Audrey’s Reviews > Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be > Status Update

Kids don’t feel good when they’re out of control. Kids are developmentally incapable of stopping themselves. Deregulated children need adults to provide containment. “I won’t let you” is an act of love and protection.

Holding boundaries for self care teaches your kids that taking care of ourselves is an important part of taking care of them

When your child asks a question about what feels like a sensitive or “not age appropriate” thing… buckle up - a foundation has already been started so you better make sure it’s a good one right now! If they’ve asked about it they need you as their best resource to give them ask the best info

Ooooo helping your kids put words to things they recognize helps them be better at standing up and voicing “No, I don’t like that” peer pressure type situations later in life!

Like if they heard you yell at your spouse, even if they didn’t turn their head or seem to take any notice of it. You say oh you heard me yell at dad. We were having a discussion but we’re calm now and shouldn’t have yelled.

Our ability to talk about important, vulnerable, hard truths is dependent on our ability to tolerate the emotions that come up for us during these moments. Which is only one more reason why working on ourselves as parents is more critical than any other parenting intervention. The more we learn about our own distress and coping skills for hard feeling the more present we can be for our children. To better connect

Building resilience is better than just trying to make them happy all the time. Learning how to cope and giving them tools to work through distress instead of avoid and run away from it.

“Your child is good inside. Bad behavior comes from deregulated feelings that we can not manage” on our own…giving my kids as many options as possible helps so much! Don’t want to brush your teeth. Sorry it’s not an option. But we can choose when we brush our teeth. Before our bath or after.

Been getting a lot of “that makes me sad/mad” which is great and I love. But sadly I’ve also been getting “I don’t like you anymore” ouch! Been thinking a lot about ODD. Because the screaming, the mean, the fights are concerning. But I think maybe being the middle child and having a tiny sibling who needs a lot of attention and a big sibling who gets a lot of after school attention has really compounded.

Ok…why am I crying already?