjust to use in your home this holiday season.

You’ll Learn:

• Why your kids don’t listen, and the early challenges of limit setting
• The difference between and limit and a request
• How to use the limit setting formula to create a calmer home

Mentioned in this episode:

Episode 4: Setting Limits That Work

https://www.calmmamacoaching.com/blog/setting-limits-that-work

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

This week on the podcast, I’m diving into boundaries - How to say no, how to set boundaries with kindness, and how to communicate your boundaries in a way that works. I’m giving you my detailed, step by step process that you can use with the teens and adults in your life.

Ultimately, we set boundaries because we want to feel better. We want our life to work better for us. We want to have better relationships with people. We don't want to feel angry, resentful or overwhelmed. 

Showing up as the mom you want to be and helping your kids grow into the people that you want them to become takes capacity and energy. 

Without clear boundaries, we end up feeling drained and it takes us away from being present with our kids. 

Before you communicate and hold your boundaries, you have to know what they are. 

You need to figure out what you actually want or how you want to fix or improve your relationships with others. You can even think about behaviors you want other people to change. Remember that we can’t control what anyone else does, but we can make a request and ask them if they're willing to show up in a different way for us.

A good clue that you need a boundary is if you often feel annoyed, frustrated, angry or resentful with a certain behavior or situation.

Get curious and try to figure out why it bothers you the way it does. 

Step 1: Make a request

The first step in setting a boundary is communicating what you are or are not willing to do. 

This is a request that we make to someone else. We either ask them if they're willing to do something or we let them know what we are willing to do and under what conditions.

Start by asking yourself:

What do I want? 

What works for me? 

What is going to make my life better? 

What is going to make this situation work?

Step 2: Wait for the answer

Making a request or setting a boundary doesn’t mean that the other person will agree. They can respond any way they choose. It might bring up some feelings for them, and that’s ok.

Your job is to be open and curious about what comes up.

You can let their response just be words and sentences that are coming out of their head. You don't need to justify your request, defend yourself, or fix that uncomfortable, awkward moment. 

You just listen. Then circle right back to the original request and say, “Yes, I hear you on all of that. And I'm asking you, would you be willing to do this?”

Step 3: Observe the situation

This is where you wait and see what happens. How will they show up? Will they hold the boundary you set? 

Pay attention and notice whether or not the person is staying within your boundary or whether you’re crossing your own boundary to avoid uncomfortable situations or conflict. 

What I see with moms sometimes is that we actually give up on ourselves before letting the person respond. You decide that your boundary doesn't matter. But what you’re really telling yourself is that you don't matter, that what you want doesn't matter. 

You actually do really matter. Your energy, your time, your brain and your body. 

Step 4: Acknowledge what’s happening

It's important for your own sense of self worth that you acknowledge what is happening to you. Acknowledge whether someone is holding or crossing your boundary. Acknowledge your experiences and feelings. 

And if you want to (and feel safe), you can acknowledge it aloud to the other person.

Step 5: Decide to take action or not

It’s up to you whether or not you take action when a boundary has been crossed. 

Ask yourself, “How can I take really good care of myself right now? What do I need here?”

Sometimes that means not doing anything but noticing what is happening and making note of how you want to be in the future. 

Action can look like removing yourself from the room or turning down the invitation next time. 

Or you can choose to talk to the other person about it. Explain that your boundary was crossed and what you want to do next. 

This is hard, but the more you teach yourself that you matter and take action to care for yourself, it gets easier.  

It can even improve your relationships over time when you clearly communicate and hold your boundaries. It becomes more nurturing, supportive, loving, kind and safe.

Listen to the full episode for lots of examples and scripts you can use to practice setting your own boundaries.

You’ll Learn:

• Why we need boundaries
• The hardest thing about setting boundaries (and how to work through it)
• My 6 step process to setting and following through on boundaries
• How to say “no” and communicate boundaries with kindness (with scripts)

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

Overwhelm often comes from thoughts like…

I have so much to do. I don't know what to do. I'm so behind.

I don't know where to start. I'll never get this all done. I suck.

These are just thoughts. They are sentences in your head. They aren't necessarily true.

But thinking them can lead you to become overwhelmed and self-critical.

Sometimes the simple act of writing all the things down that are in your head can help you feel less overwhelmed. 

In this episode I’m walking you through a simple exercise called “The Holiday Thought Dump” 

Doing a holiday thought dump helps you clear out all of the jumble of junk in your mind, leaving space for your brain to work out solutions. 

Sometimes the key to overwhelm is just about giving your brain one task to solve at a time.

The other cool thing I teach you in today’s episode is the YES list. 

What happens when you dump out all the things you “have” to do, is that you can start thinking about the things you want to do!

Kick off December 2022 with hope and clarity, instead of overwhelm and grumpiness. 

You’ll Learn:

✅ Where overwhelm comes from

✅ How a holiday thought dump helps give you clarity

✅ Prompts to get you thinking about what you WANT to do this holiday

✅ Permission to stop worrying about other people’s feelings. 

NEXT STEPS

I want to invite you to start next year off with all the support you need to become the mom you want to be, and raise kids who are emotionally healthy. 

That’s why I’m inviting you to schedule a discovery session with me.

This is your chance to share your parenting struggles with an expert, who has heard it all, and helped moms just like you become calm and confident. 

During the call I listen as you share what's going on with your family, what you've tried, and what's not working.

You share with me what you want to see improve in your family. 

We talk about your "blind spots" and what it would be like to work together. 

I answer your questions about my parenting philosophy and the 3 ways you can work with me. 

Book your free discovery session with me here.

With this podcast episode released on Thanksgiving, I’m talking all about gratitude, how it relates to children, how it relates to parenting, and what I'm calling weaponized gratitude.

In Brene Brown's book, Atlas of the Heart, she defines gratitude as, “an emotion that reflects our deep appreciation for what we value, what brings meaning to our lives, and what makes us feel connected to ourselves and others.”

So it isn’t just about saying thank you, it’s an emotion. And it requires that we look for the good and take the time to fully feel that appreciation. 

This isn’t something that comes naturally to humans, so it is a perspective and mindset that we need to cultivate and practice. 

The good news is that when you do that practice, it can become really easy to access those thankful thoughts and feelings.

Gratitude is really hard for our kids, and here’s why. 

First, it has to do with their developmental stage. Because of the way their brains are developed, kids aren’t really able to see different perspectives until around age 9 or 10.

Also, many of our kids don’t experience a lot of struggle. As parents, we want our kids' lives to be mostly simple, easy and happy. So for them, good is the norm. They don’t have much other life experience yet to compare it with. Basically, they don’t know how good they’ve got it.

In many ways, we’ve taught them that. We've taught them to expect ease. We've taught them to think that the world revolves around them.

But then we get mad at them for we get mad at them when they're not feeling grateful for a nice house or a loving family whatever you want your kids to be grateful for.

I want to tell you that you don’t have to make them wrong for their ignorance or lack of perspective. It’s a part of development. 

The best way for you to cultivate gratitude in your kids is to model it for them.

Something I see often as I coach moms is when a mom starts to share with me a challenge in her life and expresses her feelings, like hurt, disappointment or sadness, and she stops herself and sort of backs up a bit. Then, she says things like, “I shouldn't even be complaining,” “I’m being so whiny,” “I know I have it better than other people.”

This is what I think of as weaponizing gratitude. You are using gratitude as a weapon to shut down your feelings. 

Trying to ignore the feeling, manufacture gratitude and bypass your negative emotions does not work. It doesn’t help you. 

What you need is a safe place to dump some of the junk that's going on.You need to have your feelings acknowledged, allowed and accepted, either by yourself or by whoever you're talking to.

We all have lots and lots of feelings. And sometimes those feelings are not so great. We don't need to judge our negative feelings and then tell ourselves we should be grateful. 

Now don’t get me wrong - I love gratitude. But I can only feel that feeling of gratitude because I've opened myself up to all the other feelings, the anger, the resentment, the sadness, the disappointment, the grief.  All any feeling ever wants us to be felt

Gratitude is a wonderful emotion, but you cannot fake it. It's calm after the storm. Because gratitude is really perspective. And perspective only comes when we take an honest account of our lives, when we're looking at what is hard and what is great. 

It's okay to feel disappointed. It's okay to feel angry, it's okay to feel sad. It's okay to feel hurt. None of these are the opposite of gratitude, but we have to acknowledge them all. 

Once you process your negative emotion, gratitude is on the other side.

There are three practices that have helped me access gratitude faster. When I use these strategies regularly, they help me shift towards gratitude with greater ease, so that once I move through my negative emotion, gratitude is easy for me to find.

You can use these on your own or with your kids to cultivate more gratitude within your family.

#1 As part of my daily journaling, I complete this sentence, “I am grateful for _____ because ______.” I love adding the “because” to this sentence. Adding the benefit or reason I am grateful for what I’ve focused on for that day deepens my appreciation of it. 

#2 Write a list of 10 things you really really wanted in the past and now you have. This is a great exercise for perspective and finding genuine gratitude! 

#3 Switch the focus of the holiday season from 'getting' to 'giving': Bring your kids into the gift giving process and allow them to pick out gifts for others. Set a budget and talk about the reason you chose that amount for each gift.

Let the kids pick gifts within the range. Have them wrap them. The more invested they are in giving, the less focus they will have on receiving.

You’ll Learn:

• Why we have to practice gratitude (it doesn’t come naturally)
• How to help your kids be more grateful
• Why “good vibes only” isn’t actually so good
• 3 strategies for cultivating more gratitude in your family

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

Today, I’m getting a little personal and sharing my story of perfectionism - how I realized I was struggling with it in the first place, where it came from, what it looked like in my life and some of the strategies I’ve used to get out of my own perfectionism. 

Of course, I’m also talking about how it relates to being a mom and what happens when we, as women and mothers, try to do everything perfectly.

For a long time, I didn’t identify as a perfectionist. I thought I was someone who just gets stuff done. But it turned out that getting everything done all the time was what I wanted to be perfect at. 

What that meant for me is when I didn't do all the things that I had said I was going to do (either commitments to myself or others), I would feel like absolute shit. Even if I was sick. If there was something I couldn’t get done, I felt terrible.

And then I would use that crappy feeling to push myself to be more and more productive.

Not that long ago, I realized that I actually wasn’t okay. And I wasn’t okay with beating myself up this way.

I would wake up in the morning feeling pressure, feeling like I was already behind, immediately running through in my mind all the things I had to do.

I thought that getting it all done is what would make me feel better. When really, I was using productivity as a coping strategy for my own insecurity.

Perfectionism is a coping strategy. The root of it will be a little different for everyone, and figuring it out starts with curiosity.

I developed this strategy early in life to cope with a difficult childhood.

I was worried that if I didn’t get everything on my list done, people would be mad at me. I felt like I was one mistake away from full abandonment by everyone who was important to me. And I felt so much responsibility for everybody else's emotions towards me. 

I was trying to keep myself safe from being left or hurt. 

This pressure is also built into our society. We’re taught that sacrifice is a virtue, especially in motherhood. That the best mom is also the most tired mom. And that our value is based on how we perform.

There's this pressure on women to do it all, do it all well, and smile while you're doing it.

It breaks my heart.

My coping strategy of high productivity was hurting me. It was putting so much pressure on me. The overplanning, checklists and hyperproductivity were a way to protect myself from the feeling that I wasn’t safe, good enough or lovable. It was like my drug.

But I didn't want that pressure anymore. I wanted to find a way to feel lovable, worthy, relaxed and peaceful.

I wanted to be free. I wanted to love myself and trust myself. And I didn't want to keep using that old coping skill of shoving it down and getting it all done.

I wanted to explore the question, “Even if I don’t do everything, can I still be okay?” 

What I’ve learned about myself is that I am not a lazy, horrible, mean person - even when I’m not doing all the things. 

I’m still really lovable, and my family and friends still care about me. I'm not as at risk of abandonment and rejection as I thought I was.

I also learned that even if I don't follow my own rules of life for days at a time, I still don’t become my worst fear. I still take care of myself, work hard and achieve goals.

I realized that when I listen to my body, my heart and soul, when I take excellent care of myself…the pressure lessens, or even goes away. 

Because I know that I can trust myself even if I don't follow my own list of rules one day. I’m not a lost cause. I can just give myself what I need and get back to my goals the next day. When I care for myself, I have more capacity to be productive later. 

This is what self care really has become for me - deep listening and deep trust, letting go of that pressure to be perfect.

I’ve also identified different tools to help me cope with my insecurity, anxiety or overwhelm. Things like taking a walk, reading, going to the beach with my kids, calling a friend or just laying down. 

This stuff is pretty uncomfortable to share, but I think it will help you in your own journey toward deeper self love, self acceptance, and self trust.

You are worthy of love and have the right to call yourself a good mom, no matter how your kids behave. 

You're worthy of love and have the right to call yourself a good mom, even if you prioritize your wellbeing over your children's schedule, diet, schoolwork, sports events, social life, and whatever else society tells you is the most important thing.

You are worthy of love purely because you're here in the world right now.

• Why perfectionism is so common with moms - and how it’s hurting us
• How our society pressures us to do it all
• What I’ve learned through my own struggle with perfectionism
• Strategies to find more peace and self love

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

In this episode, I’m talking all about boundaries, limits and rules. What is the difference between them? And how can you best utilize them, especially as we go into the holiday season?

A rule is when you say what your child can or can’t do. Rules are a first step in teaching your kid how to listen, be responsible and think

A limit takes it a step further. It communicates to your child what they can do and the conditions that they can do it under.

A boundary is what you are or are not willing to do, and under what conditions. It’s a lot more about what you are comfortable with as a person. 

So, rules and limits tell your child what they can or can’t do, and boundaries tell them what you are willing to do.

Rules, limits and boundaries all have a place and a purpose. 

The most important thing is to be intentional about why you are setting them. You have to think in advance about what you want and what results you hope you see.

In addition, your rules will become more effective when you can turn them into limits. 

When your child doesn’t follow a rule, you might be left feeling confused about what to do next. With a limit, that step is built in.

Inside my coaching programs, I teach a six-step limit setting process that includes:

1. Choose what you want.
2. Commit to the result. 
3. Check your capacity.
4. Communicate your limit or boundary.
5. Check back in.
6. Consequence (follow through on your limit or boundary).

Boundaries are more about what you as an individual are okay with, and they come into play not only in parenting, but in our adult relationships as well. 

Remember that you cannot control what other humans (kid or adult) are going to do or say. You can only control the way you respond.

Even if you can clearly state what you are or are not comfortable with, following through when people don’t respect your boundaries can feel really hard.

Because when you enforce or you maintain your own boundary, other people are going to have thoughts and feelings about that. They might get upset, argue with you, blame you, defend themselves, or rage. 

They are resisting the consequence or impact of their actions.

In people-pleasing, we try to avoid this discomfort. We want to make everybody happy and we don’t want others to be upset with us. 

But then YOU end up being the one who’s unhappy and uncomfortable. And that’s not what we want.

Holding people accountable to their behavior doesn’t have to include shame, lectures or convincing the other person that our boundary or limit is ok.

And they are entitled to their thoughts and feelings. They are allowed to have that experience of you or think negative thoughts about you. It's okay. That's the way that they are processing their experience of you holding the boundary.

You often only have to really get serious about a limit or boundary a few times before the limit becomes much more clear with your kid and they begin to be more compliant. This is training, discipline - it’s what parenting is all about.

You’ll Learn:

• The difference between boundaries, limits and rules (with real-life examples)
• Strategies to decide what you want your rules, limits and boundaries to be
• How to know you need a limit or boundary
• My 6-step process for setting effective limits

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

Today on Become A Calm Mama, I'm talking about a concept called codependency and how it shows up in parenting. 

Our children are naturally dependent on us to care for them. In this episode, I’ll help you understand the difference between healthy dependency and a less healthy codependent model.

I’ll also give you some guidelines to figure out if codependency is a struggle for you and what to do about it. 

As parents, we are responsible for meeting our children's physical, practical, financial and emotional needs that they can't meet for themselves because of their developmental stage. And the goal as they get older is that they become more and more capable of meeting their own needs. 

Healthy dependency looks like taking care of our kids because they can't take care of themselves yet. This type of parenting is guided by our big picture vision of helping our children become adults who are dependent on themselves. 

In a codependent relationship, you need something from the other person in order for you to feel good about yourself.

You lose sight of yourself and decide that the needs of someone else are more important than your needs. 

Codependency in parenting is when you, as the parent, need something from your kid in order to feel good. Your identity or self worth as a person gets woven into your role of caregiving, and it creates an unhealthy dynamic in your parent-child relationship. 

There are three areas where I see this come up a lot in parenting. 

You need your kid to need you. You are dependent on them to have your emotional needs met. You need to be needed in order to feel valuable and to feel that your life has purpose. This often leads to a lot of rescuing, extreme helpfulness and wanting to make decisions for your child.

You need your kid to be happy in order for you to feel happy. Of course we want to have compassion and connection with our kids, but the problem arises when you are not able to shift your own emotion until your child shifts theirs.

You need approval from others (your kids or other people) in order to feel secure. You look outside of yourself for validation of your self-worth. This typically shows up as people-pleasing. In parenting, you might put a lot of pressure on yourself and your family to present yourself in a certain way. It can also look like you needing your kid to like you or approve of you, which leads to struggles with setting limits, holding boundaries or allowing your kid to experience discomfort.

If you identify with any of these situations, I want you to know you’re not alone. It’s super normal to struggle because we are socialized to be codependent (especially as women). 

You don’t need to utilize all 5 of these strategies. Just pick one thing that you want to work on and come back later when you’re ready for another.

Detach. Rather than detaching from yourself, we're going to detach from the other person and our need for them to be to feel good or our need for their approval. Instead, we're going to begin to look for happiness inside of ourselves. 

Self-soothe. Learn how to feel your feelings, and find ways to allow those emotions to move through you. Catch yourself and take a pause break. 

Speak kindly to yourself. Stop being so mean to yourself and learn to coach yourself into new ways of thinking.

Cultivate self-trust. Build the belief that you can handle anything that happens. 

Set better limits and boundaries. Hold your kids and others accountable when they don’t keep within your limits. 

If some of this feels really heavy to you, I want you to really take care of yourself and give yourself a lot of love and kindness.

Beating yourself up and criticizing yourself is not the pathway to change. Awareness is the pathway to change. 

Let's shift. Let's grow, Let's heal. 

You’ll Learn:

• How to tell the difference between healthy dependency and codependency in parenting
• 3 areas where I see codependency come up for parents (and why it happens)
• Why it is so common to struggle with codependency
• 5 key strategies to release yourself from codependency

Resources:

Melody Beattie’s book “Codependent No More”

Episode 4: Setting Limits that Work

Episode 9: Pause & Reset Your Emotions

Episode 10: Pause & Reset Your Mind

Episode 36: Overcoming Fear With Raising Teens

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

Parents often say to me that their child “is being disrespectful” or that “their behavior is disrespectful”. But is it? And if so, what can you do about it?

In this episode, you’ll learn how to tell the difference between respectful and disrespectful behavior, why not everything falls into one of those two categories and how to create mutual respect in your family. 

One of the concepts I teach in my program, The Calm Mama Club, is this idea of mutual respect.

This means that as a parent you are cultivating community within your family. This looks like: I care about you. I will help you. I am willing to be uncomfortable for your benefit. I'm willing to delay gratification so that you will be more comfortable or have your needs met. AND you are willing to do those things for me.

We all have different needs, desires and expectations, and we can come together and figure out how to meet everybody's needs. This won’t be perfect. You won’t make everyone happy every time. The important part is talking about it and considering if it could be possible and how to do it.

I share a few different definitions of respect in this episode. Essentially, it means that we are willing to pay attention to and have concern for another person. We look at what is in their body, mind and heart, and we are willing to see it all as important.

Parents often think that their child is disrespecting them because the child is not being considerate of their feelings, wishes, rights or traditions. 

But having disrespect goes beyond just not considering. Disrespect is a way of thinking, an attitude of not caring about another person’s feelings, wishes and rights. It even goes so far as having ill regard for somebody else's feelings or desires.

I want to offer another perspective, one that lies somewhere between respect and disrespect. Something more neutral.

Non-regard or non-respect.

In non-respect, the child is in their own needs, feelings and wishes and they are simply not able to hold your feelings, wishes, thoughts and desires in mind. 

It's not an active attempt to disregard what you want or need. It's just a non-regard. You're just not part of their thought process in that moment. And this is developmentally normal for kids.

Now of course you're going to want your kids to learn this concept of mutual respect. We want them to grow and be able to have high regard for us. To have respect for us. To consider our feelings and wishes and rights. We want them to be able to think about our time and our resources and consider the impact that their behavior or request might have on us.  

We want to give our kids this ability to grow and to respect others. And we can do it in two ways.

Model self-respect

Your children will look to you to show them how you want to be treated. You can teach them what it means to be in a relationship with you. 

That means you must think of yourself with high regard, consider your feelings and wishes and prioritize your own emotional wellbeing. 

Limit setting is a great tool to hold your boundaries and show your child what respectful behavior looks like. 

Show respect

This looks like being considerate of your child’s wishes and holding their feelings in high regard. It doesn’t mean that you need to give in to every wish.

It looks like recognizing and validating your child’s needs and emotions. 

This is connection. 

It's a lot easier for someone to give respect when they feel respected. They know how good it feels and are more willing to do that for other people. That's how you cultivate mutual respect in a family.

• What disrespect really looks like (and what it doesn’t)
• Why showing respect is challenging for kids
• What you can do to encourage respectful relationships in your family

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

The difference between being mean and being firm can be confusing.

A lot of moms think that when they are firm with their children, they are being mean.

For example - when you have one of your kids pulling your other kid’s hair, it’s not mean to say “Stop that. Or Don’t do that. That’s not safe. ” with a firm voice. 

Or when your child is hitting you or spitting on you. It’s not mean to say “No. Don’t hit me. My body stays safe.” 

Moms will say to me “i was so mean. I’m such a terrible mom.”

And I’ll say “tell me what happened” and often as they share the story, they tell me things like i’ve just described. They’ve used a firm voice when their kid was doing something unsafe. Or they set a boundary with their body. Or when they’ve clearly communicated to their child that their behavior doesn’t work.

When your 3 year old is screaming in a restaurant, It’s not mean to take them outside and with a very clear voice say “Screaming in a restaurant isn’t ok. We will go back inside when your body is calm. Let me help you by jumping up and down together.”

When your 8 year old is using swear words, it’s not mean to say “Those words are not ok. You can stay here with us as long as you use kind words”. It’s also not mean to say “Looks like you are using potty words, you can go into the bathroom and say those and come out when you’re ready.”

It’s not mean to let your child know that because they made you late for work 4 times this week you aren’t willing to drive them to the mall on Saturday. 

It’s not mean to leave your 7 year old at home with mom or day when you go to target (even if you promised) if they called you a stupid wicked woman earlier that day.  

It’s not mean to hold a 4 year olds hands when they are hitting you or their sibling. 

It’s not mean to not give your teen their allowance or let them drive the car or buy them a new dress  or tie  for homecoming  if their room is a mess.

• Using a firm voice isn’t mean.
• Keeping people safe isn’t mean.
• Having limits isn’t mean.
• Enforcing your boundaries isn’t mean.
• Following through on consequences isn’t mean.

Don’t confuse being firm with being mean. 

Being mean is when you hurt your child’s body. It’s when the moment of holding their arm to protect yourself or others becomes you squeezing too hard, or shoving their body away. 

There might be a moment or many moments when you’ve been physical with your child in a way that crossed a line. Or moments when you’ve called your child a mean name. Or lectured them into shutdown mode. Cornered them with your rage. 

And right now, if you are hearing me say these examples, you might be flooded with shame and guilt. 

The way to get out of that shame and guilt is to talk about these moments. To find out what was going on for you in that moment. To be tender enough with yourself that you can say what you did, and ALSO explore what led up to that moment. You can’t change something if you won’t look at it. 

I want to model this for you. I’m going to share with you - right now- a moment when I was too physical with my child. A moments when instead of being firm, I was mean. And this is are hard to admit. But I also know that when we keep moments like this in the dark, we are strangled by the shame of those moments. We get stuck in that shame of feeling like we are bad and wrong. And being stuck in shame is the opposite of becoming calm. 

Ok, so there was this moment when Lincoln was around 18 months. We were on a camping trip and it was hot and dusty and I was pretty overwhelmed by it. Keeping a baby safe around a fire and with dirt and all of that was hard for me. We hadn’t slept much. It was the morning, and it was just lincoln and I in the tent and he needed a diaper change. While I was changing his diaper, he kicked me in the stomach. I have no idea if it was a hard kick or not, but it hurt. And without a second of pause, I slapped his leg. It was kick/slap. Like that fast. 

And I saw that red handprint on his little leg and I was filled with GUILT. Guilt is a normal emotion and it makes sense to feel it when we do something wrong. When we hurt someone. When we are mean. 

Then, almost immediately, I was flooded with shame. Shame is different from guilt. Guilt says I did something wrong. Shame says there’s something wrong with me. In that moment I was like “I am a terrible mom. I shouldn’t even be a mom, If other moms knew I did this they would hate me. I hate me” Then I catastrophized the moment and made it mean a lot about the future “Im going to fuck up this kid. He’s going to be such a mess. I’m ruining him”. 

In that moment I didn’t admit I needed help. My shame kept me trapped. I didn’t really address my rage. My reactivity. The trauma response I was acting out. 

Let me say a quick note on what I mean by trauma response – As a child I experienced a lot of abuse and neglect. One of my coping strategies was to be hypervigilant and protective of myself to make sure I didn’t get hurt. Those protective strategies worked until I became a mom. Cuz kids hit, they kick, they spit, they scream, they do all sorts of “out of bounds” behaviors because they are young and don’t know any better. They are just acting out all of their feelings and it’s our job to teach them how to act those feelings out in ways that work for everybody. But my brain saw their behaviors as an actual threat to my safety and core identity. So I got bigger, louder, stronger, meaner, colder, hotter - basically I did all sorts of mean things to shut their shit down so I could feel better. 

Was it mean to hit my kid? Yes. It was. But here’s the thing. We have to talk about the mean things in order to get help to change. If shame would have kept me stuck, I would have stayed in the “i’m a mean mom” story, 

I would never have learned how to be a calm mama. 

I didn’t get help with my rage until Lincoln was 4. And even then, it took me a few years before I was able to regularly stop being mean with my body. 

 It has taken me longer to stop being mean with my mouth. 

Being mean with your mouth is when you personalize your kid’s behavior or mistakes and say something about them as a person.

What is wrong with you? You always do this. People aren’t going to like you if you do things like this. You’re mean. You’re a liar. You never change. Keep eating like that and you’re going to be fat. Don’t be a cry baby.

You get the point. I don’t want to go too far with these, because it feels awful to hear them.

Lectures are often mean.

Insults are mean.

Name calling is mean.

Physical aggression is mean.

Threats are mean.

Sometimes rescuing your kid from a mistake is mean…

If you are in a pattern of being mean, the first thing you want to do is admit it to someone. Either to your partner, your sister, your best friend. Or book a complimentary session with me and we can talk about it. That’s the reason I started working as a parent coach. To help you understand WHY you act the way you do, and get tools to change. And to help you understand WHY your kids act the way they do, and get tools to teach them.

As I’ve done this work over the past 10 years, I’ve learned just how valuable it is to un-shame our experiences as moms in a community. With other moms who are healing and learning and growing alongside of you. 

So here’s your takeaway for this week.

When you have the thought – I’m so mean,  Look at what you actually said or did. Maybe you were being firm? Maybe you were being very clear with your limits and boundaries? Maybe your child needed to experience the impact of their behavior and choices so you followed through on your consequences. 

If you think good-ole parenting and being the leader in your family is MEAN, your kids will definitely pick up on that energy. They will decide that there aren’t any grown ups around and maybe they should be in charge. They won’t know when the rules matter and when they don’t. Then you’ll feel super frustrated that they don’t follow your rules or keep within your boundaries, and you might slip into meanness in order to get back control.

The best thing you can do is find your firm, strong, leadership voice as a mom. Get clear on what is and what is not allowed in your family. Be firm, without being harsh. 

I’ll leave you with this quote from one of my clients who said “Firm limits are the shortcut to the behavior you want without making your kid feel like shit in the process”. Yep. Firm, but not mean. You’ve got this. Have a great week.  

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet at https://www.calmmamacoaching.com/stopyelling.

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

After 10 years of coaching parents, I’ve said a lot of things. But there are certain pieces of information, advice and mindset shifts that I come back to over and over again. 

In this episode, I’m sharing the five things I say the MOST as a parenting coach.

And even if you’ve heard me say some of these before, they’re always worth hearing again. 

#1 Be comfortable with your kid’s discomfort. 

It’s in the tough moments of life where real learning and growing happens. And this can be hard for us to witness as parents. 

Comfort with their discomfort looks like compassion without blame, shame, rescuing or saying “I told you so”. 

#2 Feelings drive behavior.

All behavior is a result of thoughts and feelings, including your children's misbehavior.

When kids don't know what to do with their feelings, they show up in ways that don't work (hitting, shouting, complaining, whining, name-calling, refusal, ignoring, etc).

But what if these behaviors don’t mean anything about our child’s character? What if these behaviors are just a form of communication? A way for your child to express their feelings?

#3 Parent the kid in front of you.

I like to say parent the kid in front of you, not the one you think you should have or the one you are afraid they'll become.

If your kid makes a mistake or misbehaves, that's information and insight to what your child already knows and what they still need to learn.

#4 Consistency is bullshit. Commitment is key. 

Parents are always told that they should be consistent. Consistency is based around the idea to do the same thing every time, every day, in the same way.

Being consistent isn't possible, really. Because life isn't consistent.

I teach my clients to focus on commitment. When you are committed to a new limit, when you really want something to happen (like bedtime, chores, screen rules, no toys at the table, whatever), and it doesn't work out right away, you won't get so discouraged. You won't need to blame yourself.

Instead, you will reset and keep showing up for yourself, no matter how many times life gets in the way.

#5 Motherhood is a relationship, not a job.

When moms feel guilty, it's usually because they are trying to solve problems that aren't theirs.

This happens when you think being a mom is your "job".

In a job, you are responsible for a specific outcome. You have to complete certain tasks to get a result and if you don't do those tasks, the job doesn't get done and it's your fault.

You aren't responsible for your children's outcomes. And that can be a hard thing to accept.

I encourage you to pick one of these ideas and practice it this week. And listen to the full episode for a deeper dive.

You’ll Learn:

5 game-changing parenting concepts

How different coping strategies show up in your kid’s behavior

The difference between consistency and commitment

How the way you view your role as a mom might lead to guilt or disappointment

If you want help with any of the concepts I talked about on the podcast this week, I encourage you to join Calm Mama Club. 

There's so much cool stuff happening in that group. You’ll have access to weekly live group coaching calls, a new support group for parents of teens and Calm Mama Happy Hours and Coffee Mornings. 

You’ll connect with like-minded mamas in the private Facebook group and there are tons of course materials and resources available to you on demand. 

It’s everything you need to get calm and be more connected to your kid. Join us now. 

In last week’s episode, I talked about how to forgive yourself when you yell, shame, hurt, or otherwise show up in a way you don’t love as a parent. Today, we’re talking about what comes next - saying “I’m sorry” and having a repair conversation with your child. 

You’ll Learn:

• Why saying “I’m sorry” is so important (and why it’s only one piece of repair)
• 4-step formula for a repair conversation (with examples)
• What you need to do before you have this conversation with your kid
• How to repair after a longer period of time when you weren’t showing up as the parent you want to be

It’s normal to lose it with your kid. What’s important is how you choose to handle it afterward. 

----------------------------------------------

You know what this looks like…

Your kid keeps complaining about what you’re serving for dinner. 

Or they keep asking for something over and over, even though you already said no. 

Or they start hitting their sibling while you’re trying to make an appointment on your phone. 

You lose your compassion and patience and get angry, overwhelmed, irritated, or frustrated. You get dysregulated, short-tempered, and disrespectful toward your child. 

Children are very self centered. That's their natural way of viewing the world. They're pretty sure the world revolves around them. 

So when they notice that you’re mad, they will automatically think that they are the reason. And further, they’ll think that something is wrong with who they are. They don’t know how to separate their core self from their behavior yet. They internalize our anger, and it's very easy for them to go into shame. 

This means that when you yell or get upset, you have to go back and give your child some understanding of why you behaved the way you did. We call this repair. 

You explain to them that you were in a big feeling cycle, and you didn’t use your tools of taking a pause or deep breathing or moving your body or whatever you typically use to calm yourself. 

The conversation is about repairing your relationship with your child, as well as their self-esteem and internal self-talk (basically your kid’s relationship with themself). 

Here are some signs that your child might need a repair conversation with you. You might notice that they:

• Seem deflated
• Withdraw from you
• Look confused by your face or your behavior
• Cry
• Run away
• Get more aggressive

When you act out your big feelings on your kid, it activates their stress response. They go into fight, flight, freeze, faint, or fawn. 

Anytime you notice that you’ve created a rupture, go make a repair. 

If you’re at the beginning of your Calm Mama journey, you’ll probably have to do this a lot. You haven’t developed the skills yet, and that’s okay. You are still learning. 

Another thing to note is that the repair conversation should happen separately from parenting, limit setting, or correction. You might feel tempted to say something to your kid like, “I’m sorry I yelled, but I wouldn’t yell at you if you would just put your pajamas on.” Discussion about your child’s behavior is a whole different conversation. 

You are responsible for how you respond to misbehavior. Repair is the time for you to fix your mistake and reconnect.

Repair is the act of returning to a moment of disconnection, taking responsibility for your behavior, and acknowledging its impact on your child. You caused a problem with your behavior, and it is your responsibility to make it right. 

You’re essentially saying to your child, “Hey, I know that happened. I was wrong. I’m sorry, and I’m working on it.”

But it’s not enough just to say, “I’m sorry.” We also want our kids to have a chance to talk about how they felt in that moment and have their feelings acknowledged. We want them to understand that your behavior was not about them. 

Remember, it’s not your kid’s job to forgive you and make you feel better. You have to do that work for yourself first. Take the time to reflect, get calm, and forgive yourself for your mistake. 

When you’re ready, you are the one who should initiate the repair conversation. Don’t wait for your kid to come to you. Whether it’s the same day or a couple of days later, come back to the incident in a timely manner. 

Step 1: Narrate the moment of disconnection. Let your child know that you’ve been thinking about what happened. Talk about how you acted out.

Step 2: Take responsibility. This is the “I’m sorry.” Before you go into this conversation, make sure that you are truly ready to take responsibility for your behavior without blaming, criticizing, or trying to assuage your own guilt. You have to be neutral and compassionate toward yourself. Be ready to receive your child’s story and experience of your behavior (which can be really uncomfortable). 

Step 3: Acknowledge the impact on your child. You can say things like, “I bet that was really hard for you,” or “I wonder if you felt hurt or scared by the way I acted?” Invite them to tell you how they felt and what it was like for them. Ask simple questions to help them name the emotions. Then, validate their feelings. 

Step 4: Now what? Make a commitment, and make amends. Let your kid know that you’re working on staying calm. Find out if there’s anything you can do to make things better. Let them make a request, and try to respect it. 

Here’s an example: 

Step 1: I’ve been thinking about what happened yesterday when we were rushing to get ready for school. I yelled at you. 

Step 2: That was my fault. I'm sorry. I should not have done that. 

Step 3: I would imagine you felt very scared when I was yelling at you. Did you feel scared? (Yes, I don’t like it when you yell). Yes, of course it’s scary when you see me yell. That must have been really difficult for you to feel like I didn’t love you or care about you. I am sorry. 

Step 4: I want you to know that I’m working on staying calm. Is there anything you want me to do to make things right?

What a beautiful thing in your relationship if you can be neutral and open enough to receive your child's pain - even if you're the one who caused it. What a gift to let them have a voice and the power to communicate the hard things that they've experienced - even if those things were done by you. 

The goal is to help your child not internalize the shame that makes them think, “I’m not good enough,” “There’s something wrong with me,” or “I’m worthless.” We want our kids to know that, at their core, they are good, worthy, loved, forgiven, accepted, and safe. 

We want them to know that our anger is not their fault and that they can make requests of us (and of others).

We are human. We make mistakes, and we can fix our mistakes. And that’s a powerful thing.

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
• Learn about the different parenting programs at www.calmmamacoaching.com
• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress for daily tips 
• Rate and review the podcast on Itunes

I keep thinking of the image of a tightrope walker with a safety net below them.

Your kids are on the tightrope, up high, navigating the distances between one development stage to another. 

You aren’t on the tightrope. You are the net holder.  

When your kids are little, your net is really close to the tightrope because you are literally keeping your kid alive. 

But as your kid gets older, your net needs to drop lower and lower. 

Dropping your net can be scary. 

Especially when your teenager starts making very adult decisions and maybe those decisions aren’t so great and you are terrified they will fall off the tightrope and your entire body is tight with panic.   

Falling is normal. 

The drop from the tightrope to the net is where all your kid’s learning happens. 

The falling is the learning. Not the walking across. 

Most of us do anything we can to prevent the fall. 

Watching your kid fall is HARD because it feels SCARY and RISKY.

That’s why parents yell, threaten their kids, lecture, monologue on the worst-case-scenarios, give them extreme consequences, or bribe their kids not to mess up. Because we don’t want to feel the discomfort that comes when our kids make mistakes and “fall”.  

It’s also why we rescue - which I talk a lot about in episode 20 called Why your kid doesn’t listen.

Even as I talk about this I recognize just how absolutely difficult this can be. I’m living it right now. 

That push/pull of motherhood as I grapple with dropping my net. 

The conflict is between trusting my kids will be ok, while also desperately wanting to prevent them from experiencing any pain, discomfort, or failure.

I choose trust. 

This is what you can take comfort in. 

You are down below; watching, waiting, holding your breath, trusting them, hoping they don’t fall but knowing it’s ok if they do…because you always have your net ready. 

Parenthood is one long journey of dropping your net and trusting your kid.

I’m going to talk a little bit about what I mean when I say Trust.

1st: Trust yourself. You are a mom and won’t ever stop being one. You’ve trained your brain and heart to pay attention to your kid for years. You can trust that you will continue to show up for your kid. Help them solve problems.

Think about things that you have solved in the past - when your kids were younger. For me, 

• When kindergarten was an absolute disaster for Lincoln, I pulled him out and waited a year until he tried again.
• When traditional school environments weren’t working for him, we found an alternative school that was a better fit
• We signed up for things and kept doing them until they didn’t seem to fit. Knowing when to start and when to quit. 
• When I needed parenting support, I found our family a parenting coach and got us help. 
• I’ve survived stitches and broken bones. 
• I’ve watched my kids struggle with bad grades, friendship hardships, emotional pain,
• I mean we all survived ZOOM school and months of quarantine!!! 

Recognize and honor your past self. All the intuition she has shown, and all the wisdom she has gained. Be grateful for her and what she’s done or overcome to get you here. 

Now, think about future you. You from 5 years from now. How will she look back on this time of your life? She’s going to think you’re amazing. She’s going to be proud of you. She’s going to be grateful. 

That’s what self-trust is about. Trusting past you for doing her best. Being kind to you in this moment. Trusting yourself that you are doing your best right now and that you can handle anything that comes your way. 

Trusting that you will always have your net out. 

You’ve already survived and overcome a lot. And you’re still here. So I know you can figure out how to raise a teen!

#2 Trusting Your Kid

This is a little harder. When you look at your kid right now, it might be hard to trust them. Because your kid has an undeveloped brain. They don’t have a lot of life-experience because they haven’t lived a ton of life. You might look at your teen and think they don’t have a great track record. That’s ok.

Trusting your kid is not about finding evidence in the present moment to calm your fear. 

Trusting your kid is about knowing them deeply. Who they are at their core. Their strengths. Calling on the things that delight you. What they are capable of. What is possible for them. Anchoring your beliefs in what you know is true about your kid. 

Trusting your kid is also about looking towards the future and creating a POSITIVE vision for their life. When you spend a lot of time thinking about all that could go wrong, you are fueling the fear. Which cuts off your creative and compassionate thinking. Fear lives in the limbic center of the brain. Too much fear triggers your stress response and puts you into a reactive state. Fear makes it hard to access the higher parts of the brain where all of your best problem solving and planning come from. 

Your teen needs you to be doing your BEST thinking. Solving from hope, and possibility. Their brain is freaking out. They are relying on you to steady the ship. Be the captain. Let them know you can ride these storms. That this is temporary. You’ll get through it. 

That means you have to have a vision of the future that is GOOD. One that your teen can borrow from you. 

I call this creating a Positive Parenting Vision. Push out 5 years and think/dream/write about what is possible for your child. A few prompts are: What do I know is true about my teen that helps me believe they will get through this? In 5 years from now what is possible for them? What will success look like in 5 years? 

Quieting your fear  makes it possible for you to get into your intuition. When you look at the kid in front of you, and don’t look at them from fear, what do they need right now? More limits? Maybe. Or maybe they need more connection? More curiosity? More space to grow? 

 Is it time for you to lower your net just a little?

This topic of fear & trust is so important. Cultivating trust in yourself and your kids makes it much easier for you kids to believe in themselves! They borrow your belief.

If you are raising a teenager right now, then you will love the Raising Teens without losing your shit masterclass. When you understand WHY your teen acts the way they do, and can manage your mind around their behavior and struggles, you will start showing up with less fear, listen better, have better conversations with your teen, and not feel so worried and angry…and sad. 

After this 90 minute class, you’ll walk away with a bunch of “AHA’s! I get it” and you’ll feel so much better. You’ll know why your teen acts the way they do. You’ll know why it activates your stress response. And you’ll know how to navigate these years without losing your shit. 

It’s $25 for the recorded class, and includes the Raising Teens Guidebook. Download it here

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet at https://www.calmmamacoaching.com/stopyelling.

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

**Raising Teens Masterclass!** Details below.

This episode is all about raising responsible adults and, more specifically, developing responsibility in our teenagers. It’s all about the tension between what teenagers want (freedom) and what they don't want (responsibility).

Today, you’ll learn how to navigate this tension by using limits and boundaries to give freedom and teach responsibility.

The Relationship Between Freedom and Responsibility

Teenagers want FREEDOM. They want to live in a rule-free house. They want to be trusted. They want independence. 

They want to sleep when they want, game when they want, eat what they want, talk to who they want, leave when they want, come home when they want…

What they don’t want is RESPONSIBILITY. They think they do, but they don’t really know what that means. 

This is the underlying tension of it all. Your teenager wants freedom, but they can’t quite handle all of the responsibility that comes with the freedom they desire. 

Can Your Teen Handle More Freedom?

Giving teenagers freedom is REALLY HARD for us because we feel afraid that our kids won't make good decisions. And as kids get older, the stakes seem higher.

This feeling of powerlessness can be scary. Especially when your teenager starts making very adult decisions and your entire body is tight with a feeling of terror.

When we feel afraid for our kids, we tend to put on more rules, more restrictions. 

We decrease freedom.

We take away their right to see their friends. We cut off the use of their phone. We don’t let them go to things. 

In the short term, it seems like this is the best plan. Take away privilege and they’ll learn to think before they act. 

Being super strict is also a way for you to get back control so you feel safer. 

But decreasing freedom in adolescence isn’t actually serving you…or your teenager.

It can hurt your teen’s self concept, hold back their social development, breed disconnection between you and lead to communication problems and resentment.

But possibly the biggest impact is that decreasing freedom also deprives your teenager of the opportunity to develop responsibility.

So how do you prepare a teenager to become an adult who can successfully manage ALL the FREEDOM and ALL the RESPONSIBILITY?

Give Your Teen More Responsibility

As your teen increases in freedom, they should also have more responsibility.

Instead of taking away freedom and privilege, what responsibilities can you add?

Here’s the thing. Eventually your child will become an adult. They will have the freedom. You will have no control. 

And the reason you won’t have any control is because you will no longer be responsible for your child. They will be responsible for themselves. 

That’s why giving them age-appropriate boundaries that honor their need for freedom within a structured limit that fosters responsibility is super important.

Listen to the full episode for examples and tips.

You’ll Learn:

• Why more rules and restrictions are not serving your or your teen
• Real-life example of how to use freedom as a test of responsibility
• How to set effective limits without being extreme, harsh or removing all privileges

In the Raising Teens Masterclass, I walk you through the social and emotional stages of adolescence, helping you understand what’s normal, what they need and why they act the way they act.

What you learn in this class will help you manage your mind, set limits that work, get closer to your teen during this time (yes, it's possible) AND not lose your shit in the process.

The Masterclass is on demand. It's only $25 for a 90-minute class, plus the Raising Teens Guidebook

Get The Raising Teens Masterclass Here

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet at https://www.calmmamacoaching.com/stopyelling.

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Want to connect?

• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress
• Book a free consultation session

Today we are going to focus on the PARENTS! Yay! The thing you want. 

Parenthood is a journey from feeling like you have a lot of control to feeling as if you have none.

You go from being “in charge” of a tiny human to being not “in charge” of an adult.

Yelling, threatening and bribing are ways you try to get your power back. Using fear to get your kids to listen is your attempt to feel in control. 

The thing is, you never had power or control in the first place. And no other time in parenting does this feel more true is when raising teens. 

Darlynn

• Common Struggles

1. Confusion about your role - Knowing what you are responsible for and what you aren't. Being unclear about what limits/boundaries to set. 
2. Fear about their future - When we are afraid they won’t reach their potential we constantly intervene in order to “teach” our kids how they should behave. The problem is that failure is the real teacher. Whenever we intervene we deprive our kids of opportunities to learn.
3. Uncomfortable with their discomfort - Teen years are full of hard moments. This can be hard for parents to witness. 

• Failure creates discomfort. Either emotionally or practically. If we are uncomfortable when our child is sad or frustrated, then we will have a tendency to stop negative consequences from happening. We end up in rescue mode - which ultimately results in us feeling resentful and our child feeling entitled.

1. Feeling distant and disconnected. Not being sure how to talk to your kids about their lives.
2. Not trusting your kids - feeling powerless

• This feeling of powerlessness can be scary. Especially when your teenager starts making very adult decisions and your entire body is tight with a feeling of terror.  
• Sometimes we don’t really trust our kid’s judgment or thought process. We don’t have confidence in their thinking, so we do all the thinking for them. We end up being controlling. This can go one of two ways - either our kid rebels against our control, or they end up lacking self-confidence and live in fear of making mistakes. 
• This also erodes your child’s self concept

1. Not processing your own grief around the shifts in your role as a mom. 

• There is an inherent loss that accompanies raising a teen. If you don’t recognize and talk about the loss, your feelings might show up as hypercontrolling or checking out as a way to cope with your own grief.  
• Strategies
• Define your limits: What works for you. What is your teen allowed to do and under what conditions. What are you willing to do for your teen and under what conditions. If you aren’t willing to respect your boundaries, your teen won’t respect them either. And they won’t learn how to hold boundaries for themselves.
• Boundaries aren’t the problem. It’s holding our boundaries and dealing with the emotional/practical impact of holding your boundary. (Examples: Lincoln with use of car
• Positive Parenting Vision: Push out 5 years and write about what is possible for your child. A few prompts are: What do I know is true about my teen that helps me believe they will get through this? In 5 years from now what is possible for them? What will success look like in 5 years? 
• Process your negative emotions (This will help you be ok with your child’s struggle) Label the actual emotions you are feeling. Allow yourself to feel them. If you need to be sad, be sad. If you need to be mad, be mad. If you need to do some worst-case scenario thinking and feel scared, go for it. Just be in it. Avoid telling yourself you shouldn't feel what you are feeling.
• Solve for worst case scenario - Play out the scenarios of unprotected sex, failed grades, drugs and alcohol, vaping, social isolation, extreme video gaming,